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Comments 124851 to 124900:

124851. SNRatio at 07:31 AM on 31 January 2010
        The IPCC's 2035 prediction about Himalayan glaciers
        @39 Berényi Péter Peer review only implies that _some_ kind of quality control has been applied. Lots of crap pass through all the time, the basic premise is not that it is correct, but that it could be, and that the bad parts will be contradicted by new work and left behind. This is certainly not good enough, as we have a number of recent examples to demonstrate. In this situation, using results just because they have passed peer review is certainly not very skeptical.
124852. sbarron2000 at 07:07 AM on 31 January 2010
        On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
        Carrot eater: yes, the means.
124853. Riccardo at 06:51 AM on 31 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        EdB, exactly what I said, you were looking for it, not at the broad picture of the science of temperature reconstruction.
124854. EdB at 06:40 AM on 31 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        Riccardo The Wegman report was easy to find. It pops up in Wikipedia.
124855. jmath at 06:38 AM on 31 January 2010
        Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960
        I am confused. THere seems to be a logic problem here. If the proxies are incorrect post 1960 or there is a divergence at one time and you don't really KNOW the cause for that divergence then how can anybody conclude that there weren't other divergences you didn't understand in the past? Just because we don't see divergence between north and south there could be something which affected tree ring data over any period of time in the past either depressing or increasing temperatures that actually ocurred. You really can't have any confidence in this proxy until you understand the cause. What if the cause is caused by droughts? What if there was a large drought over the areas north and south covered by these trees? What if there was a huge flood or volcanoes or some other co-incidence like a increase in acidification due to some bacterial or animal or plant extinction or proliferation? The point is not the specifc thing but the logic being used here which is flawed by you guys. The fact is that the "science" is still very nascent and major things like what is affecting tree ring densities and widths is not really understoof even TODAY let alone 1,000 years ago. It is hard to have confidence in you "scientist" proclamations when a simple computer scientist from MIT can see the logical flaws in your arguments. Maybe because I was trained in math and physics my expectations as to logic and proof are much more stringent. For instance, the idea you can use these proxies and eliminate trees so easily, use so few and not have a well understood rigorous process for these things leaves me totally skeptical. This doesn't seem to qualift as science but more like "social science" which is based on surveys and self-reported data. A lot of the climate science stuff strikes me as having these logical errors. For instance, the models are built and calibrated, initialized to match historical data, then "scientists" say they match history good and predict the future. That's just falacious reasoning. I can construct many milllions of models which match history but which fail immediately to predict the future. In fact that looks to be exactly the case. Modelers admit (from what I've read) that they cannot explain current 10 year trends, whether down or flat or even up a little they don't correspond to any models output. WHereas these models are more accurate in past temperature predictions. Of course they are, they are not used UNLESS they fit past temperature records. But that does not give them ANY credibility in saying they "predict" the future. That would have to wait for confirmation that they actually DO predict temperatures and so far they aren't. Doesn't that pretty much say the models are flawed? Even if you say the models represent almost all relevant factors the errors introduced by their mathematical nature means that the ability to say with any assurance the predictions have a numerical preciseness is almost impossible. The temperatures could be -10 or +30 and still be in the models error bars. So there is no predictive power possible even if the models were correct. We would all be better reverting to a simplification and look at the earth as one giant thermodynamic entity than trying to break it into pieces and understand interelationships in the pieces at a micro level. THis just seems numerically implausible to return any level of accuracy useful over even a few iterations.
124856. Riccardo at 06:35 AM on 31 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        EdB, it's really enlghtning that you quote a politically recruted team that published a non-peer revewd report and not, for example, the National Research Council Report or the tons of other published papers. Is it a bias in the google search engine or somewhere else? Assuming you asked google the same thing you asked here, i tryed both "hockey stick controversy" and "hockey stick broken" but the Wegman Report didn't show up in the first 10 results ...
124857. EdB at 06:35 AM on 31 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        Doug.. I don't think realclimate is telling the story correctly as Wegman deals with this:(surely after such expert testimony you must concede that the hockey stick is well and truly broken? Q. Do you agree or disagree with Wahl and Ammann’s finding that the time period used to center the data does not significantly affect the results reported in the MBH98 paper? If you disagree, please state the basis for your disagreement. Were you aware of their reanalysis of MBH99 prior to the time you finalized your report? Do you agree or disagree with their reanalysis of MBH99? If you disagree, please state the basis for your disagreement. Ans: We do disagree. The fundamental issue focuses on the North American Tree Ring proxy series, which Wahl and Ammann admit are problematic in carrying temperature data. In the original MBH decentered series, the hockey-stick shape emerged in the PC1 series because of reasons we have articulated in both our report and our testimony. In the original MBH papers, it was argued that this PC1 proxy was sufficient. We note the following from Wahl and Ammann. “Thus, the number of PCs required to summarize the underlying proxy data changes depending on the approach chosen. Here we verify the impact of the choice of different numbers of PCs that are included in the climate reconstruction procedure. Systematic examination of the Gaspé-restricted reconstructions using 2-5 proxy PCs derived from MM-centered, but unstandardized data demonstrates changes in reconstruction as more PCs are added, indicating a significant change in information provided by the PC series. When two or three PCs are used, the resulting reconstructions are functionally equivalent to reconstructions in which the bristlecone/foxtail pine records are directly excluded When four or five PCs are used, the resulting reconstructions are virtually indistinguishableand are very similar to scenario 5b.” Wahl and Ammann. Without attempting to describe the technical detail, the bottom line is that, in the MBH original, the hockey stick emerged in PC1 from the bristlecone/foxtail pines. If one centers the data properly the hockey stick does not emerge until PC4. Thus, a substantial change in strategy is required in the MBH reconstruction in order to achieve the hockey stick, a strategy which was specifically eschewed in MBH. In Wahl and Ammann’s own words, the centering does significantly affect the results. Yes, we were aware of the Wahl and Ammann simulation. We continue to disagree with the reanalysis for several reasons. Even granting the unbiasedness of the Wahl and Ammann study in favor of his advisor’s methodology and the fact that it is not a published refereed paper, the reconstructions mentioned by Dr. Gulledge, and illustrated in his testimony, fail to account for the effects of the bristlecone/foxtail pines. Wahl and Ammann reject this criticism of MM based on the fact that if one adds enough principal components back into the proxy, one obtains the hockey stick shape again. This is precisely the point of contention. It is a point we made in our testimony and that Wahl and Ammann make as well. A cardinal rule of statistical inference is that the method of analysis must be decided before looking at the data. The rules and strategy of analysis cannot be changed in order to obtain the desired result. Such a strategy carries no statistical integrity and cannot be used as a basis for drawing sound inferential conclusions.'
