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ryland at 14:23 PM on 30 January 2016Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job
WoI@13 I don't think 1998 was chosen because it was an El Nino year per se as you suggest by your comment "What was so special about 1998? Oh yeah, an El Nino year." but because the El Nino in both 1997 and 2015 were very large. From comments above it may be that the 2015 El Nino, like the 1997 El Nino, will have a greater effect on the global temperatures in the following year.
It has been estimated by Gavin Schmidt (here) using the Oceanic Nino Index (ONI), that the 2015 El Nino contributed about 0.07C to the increased temperature. Excluding that the temperature would have been 0.8C greater than the 1951-1980 average. Others, using the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI), calculated that El Nino contributed about 0.09C. All that said, after removing the El Nino contribution, 2015 was the hottest year by only 0.06C This is less than the margin of error for estimates of the global temperature between the 2015 temperature and the next hottest year 2014 which iself had only a 38% probability of being the hottest year ever. Claiming hottest year ever, based on differences from the mean that are less than the error of estimate may be one of the reasons for the comment of alogar @10.
This has been countered by climate scientists who claim 2014 had a greater chance of being the hottest year ever than did 2005 or 2010. Prtesumably the same claim will b made for 2015.
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POJO at 12:58 PM on 30 January 201610 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
Tom @88
Yes my apologies for getting the decadel wrong. That was a bad error. So I am now using the annual data,
Note that Alexender etal data was based on data from 1951 to 2003
So i have now accuired the annual (yearly) data from KNMI / CRUTEM4. No smothing applied yet
The story does not change. DTR saw a rapid decline and has since stabalised and even increased
Now below the decadal smooth is applied. And it is evident as per ALexander etal that infact the trend remained intact until 1998-2003.
Since then the decadal DTR has since increased.
I find it odd that the DTR is now being assessed in terms of cold nights and warm night extremes.
The science is clear that as GHG's increase so to does DTR decrease. Extrene events are termed weather by many!!!!!
No matter what variation is done to the monthly data it is evident that the change has at the very least increased from 2000 ish. Which coincides with available data at the time that Alexander etal had.
As you alluded to my earlier comment cherry picking short events is weather.
So I have now heard what you have said and now have attached the climate charts as per above.
Perhaps this change in DTR also can be used to best highlight the current pause.
As per Brazanghi final summary that DTR can be used to
....Diurnal temperature range appears to be a suitable
index of climate variability and change,......page 4 of 4 SUMMARY
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Wol at 12:30 PM on 30 January 2016Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job
@ 1:
>>Michaels: “Without El Niño, temperatures in 2015 would have been typical of the post-1998 regime.” There's that stubborn obsession with 1998 as a start date again. What was so special about 1998? Oh yeah, an El Nino year. Michaels now intends, for his business audience, to shackle 2015 with the same provision he just spent the last 18 years asking them to ignore of 1998.<<
I forecast some weeks ago here that the denialists would argue that the present el Nino is unusual and shouldn't count: the only thing that surprises me is that it took them so long to come up with it!
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Digby Scorgie at 10:41 AM on 30 January 2016The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?
jipspagoda
The gridlock might remain, but we are comparing people who view the real world through the lens of science with people who believe in fairy tales. The latter are welcome to call the former fanatics, but the real world is the ultimate arbiter.
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Tom Curtis at 10:17 AM on 30 January 201610 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
POJO @86 and 87, evidently you do not know the difference between climate and weather.
Braganza et al were looking for the effects of change in climate on DTR, not looking for the effects of short term fluctuations on DTR. Therefore they chose a smoothing value that eliminated such fluctuations, but left the climate effects unaltered. The effect of that was to weaken the correlation of DTR to Mean temperature from to -0.37 using the montly data, relative to their reported -0.24. It leaves the trend in DTR unchanged at -0.36 C per 50 years (slightly misreported by me in error in my prior post, for which I am sorry).
In contrast to Braganza et al, you were looking at the effects of fluctuations over a short interval, particularly highlighting a fluctuation whose total duration in the smoothed data was just 10 years. That is, you were looking at weather. Yet you chose a smoothing window that largely obscured the short term fluctations.
With regard to Alexander et al, they used unsmoothed daily data. In the timeline graphs, they showed the annual data along with a smooth. In the mapped graphs they showed the decadal trends. The difference between a decadal trend and an annual trend is just that the former is the later multiplied by 10 (ignoring rounding issues). That is, the difference is merely a matter of the unit chosen to report the result - not the value of the result. In other words, what Alexander et al did was nothing like what you did.
To summarize, you apparently do not know what was wrong with your smoothing, despite my having pointed it out. In defense of that, you point to a greater smoothing by Braganza without noticing their very different purpose to yours. You compound your error by accusing Alexander of making a similar error, when they did nothing of the sort. (The later strongly suggest incompetence rather than deceit as the reason for your inappropriate smoothing.)
Finally, inorder to check Braganza's result against the monthly data, I downloaded the monthly Crutem 4 data. As a result I was able to compare the normalized inverted DTR data to the Mean data and can confirm that the sudden change in slope is a feature of both. The difference in the two largely arises because the effect of the two large volcanic erruptions (El Chichon in 1982; and Pinatubo in 1991) have same sign on DTR and Mean temperatures. That artificially flattens the rapid slope visible from 1960-1980. The trend from super El Ninos (1983, 19897/98) to large La Ninas (2008, 2011/2012) artificially reduces both the positive trend in Mean temperatures and the negative trend in DTR.
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sailingfree at 08:04 AM on 30 January 2016Models are unreliable
Can someone update this to show the 2015 data?
Can I help?
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michael sweet at 03:07 AM on 30 January 2016Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job
Alogar,
Perhaps you should read Arhennius from 1896. In this paper he predicts that the nights will warm more than days, winter will warm more than summer, the Northern Hemisphere faster than the Southern, faster over land than sea and fastest in the Arctic. That is five predictions made over 100 years ago that all have been shown correct as data became available.
If you actually read about the science you will find out that scientists have made hundreds of correct predictions, you are just uninformed of the facts. That is the problem in the Climate Debate. People like you who are uninformed want their ignorant rants to count the same as thoughtful, informed commentary from scientists.
Moderator Response:[RH] Typo fixed.
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Tom Dayton at 02:53 AM on 30 January 2016Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job
alogar: Watch climate scientist Ray Pierrehumbert's AGU conference lecture "Successful Predictions."
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POJO at 01:35 AM on 30 January 201610 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
Dear Tom,
In regards to your second paper Alexander et al of point numebr one. I note that his observations are based on decadel trends
4. Results
4.1.1. Absolute and Percentile-Based Temperature
Indices[29] Figure 2 shows the decadal trends in extremes
between 1951 and 2003 for the percentile-based temperature
indices.and then
4.1.3. Seasonal Results
[35] Warming is observed in all seasons. Figures 4 and 5
show decadal trends and time series of global anomalies for
the seasonal occurrence of cold and warm nights, respectively4.2.1. Annual Results
......and Decadal trends in the simple daily
intensity index (Figure 6d) also agree well with the
results from Kiktev et al. [2003] although unlike Kiktev
et al. [2003] the decreasing intensity in the western
United States is not identified to be statistically significant
in this study.Again decadel trends. I have used the ever reliale CRUTEM4 data. A 12 month average shows the increase in DTR, A 60 month average highlights it.
I am at aloss why you do not accept basic monthly data on a 60pt average yet except in your papeers cited the 120 month point averages.
Note that the finger print as outlined in point number 7clearly states that
If an increased greenhouse effect is causing global warming, we should see certain patterns in the warming. For example, the planet should warm faster at night than during the day. This is indeed being observed (Braganza 2004, Alexander 2006).
I have shown 35 (ish)years of data that contradicts this Is their something else with a 60 or lower point averagethat can corrorbarate DTR as a fingerprint. Cloud cover maybe?
Ciou for now
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POJO at 00:51 AM on 30 January 201610 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
Tom Curtis, For some unknown reason I have just spent a1/2 hour responding. I am peeved that it did not go through after posting.
Nonetheless, here is the shortened version
Your very first paper cites Brazanga,
He in the very first paragragh states that he is using decadel data. He then go on to say in section 3
under
3. Simulated and Observed Changes in
Diurnal Temperature RangeParagraph 2 of section 3
[10] We use the decadal standard deviation as a measure
of variability in DTRI find this very peculiar that you have just finshed berating me for being less than honest and yet their is no problems on your behalf to use a paper that uses decadel averages.. Am I perplexed.