124858. Doug Bostrom at 06:09 AM on 31 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        EdB at 05:55 AM on 31 January, 2010 Useful to read this: "Wegman had been tasked solely to evaluate whether the McIntyre and McKitrick (2005) (MM05) criticism of Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) (MBH) had statistical merit. That is, was their narrow point on the impacts of centering on the first principal component (PC) correct? He was pointedly not asked whether it made any difference to the final MBH reconstruction and so he did not attempt to evaluate that. Since no one has ever disputed MM05’s arithmetic (only their inferences), he along with the everyone else found that, yes, centering conventions make a difference to the first PC. This was acknowledged way back when and so should not come as a surprise. From this, Wegman concluded that more statisticians should be consulted in paleo-climate work. Actually, on this point most people would agree – both fields benefit from examining the different kinds of problems that arise in climate data than in standard statistical problems and coming up with novel solutions, and like most good ideas it has already been thought of. For instance, NCAR has run a program on statistical climatology for years and the head of that program (Doug Nychka) was directly consulted for the Wahl and Ammann (2006) paper for instance. But, and this is where the missing piece comes in, no-one (with sole and impressive exception of Hans von Storch during the Q&A) went on to mention what the effect of the PC centering changes would have had on the final reconstruction – that is, after all the N. American PCs had been put in with the other data and used to make the hemispheric mean temperature estimate. Beacuse, let’s face it, it was the final reconstruction that got everyone’s attention.Von Storch got it absolutely right – it would make no practical difference at all. " Illustrations here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/07/the-missing-piece-at-the-wegman-hearing/
124859. EdB at 05:55 AM on 31 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        Riccardo: your response to my question about the hockey stick. I am puzzled by your references as the records I Googled shows that the hockey stick is broken: The Wegman report to the US Senate says this: Mann's decentred methodology is simply incorrect mathematics …. I am baffled by the claim that the incorrect method doesn’t matter because the answer is correct anyway. Method Wrong + Answer Correct = Bad Science. And in Wegmans reply to Senator Stupak he says the following about Wahl and Ammann (2006): It is our understanding that when using the same proxies as and the same methodology as MM, Wahl and Ammann essentially reproduce the MM curves. Thus, far from disproving the MM work, they reinforce the MM work. The debate then is over the proxies and the exact algorithms as it always has been. The fact that Wahl and Ammann (2006) admit that the results of the MBH methodology does not coincide with the results of other methods such as borehole methods and atmospheric-ocean general circulation models and that Wahl and Ammann adjust the MBH methodology to include the PC4 bristlecone/foxtail pine effects are significant reasons we believe that the Wahl and Amman paper does not convincingly demonstrate the validity of the MBH methodology.
124860. carrot eater at 05:53 AM on 31 January 2010
        On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
        sbarron: do you want to see the means, instead of just max and min? I don't quite follow.
124861. J Bowers at 05:52 AM on 31 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        Berényi Péter at 21:45 PM on 30 January, 2010 "Once again. Forget communication & messages, it is not the scientist's field of expertise. Go for truth instead. " Read up on Hugh Hammond Bennett, scientist and 'political player', and how both his scientific endeavour plus ability to play the political game led to solving the Dust Bowl problem of the Great Depression. http://www.soil.ncsu.edu/about/century/hugh.html Pay close attention to the trick he used during a crucial Senate committee in March 1935; something many scientists would be pilloried for today, but then most in the US would also be eating sand today ;)
124862. carrot eater at 05:42 AM on 31 January 2010
        On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
        Philip64: The SPPI report is just a grab-bag of old nonsense. Most of it is based on simple understandings of how anomalies are used, as well as weird conspiracy theories about stations. The conspiracy theory about station-dropoff is easily dismissed by looking an openly published papers from long ago about the sources of the GHCN, and is further discussed here. http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2010/01/kusi-noaa-nasa/
124863. Riccardo at 04:52 AM on 31 January 2010
        On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
        Philip64, not sure i'll waste my time going through it because, looking at just the table of content, they do not address the only relevant point, the impact on the temperature records. All the rest (111 pages!) is propaganda.
124864. Doug Bostrom at 04:49 AM on 31 January 2010
        Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
        Berényi Péter at 22:18 PM on 30 January, 2010 "What is more, they would not even promote economic, intellectual & spiritual development in those regions. Glass beads for the natives. " Avast there, you have to spend more time looking, less time thinking! That whole sentence was conjecture, and wrong. You can do better. In point of fact, one of the remarkable benefits of these tiny private solar installations I've described is the gift of reading. In the kind of subsistence economy I'm speaking of, these devices mean the difference between being able to read versus sitting in the dark. They have been a boon to education. And it's a global phenomenon, most visible in Africa but true also for instance in Mongolia or wherever a grid is not present. No, 15W panels are not going to supplant Western style grids. I guess my original point was, the first 15W bring a huge benefit; a little electricity brings a significant fraction of the benefits of electrification and this is particularly visible where a grid has not inculcated huge expectations and waste. Perhaps also as with the example of cellular phones leapfrogging copper telecommunications systems in developing nations, assuming that a Western style grid is a mandatory prerequisite for social progress is something to consider carefully.
124865. Riccardo at 04:47 AM on 31 January 2010
        On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
        sbarron2000, "Fortunately, the sites with good exposure, though small in number, are reasonably well distributed across the country and, as shown by Vose and Menne [2004], are of sufficient density to obtain a robust estimate of the CONUS average (see their Fig. 7)" They have 71 good stations. In Vose and Menne 2004 they found that the coefficient of determination for both maximum and minimum temperature reaches 95% already with 25 stations. There's no reason for concern.
124866. Doug Bostrom at 04:33 AM on 31 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        Berényi Péter at 21:45 PM on 30 January, 2010 "Once again. Forget communication & messages, it is not the scientist's field of expertise. Go for truth instead. " Many scientists have made human communications their primary field of inquiry. Humans of course must be treated as something akin to molecules of gas when it comes to making predictions of aggregate populations, but it is possible to make predictions about human integration of new ideas into existing mental models with a fair degree of confidence Unfortunately, scientific research on communications indicates that conveying truth is not always a simple or easy task, even when the truth being conveyed is not accompanied by controversy and competing attempts to distort understanding. Even when a third party is not waving a brightly colored, distracting blanket and yelling "Hey, look over here!", effectively conveying such things as the difference between weather and climate is fairly challenging. Selecting a means of conveying a concept that is robust against such challenges improves the probability that any given recipient's understanding will be improved. As to ocean heat content, the measurement issues you mention can be resolved easily enough for relatively microscopic amounts of money, sufficient to yield numbers with reasonable confidence. The very little that has been spent on that effort is entirely encouraging.
124867. sbarron2000 at 04:11 AM on 31 January 2010
        On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
        Also, why does Menne 2010 not provide an average temperature in C anomaly chart that compares adjusted and unadjusted good sites and bad sites? Wouldn't that be the easiest way to show whether there is a difference between the two types of sites? Right now it only provides maximum and minimum anomaly comparisons. Which while interesting, and I'm sure you can learn a lot from them, isn't really the standard way which we compare temp anomaly, is it?
124868. sbarron2000 at 04:03 AM on 31 January 2010
        On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
        Riccardo, I agree with you that there is plenty of room for good readings. But are the stations in question in such locations? Because if they're not, then the difference of means adjustment appears to attempt to correct tainted measurements using other tainted measurements. That can't be a good thing, can it? Carrot eater, I'll be the first to admit that I don't fully understand what the difference in means test is doing. I have only glanced at Menne 2009, and would probably need to see the actual calcs to figure out how the test is conducted anyway. My comment is only intended as a way to consider the adjustments that Menne 2010 makes, and its possible effects on its findings. Like, what is the effect of running the difference of means test on data that you know is considered poor, because of the site rating? Like must be done when Menne 2010 seperates the good sites from the bad. Does correcting badly sited temp stations using other badly sited temp stations have some unforseen effects? The same is done to the good sites, and there are way fewer of them. So any influence might have a larger impact with the smaller sample. Just thinking out loud again.
124869. Albatross at 04:01 AM on 31 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        Someone has been talking about global thunderstorm activity and global warming. First, it is important to remember that we do not have a long record of reliable global lightning flash data (accuracy ~500 m, detection rate >80%). In N. America there are only about 10 yrs worth of spatially and temporally continuous lightning data (and coverage over the Tundra and Arctic is not great). This is not really long enough to draw any conclusions regarding trends. There are some global lightning networks which use a variety of technologies, but they miss a large portion of the strikes/flashes. There are also remotely sensed lightning data from space, but these can only detect nocturnal lightning. Anyhow, so we still do not have a monitoring system that adequately captures and quantifies global lightning activity. For a thunderstorm to form one requires: 1) Instability; 2) Low-level moisture and 3) A trigger mechanism to lift a "parcel" to its level of free convection (LFC). Note that temperature does not appear explicitly(it is included implicitly in all three though, e.g., increase in instability through differential heating in the vertical, air can hold more WV as temp. goes up, surface heating may be enough alone to lift parcels to their LFC), and that each one of these requirements is alone not a necessary and sufficient condition for a thunderstorm. All three need to be satisfied simultaneously. So, as someone who has some expertise int his area, would argue that lightning is not necessarily the best metric for tracking global warming, and also, that we are really not in a position yet to adequately monitor global lightning activity. There are suggestions that lightning actvity may be increasing over high latitudes of continents in the N. Hemisphere in response ot the warming there, although we do not really have sufficient data yet to speak to trends. Anyhow, my point is that is there is a strong lightning signal to GW, then it will likely be evident in lightning activity over high-latitude continental areas in the N. Hemisphere during the warm season. PS: One must also remember that GW may also result in more lightning activity in some areas, but less activity in others b/c of desertification, for example.