YES I AM
Further to that I except that extreme weather events aka EL NINO's do in fact enhance the DTR signature as stated by Brazanga. that is observed data even in the 60 month average
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MA Rodger at 22:38 PM on 29 January 2016Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job
ryland @8.
I have a graph that you may find useful here (usually 2 clicks to 'download your attachment'), that compares the 1997/98 monthly average temperatures (surface & satellite) with what's happened so far in 2015/16. MEI is the Multivariate ENSO Index.
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ryland at 21:10 PM on 29 January 2016Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job
Apologies. On reflection it occurred to me that I don't know how the temperature increase due to El Mino can be estimated to "tenths of a degree". Can an estimate be that precise? And how is the estimation of the proportion due to El Nino actually made? I also don't know how Patrick Michaels can assert the temperature rise in 2015 was due to El Nino without some attempt to substantiate that assertion.
I guess this is the problem with explaining climate science to the layman, its not possible to be as definitive as, for example, I can be in giving the results from some biochemical measurement.
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michael sweet at 20:51 PM on 29 January 2016Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job
Ryland,
Tamino has an analysis that might answer your question. Becasue the highest temperatures were aafter the El Nino peak in the Pacific we have not yet seen the full effect of the 2015 El Nino. COme back in a year to see what the final data say.
Claim 3 is false. If the next six months show even more warming some of that might be the El Nino effect. The claim made was that the temperatures already measured were due to El Nino. Future temperatures cannot effect our analysis of wether past temperatures were unusually high.
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ryland at 20:40 PM on 29 January 2016Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job
Glenn Tamblyn@5 Thanks for that but if what you suggest does in fact occur in 2016, won't that lend some weight to "Claim 3"? Was the writer somewhat premature in categorically stating "Claim 3" is false?
But all that aside, is it correct to argue that as SST is higher now than in 1998 and as the 2015 El Nino is about the same as that in 1998, any El Nino associated rise will likely be in percentage terms, less than that in 1998? I'd have thought so but I'm not a climate scientist
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Glenn Tamblyn at 20:00 PM on 29 January 2016Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job
Ryland
Surface temps may not follow the ENSO indicators exactly. The 1998 El Nino as indicated by the SOI actually had one peak in mid 1997 and a second around Jan 1998. But the SAT temperature peak was Feb to June 1998.
We probably should wait 6 months before drawing conclusions. -
ryland at 18:35 PM on 29 January 2016Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job
The comment here suggests the current, large El Nino had little impact on global temperatures:
"Claim 3: “Without El Niño, temperatures in 2015 would have been typical of the post-1998 regime.”
This is false. Scientists estimate that the current El Niño event contributed only a few tenths of a degree to the record globaltemperature observed in 2015.
In contrast the comment at RealClimate on the 1998 El Nino (here) suggests it had a ignificant impact:
"1998 was so warm in part because of the big El Niño event over the winter of 1997-1998 which directly warmed a large part of the Pacific, and indirectly warmed (via the large increase in water vapour) an even larger region"
As both the El Ninos of 1998 and 2015 are of comparable magnitude why does the 2015 El Nino, apparently, have a lesser effect than that of 1998?
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David Lewis at 16:34 PM on 29 January 2016Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job
Nature Climate Change has an editorial out entitled "Balancing Act" which calls for more attention to be paid to the steady rise in ocean heat content, as opposed to the variability in the global surface temperature charts.
The editorial refers readers to an article published in the same issue, i.e. "An Imperative to Monitor Earth's Energy Imbalance" by Von Schuckmann et.al., (with Jim Hansen and Kevin Trenberth being two of the et.al.) Quoting from this article:
"The current Earth's energy imbalance (EEI) is mostly caused by human activity, and is driving global warming. The absolute value of EEI represents the most fundamental metric defining the status of global climate change, and will be more useful than using global surface temperature."
When debating such as Michaels, it seems to me that pointing out that this "most fundamental metric" is best estimated at present by measuring the change in ocean heat content, and further, that the fact that the planet is warming, beyond doubt, is shown by the relentless steady rise in ocean heat content even as the global surface temperature charts fluctuate.
Nature Climate Change also recently published the Gleckler et.al. analysis of ocean heat content increase which contained this chart:
which shows, according to their analysis, that ocean heat content doubled since 1997.