124870. Philippe Chantreau at 03:33 AM on 31 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        Keep your hasty judgments to yourself RSVP, my computer is powered by hydro.
124871. Philip64 at 02:41 AM on 31 January 2010
        On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
        Watts and d'Aleo have just published this paper at Robert Ferguson's 'Science and Public Policy Institute'. It's claims are pretty wild. Apparently we can throw all temperature records out the window, because ALL of them are effectively faked. It might be worth addressing these claims in detail, if time can be found. http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/surface_temp.pdf
124872. Riccardo at 02:27 AM on 31 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        EdB, unfortunately the hockey stick is stil there, up and running. More on the divergence problem here
124873. EdB at 01:55 AM on 31 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        I'm new here. Can someone explain how the proxy records validate that the Medieval warm period was cooler? I thought McIntyre demolished the Hockey stick(Mann), and the Yamal tree(Briffa)? What other reconstructions are out there that prove it?
        Response: EdB, welcome to Skeptical Science. Just one reminder - please post comments on the relevant page. A search for hockey stick (note the search form in the left margin) would point you towards the hockey stick is broken page. Here, you will learn that since Mann's hockey stick paper in 1999, there have been a number of temperature reconstructions made using a variety of techniques (not just the PCA analysis employed by Mann) from a number of different proxies (eg - stalagmites, ice cores, boreholes, tree rings, etc).
        
        Then if you have any further questions, you can continue the discussion there which is the best place for such a topic.
124874. Marcel Bökstedt at 01:43 AM on 31 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        > Berényi Péter I agree with you that monitoring the global average of the surface temperature is not the best way to measure climate change, and that OHC sounds like a more interesting number. As you say, it might not be so easy to measure this. You might be able to estimate how much heat going in or out at the surface of the ocean, but there might also be unknown heat exchange between the ocean and the underlying rocks - or maybe you can ignore this? Anyhow, you claim that OHC is decreasing. This does not seem to agree with the source cited at http://www.skepticalscience.com/Does-ocean-cooling-disprove-global-warming.html. Do you have some reference to back up your claim? I do not understand the relevance of lightening activity - why is there a strong relation between this and global temperature? Even granted this and granted your claim that global lightening activity is constant, why does this measure anything more relevant than surface temperature which we measure directly anyhow, and which we seem to agree is not necessarily the best parameter to monitor.
124875. Riccardo at 01:27 AM on 31 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        RSVP, not sure to represent the thinking of our guest, but it looks like this site is devoted to science more than technology. Although very interesting and important, it's outside the scope of this blog. IMHO.
        Response: My original plan was to begin with a focus on science and as the public debate moved on from the scientific question of what's causing global warming into the question of what to do about it, Skeptical Science would move into that area too. I must confess we're not as far along as I expected to be at this point.
124876. Riccardo at 01:20 AM on 31 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        Berényi Péter, you put a lot of different pieces together trying to disprove all of them. Let me pick them one by one and let me not quoting the relevant scientific articles to save time; they can easily be found if you're interested. it looks like you are not much confident with indirect measurement. Although the problem of AGW si definitely a problem of energy imbalance, temperature is one of its manifestation. It is (good old) standard practice in science to use indirect measurements to guess what is not accessible directly. OCH is a good indicator and it has been increasing for decades. Do you want to bet using just a few recent years? Is this a "standad statistical practice"? And why limit to a depth of 750 m? In the end, OCH in not so well characterized as anyone may wish and surface temperature do a good enough job. On this last point, you are missing that most part of the temperature record does not come from land. Indeed throughout the oceans the surface temperature is assumed to be the sea surface temperature and, surprise!, there's no controversy between the various data sets, at least if the "standard statistical practice" applies. Sea level measurements do NOT depend on any particular tide gauge and crustal upward/downward motion is quite well known and often measured. The relation between SLR and temperature is uncertain to the extent the other contribution (other than temperature) can be evaluated. It can be done and, allowing for the uncertainties, the are not contradictory. Please excuse me if i'll be i little harsh in what follow, but too often you sceptics claim to have found the smoking gun, the nail in the coffins, the final word. It just makes apparent your desire to put the discussion to an end. The last "infatuation" for the lightnings is silly. It's not a well characterized technique and, above all, it does not represent the whole water vapour content, even of just the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere. True that water vapour is carried there by strong upward transport in thunderstorms but it's not the whole story, not even the largest part but what is measured is the frequency of the events, not the amount of water vapour carried up in the atmopshere. There are no nails in the coffin here, just one more little piece of information; claiming that it "falsify the models" is absurd and inviting us to "go for truth" is arrogant.
124877. SNRatio at 00:28 AM on 31 January 2010
        The IPCC's 2035 prediction about Himalayan glaciers
        @39 Berényi Péter Peer review only implies that _some_ kind of quality control has been applied. Lots of crap pass through all the time, the basic premise is not that it is correct, but that it could be, and that the bad parts will be contradicted by new work and left behind. This is certainly not good enough, as we have a number of recent examples to demonstrate. In this situation, using results just because they have passed peer review is certainly not very skeptical.
124878. SNRatio at 00:01 AM on 31 January 2010
        The IPCC's 2035 prediction about Himalayan glaciers
        32, @koyaanisqatsi The standard value for the dry adiabatic lapse rate is 9.8 deg C/km. Just compare observed mean surface temperatures vs height in the same regions, and compare to the lapse rate. In warming, the height/melting temperature point would follow approximately that curve, not the lapse rate. Which is why glaciers are very sensitive to temperature, not insensitive as the lapse rate relation would imply. Freezing level is not the only determinant either, for temperature, precipitation and their relationship is not constant, and sublimation may also be important.
124879. MP at 23:16 PM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        Yet another article that fails to stimulate a more informed debate between the main protagonists of the pro and anti AGW camps. Why was Ian Plimer not invited to respond directly to the contents of this article and the subsequent postings? Who knows, we all may learn something from such an exchange of views which could help us to inch forward in creating a broader consensus of the issue of climate change and the most appropriate mitigating measures that should be implemented.
124880. RSVP at 22:26 PM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        Berényi Péter You are definitely speaking in the right direction. I would add that temperature matters as far as total ocean temperature averages. The issue as you say is all about energy, not weather. Weather is but a symptom. The other side of the coin are sustainable energy alternatives, which are played way down at this site. Everybody is waving the flag for change, quantifying the problems, but zero quanitifying when it comes to alternatives.
124881. Berényi Péter at 22:18 PM on 30 January 2010
        Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
        OK, I see your point. However, small but still expensive solar panels, not produced locally and with no grid or battery backup whatsoever would not change global energy usage patterns. What is more, they would not even promote economic, intellectual & spiritual development in those regions. Glass beads for the natives.
124882. Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 21:47 PM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        The article and the comments are interesting and have opened my eyes a bit more about why such discussions are so difficult. In an internet forum discussion when people do not know each other, we naturally tend to relate most to those with whom we agree. Therefore when an 'alarmist' responds impatiently to a 'skeptic' who is simply trolling or flaming or continually interrupting a discussion with silly throw-away lines, other skeptics react as if the impatient response is directed at all skeptics and 'group offense' is taken. Re scientists and the public, I'm betting that many scientists rarely mix with people of normal intelligence let alone people of low intelligence. When they socialise outside their field it is generally with people of equal or nearly equal intellect, so they aren't that practiced at communicating with the person in the street. Nor should they have to. That's the job of science communicators. Actors like Monckton appeal to emotion not intellect. For many people, emotion is a much more powerful force than reason. I bet most people who attend Monckton's performances don't even remember what his 'arguments' are, but they do remember the force with which he put them and that they agree with him, whatever he said.
124883. Berényi Péter at 21:45 PM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        doug_bostrom at 12:13 PM on 30 January, 2010 "I wonder if making surface temperature the main communications message regarding climate change is not a fairly big mistake. Surface temperature is a crummy proxy for measuring actual climate change, especially when oceans dominate the scene. We don't live in the ocean, after all, yet oceans are where most of the current energy perturbation is going" It IS a mistake. As you say, average surface temperature is a "crummy proxy". It's NOT just a matter of communication skills, it really is one. There is simply no physical law about "conservation of temperature", temperature budget can neither be measured nor calculated. The very concept does not make sense. Also, surface temperature records suffer from all kinds of biases, trends in global averages ARE controversial. Automatic pattern recognition based data homogenization as it is practiced by climate experts is not a standard statistical procedure. It is NOT used in any other branch of science, and for a reason. OHC (Ocean Heat Contents) is much better. Atmospheric & soil heat content is negligible compared to oceans, most of the stored energy in climate system is heat, because below 30 miles elevation LTH (Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium) holds, and even better, we do have an energy conservation law, so in theory energy budget can be both measured and calculated at TOA (Top of Atmosphere) as the difference between ASR (Absorbed Shortwave Radiation) and OLR (Outgoing Longwave Radiation) fluxes. OHC should follow rather closely the temporal integral of this quantity. Unfortunately measurement is not up to the task yet. The low temporal frequency part of ASR-TOA (which is amplified by integration) is far too noisy to draw any conclusion. On the other hand OHC, at least in the upper 750 m of oceans, if anything, is slightly decreasing right now. There is no known mechanism to transfer and sequester so much extra heat into the abyss (which is not measured) as projected by climate models. Sea level as a proxy to OHC is also problematic. The low temporal frequency part, which determines long term trends, is NOT measured by satellites. It should be calibrated by tide gauges. But they only measure relative elevation changes between sea level and adjacent seashore. As crustal blocks are in continuous vertical motion either up or down comeasurable to sea level changes, the calibration depends on choice of the gauge set to be calibrated against. However, all is not lost. At any one place there is a strong correlation between lightning activity and surface temperatures. You don't even have to be a climate scientist to verify this connection. Global lightning activity can be assessed by measuring Schumann resonance amplitudes at any one spot on the face of earth. And it is measured indeed, since mid 1960s (the effect itself was discovered in 1952). There is NO long term trend detected in Schumann resonance activity. It plainly contradicts current "mainstream" global warming theory. If theory is falsified by measurement, it should be abandoned. It is not a communication issue, just this is how science works. There is NO contradiction between low vs. high climate sensitivity according to Monckton & Plimer as you claim. The very concept of climate "forcing" is flawed. Global climate may be sensitive to some changes (like ice sheet cover, orbital variation or solar UV) while insensitive to others (like CO2). It is not correct to readily covert each forcing to W/m2. They act on different parts of the climate system, can and do have different structural effects. It is certainly not the case that rising carbon dioxide levels have no climatic consequences. The atmosphere should reconfigure itself to accommodate to the changing composition. Even if global integrated heat contents of the system is not going to any definite direction, just fluctuates around an equilibrium level, there still may be transients and regional effects. However, sticking to already falsified models based on the "constant upper troposphere relative humidity principle" (of course there is no law for conservation of RH) is definitely not the way to proceed. This way you don't even have a chance to guess what atmospheric reconfiguration processes might in fact be going on. Once again. Forget communication & messages, it is not the scientist's field of expertise. Go for truth instead.
124884. HumanityRules at 21:41 PM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        #5 ScaredAmoeba I had a look at http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php but they reference Gerlach 1991. It seems a well referenced estimate. Anybody read Gerlach 1991? It's an EOS paper so only AGU members get access. Is EOS all opinion, news, reviews, no original data? If that's the case does anybody know the reference for Gerlach estimates?
124885. RSVP at 21:34 PM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        doug_bostrom A better comparison is one who would like to have a coke with ice in the middle of the desert, and the closest thing to water is a mirage at a 100 yards.
124886. Doug Bostrom at 19:11 PM on 30 January 2010
        Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
        Berenyi Peter at 08:32 AM on 30 January, 2010 That post sort of goes "splat" against reality. "as soon as solar power becomes cheaper than other sources, it would not need government subvention on taxpayers' money.." In the real world situation in Africa I described, there is no other electrical power source and the installations are not paid for by taxation. "Until that time it may make sense (on increased cost, not exactly for the poor) if there is no power grid nearby. " In the real world situation I described, the users are definitively poor by almost any measure, and there is indeed (as I mentioned) no grid whatsoever. "It is not just about solar panels, battery packs are of more concern (and pricey)." In the real world situation I described, these are not sufficient deterrents to stop people from enjoying the benefits of electricity, solar in this case because that's all that's available. "Earth is round, sun is not up all the time. " In the real world situation I described, that is apparently not a problem for the consumers. They do not complain, they simply use the watthours available. You were describing something hypothetical. You are intelligent and a gifted writer, but you spend a lot of time in your imagination. I was actually describing something that has the amazingly wonderful and irreplaceable virtue of existence.
124887. Doug Bostrom at 18:50 PM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        RSVP at 18:18 PM on 30 January, 2010 "I think hypocrites would be a better term given that every computer that hits this site is ultimately powered by oil. " If I prefer beans but the menu offers only toast, does that make me a hypocrite? If somebody botches a gratuitous insult directed at nobody in particular, am I likely to add them to my list of influentials?
124888. RSVP at 18:18 PM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        To CoalGeologist You raise some interesting points, but my bias doesnt necessarily coincide with yours, which I find humorous. What I do agree with is that the debate tends to have a psychological component which only addresses this theme through mild (or not so mild) insults. But the debate also has a political cast not unlike the progressive movement that challenged monarchisms going back for the last 300 years or so. The oil companies and deniers are the royalists, and the opposition in fact are the rabble. The problem of course is when you chop off the head of the king, then what? Maybe rabble is too generous. I think hypocrites would be a better term given that every computer that hits this site is ultimately powered by oil.
124889. iskepticaluser at 17:55 PM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        YES! The communications aspect is critical if public understanding of the climate issue is ever to reach a point that would allow an effective, escalating and lasting price on carbon. Several issues come to mind: 1) the possibility that evidence - no matter how solid, unequivocal and well-presented (by me) - is filtered through preconceptions, value-frames and habits of thought (by others) before it even reaches the stage of conscious evaluation ("The Political Mind" by George Lakoff and "Don't Believe Everything You Think" by Thomas Kida are two references I'm exploring); 2) the question of how compact the AGW narrative could be made for newcomers to the issue: what is the smallest and most defensible set of arguments (lines of evidence) - supporting the conclusion that the threat is real, urgent, and solveable by doing THIS - that would engage enough people to the degree where they would in turn engage others? 3) the possibility (or need?) to address the continuous onslaught of deliberate misrepresentation (and libel?) of climate science and scientists (can the effectiveness of formal rules of evidence and right of cross-examination so evident in the Dover trial a few years back (concerning attempts to introduce creationism into Pennsylvania classrooms) be harnessed? Any ideas on how we can further explore - and act - on this issue? hdmclean@consciousclimate.com
124890. j k purc at 13:12 PM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        An outstanding article on an important issue, well done! It seems impossible to have a resoned debate if one of the parties is prepared to lie. It is even more difficult if one of the parties repeats the lies of others as if they were fact. Trying to drill down to find the source of the lies adds so much heat to the discussion as to make it an aggresive exchange. This is the model for almost every discussion I have had with deniers, some of whom I love. I am now intrigued as to how these otherwise fine and rational people come to be active in a movement which is so vehemently anti social. I think the appeal of the deniers is essentially emotional and science is apparently piss poor at appealing to emotional motivators. CoalGeologist and stevecarsonr offer excellent examples of combining emotional truth with rational argument, Thank You. I strongly agree that slow and patient is propobably the only way to really address the communication gap. Unfortunately it is difficult resist the temptation of a dismissive reply. I shall try harder, by starting at the beginning and avoiding the arrogance I have displayed in the past. There is no quick fix to this or any other complex problem...damn
124891. stevecarsonr at 12:57 PM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        Jim Eager #24 Even then I am thinking that it would need to be demonstrated that the spatial distribution didn't matter to the climate result. Because albedo of solar insolation at the surface has a high variation, not so for LW flux received. From the billiard ball model it doesn't: heat in=heat out. But how about a 3-d model? I have a dumb question: ------------- I always assumed that the TOA figure for GHG was in relation to the effective SW climate absorbed radiation: E.g. 240W/m^2. Not referenced to 340W/m^2 of solar radiation averaged across the earth's surface prior to albedo effects, and not referenced to S=1367W/m^2. Then in "Radiation and Climate" by Taylor and Vardavas (only can see a few pages online) they compared GHG forcing to 1367W/m^2. Perhaps in a general non-technical way, it was only p9. So then I thought, maybe I have been making the wrong assumption all along. But I cannot find the answer anywhere. Everyone knows the answer. What is it?
124892. Doug Bostrom at 12:13 PM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        MattJ at 20:45 PM on 29 January, 2010 "But here is the real problem: scientists well aware of the threat of AGW have never taken a scientific approach to understanding how the general public forms opinions, and so is outmanouvered by professional deceivers like Monckton every time." Not by climate scientists, of course, but there is quite a bit of research being done into how people think about climate and what sort of mental models they employ in dealing with the topic. Some of the findings are encouraging, some are depressing. Significantly, the research says that differentiating between weather and climate really does continue to be a challenge for laypersons even when discussions on the topic are stripped of all distracting politics and acrimony. Is confusion between climate and weather a problem with listeners, or communicators? Looking at mental models research versus continued poor results with educating the public about climate change, I wonder if making surface temperature the main communications message regarding climate change is not a fairly big mistake. Surface temperature is a crummy proxy for measuring actual climate change, especially when oceans dominate the scene. We don't live in the ocean, after all, yet oceans are where most of the current energy perturbation is going. Look at Dr. Hansen's recent essay on winter cold snaps, how horribly messy it became because he had to deal with separating weather from climate plus natural variability. It may not be possible to convey a thorough understanding of surface temperature before eyes glaze over. Some means of expressing total heat content of the ocean-atmosphere system could well be a better way to go with communications. Calories might be a natural for this; laypeople do have a fairly good understanding of a calorie as a unit of energy. If Hansen had been speaking in his essay of total ocean-atmosphere heat content, none of the weather distraction would be needed and the variability portion would automatically be simpler and easier to convey.
124893. Berényi Péter at 11:37 AM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        "Greenhouse effect" of water vapor is determined not by column integrated moisture contents, but upper tropospheric specific humidity. There is a strong correlation between global lightning activity and upper troposphere water vapor contents, because it is deep convection in tropical clouds (also generating much lightning) that transports vapor up there. Global lightning activity can be monitored from anywhere on Earth through Schumann resonance amplitude history. Using this indicator, no long term trend is observed in lightning activity. So. There is no strong positive humidity feedback, climate models indicating otherwise are disqualified, climate sensitivity to elevated CO2 levels is low. Q.E.D. You can check it for yourself. $ wget -r -w 10 --random-wait ftp://www.ncedc.org/pub/em/sr/ UCB USGS NCEDC Magnetic Activity and Schumann Resonance http://www.ncedc.org/ncedc/em.intro.html ftp://www.ncedc.org/pub/em/README American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2001 LIGHTNING AND CLIMATE: THE WATER VAPOR CONNECTION C. Price and M. Asfur Tel Aviv University, Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, Ramat Aviv, 69978, Israel http://www.ursi.org/Proceedings/ProcGA02/papers/p1146.pdf 20th International Lightning Detection Conference 21-23 April 2008 - Tucson, Arizona, USA 2nd International Lightning Meteorology Conference 24-25 April 2008 - Tucson, Arizona, USA ABOUT SENSITIVITY OF CLOUD-TO-GROUND LIGHTNING ACTIVITY TO SURFACE AIR TEMPERATURE CHANGES AT DIFFERENT TIME SCALES IN THE CITY OF SAO PAULO, BRAZIL O. Pinto Jr. and I.R.C.A. Pinto Brazilian Institute of Space Research ­- INPE São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil http://www.vaisala.com/files/About_sensitivity_of_cloud-to-ground_lightning.pdf "It is also generally expected that global lightning activity tends to increase at climate scale in response to global warming (Williams, 1992). However, at present time there do not appear to be any long term trends in the lightning activity (Price and Asfur, 2006b; Markson, 2007), although many recent studies indicate a high positive correlation between surface air temperature and lightning activity (Williams et al., 2005; Price and Asfur, 2006a; Sekiguchi et al., 2006). The lack of a long term trend in the lightning activity may in part explain why there is no specific reference to future changes in lightning activity in the last IPCC report (IPCC, 2007)"
124894. Riccardo at 11:28 AM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        stevecarsonr, you are 100% right and, i belive, it's what people try to do in this blog thanks to the high signal to noise ratio maintained by our guest. But although it's the right thing to do, it might not always work. Your reasoning assumes the will to learn and an open mind. Take for example the claim that global warming has stopped. You can explain interannual variability, you can explain the statistics of trend, you can explain the effect of ENSO; but what if they reply "yes, but whatever those nice things say, still the temperature has been flat in the last 5 years"? If they do not have a scientific background you might understand why they say so but you're not going to convince them. If they have s scientific background and you know they may understand those things, you'll not convince them either. In a few words, sometimes is ignorance, sometimes is misleading information, but other times is something else, a sort of psychologic block.
124895. stevecarsonr at 10:58 AM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        CoalGeologist #19 - (also touching on Steve Sullivan #22): "I don't believe it's possible to understand the scientific issues without understanding the difference between skepticism, which is based on scientific reasoning, and denialism, which is based on ideology" I think it is. Radiative physics is just radiative physics. Statistics is just statistics. A scientific argument can be tested and falsified by the evil and the good - and you don't even need to know their inner motives to assess their science. It might be convenient to put labels on people. But even if it's accurate, your labeling will reduce your efforts. If you want a media friendly sound-bite to help circulate an "explanation" of why many people don't believe your position then labels are a good idea. If you want to analyze the various movements for psychology research, then the labels will be a good starting point. If you want to feel good about why you are right and others are wrong, then labels are a good idea. *But* if you want to win people over they are the worst choice. Who here likes being insulted? Oh, no hands? Who here thinks he or she has a "closed mind"? Oh, no hands? Who here thinks he or she refuses to listen to evidence fairly presented? Incredible, still no one.. Is the microphone working? Ask these questions of any group of people, and what results do you think you will get? Try an experiment ================= Take two groups of people who disagree with you on let's say.. climate science. Lecture the first group on why they are denialists and how they are not even skeptics and how they need to listen to real climate scientists - and then present a little evidence. Take the second group and ask them a few questions about what they know and what they think and pick up on a few points and help them understand that little part better. Present some information they might not of heard of. Tell them "you know a lot of people think that because it's actually quite a complex subject, but here's how some scientists try and explain it.." Compare the 2 groups afterwards. Will group 1 or group 2 have learnt more? Which will be more receptive to consensus climate science? Which will go away and possibly change their mind on a few points? I haven't made any great revelations about psychology and I'm sure it's not really controversial(?). And yet some of you are shaking your heads. My question was only: "do you want to change people's minds?"
124896. Marcus at 10:45 AM on 30 January 2010
        The upcoming ice age has been postponed indefinitely
        Dead right Jim. More to the point, if rising CO2 levels were the result of a multi-century flood basalt event, then we should be able to tell its origin from the levels of C-13, C-12 & C-14 in the background CO2. The fact remains that the CO2 being analyzed is increasingly showing the same ratios of Carbon Isotopes as you'd find when you burn coal & oil-which kind of points the finger right at fossil fuels, if you ask me!
124897. Jim Eager at 10:38 AM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        stevecarsonr @17, I meant a 1W/m^2 forcing at surface. For sure an increase in solar output would have different effcts at TOA, such as warming the stratosphere. But it does not take an increase in solar output to increase solar insolation, orbital configuration will do the same thing locally. It's the climate sensitivity to a forcing at the surface that I was comparing.
124898. Marcus at 10:29 AM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        Hey CoalGeologist-a *very* good summary of Denialism vs Skepticism. The AGW also has its own version of the Denialist-what I call the "true believer": they accept the theory of AGW because someone *tells* them its true-not because they've seen the evidence (on newspaper blogs, the True Believers annoy me almost as much as the Denialists-because their unscientific, argumentative approach is usually counter-productive!) Anyway, by contrast, up until around 2002 I'd always ignored the role of the Sun in global warming (I thought CO2 was the *only* culprit). Then someone told me about this Danish Solar Physicist who had shown that global warming could be attributed to changes in solar activity. Rather than ignore inconvenient evidence against AGW, I actually sought out that paper-& became very well informed about the solar contribution to climate. Of course, the paper also showed that the correlation between solar irradiance & global temperatures fell away sharply in the 1970's-a fact which the person who put me on to the paper seemed to have conveniently missed. My point is that, if someone directs me to anti-AGW papers, I'll happily read them because I want to be fully INFORMED. Denialists & True believers tend only to read that which reinforces their belief, whilst ignoring everything else. Hence Monckton's reliance on ACRIM rather than PMOD solar data.
124899. Riccardo at 10:00 AM on 30 January 2010
        Guest post in Guardian on microsite influences
        Berényi Péter, homogenization of a temperature time serie is not a statistical procedure. If, for example, a sensor is moved downhill you correct for the lapse rate. Homogenization means to take into account all the possible sources of bias one can identify.
124900. Steven Sullivan at 09:59 AM on 30 January 2010
        Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debate
        stevecarsonr: "There are a lot of people out there really trying to figure stuff out. But they don't have physics degrees, have never read an undergrad book on radiative physics and have only a very hazy idea of "the scientific method". So pretty much anything can sound authoritative." Leaving aside outright ideological/political denialism, the problem is that a lot of those sincere people go right ahead and label themselves as 'skeptics', when in fact they are either misinformed or incompletely informed -- and are either unaware of that or refuse to consider it. You might be put off by what seemed an arrogant putdown of the sincerely interested, but there's an arrogant lack of self-awareness on the 'skeptic' side.

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