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John Hartz at 14:40 PM on 29 January 2016The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?
jipspagoda:
The blog wars over climate science have minimal impact on the real world especially outside of Western democracies.
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jipspagoda at 13:45 PM on 29 January 2016The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?
There is fanaticism for the cause on both sides of the aisle. I have seen that Upton Sinclair quote, used by KR above, to describe Hansen, Mann, and others over on Climate Etc. If you read the comment threads on Climate Etc you will find them eerily similar to the ones on this site, only it is the warmunistas they would like to "marginalize". Gridlock remains.
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Digby Scorgie at 13:33 PM on 29 January 2016The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?
I was a bit slow to realize that I've seen this before. Last year I read an article in a local magazine describing an interesting psychological phenomenon. A test group of people with strong religious convictions were confronted with "apparent" evidence that conflicted with their beliefs. The result was that they clung ever more tightly to these beliefs. This is exactly the same phenomenon we see with the above-mentioned climate-change deniers.
I've thought about this a lot and I've come to the conclusion that there are three types of denier: (1) psychopath, (2) fanatic and (3) sucker.
The psychopath knows global warming is a threat but wants to maintain his wealth and power for as long as possible — and to hell with future generations.
The fanatic has a worldview that has no place for global warming — he believes that action against climate change would threaten his way of life and threaten his worldview.
The sucker is the fool with no understanding of science, who has fallen victim to the massive anti-climate-science campaign waged by the psychopaths.
Since we can do nothing about (1) and (2), we should bend all efforts to enlightening (3).
One method I tried with an acquaintance who mentioned a particular climate myth was to tell him that he'd been caught for a sucker by a bunch of snake-oil salesmen — with equal emphasis on the "snake" and the "oil" — and I described the anti-climate-science campaign. He has been silent on the subject ever since. I don't know if that's a good sign or a bad sign.
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scaddenp at 11:51 AM on 29 January 2016The Quest for CCS
In 2003, this study would have indicated GSHP would have been a viable heating option for much of Canada much like such systems are are in very northern europe. How do prices stack now? Non-carbon energy sources certainly have a price but then so do FF in terms of climate damage and for that matter CCS. Given cost of CCS, is it really a cheaper option than the alternatives?
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Sharon Krushel at 10:45 AM on 29 January 2016The Quest for CCS
Eclectic @#51,
We are conncected to the grid for electricity, but we have natural gas furnaces because, currently, electric heat is only considered suitable for three-season climates (e.g., places like Vancouver) as the cost of heating with electricity through a long, cold winter is prohibitive. Even heating with natural gas is a financial burden for lower-income families.
Most of our electricity currently comes from coal and gas. Only 2% is from hydro, 4% wind, and 3% biomass, although there is proposed generation with projects underway for thermal and renewables.
My concern is that we’re going to need a great deal of innovation in order to replace the energy needed from fossil fuels without causing massive land use and food supply problems. For example, the hydro dam project currently in question near us would flood a significant unique river valley subclimate agricultural area that would have allowed us to grow more food locally.
This is why I support CCS as we transition to renewables. For some areas of the world, it’s going to be a while before we can survive without fossil fuels, so we should reduce the CO2 emissions as much as possible in the mean time. And it doesn't make sense, financially or environmentally, for Canada to import oil.Canada does not have a large population compared to the US, but many of us have nine months of winter and three months of bad skiing. :) In reply to bozzza @#52 and Philippe @#53, we don't consider our environment to be extreme, and I'm not aware of our being subsidized by tax payers. In any case, I love winter as long as I have a warm home. If we all moved to a more moderate climate, that would cause population shift problems.
I just thought I'd offer a Canadian perspective. We're targeted a lot as the culprits of climate change, even though we only contribute 2% of the global emissions. Considering our vast area (transporation challenges) and frigid climate, I think we're doing well, and we're striving hard to do better. We're not boasting; we're just communicating in practical ways that we care about the environment too.
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Tom Curtis at 09:22 AM on 29 January 201610 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
POJO @83 and 84:
1) Braganza et al show that DTR has a correlation to T mean of -0.24 (ie, as temperature increases the DTR falls), and that DTR has a trend of approximately 0.08 C /decade (0.4 C/50 years). They specifically show that "This trend is due to larger increases in minimum temperatures (0.9C) than maximum temperatures (0.6C) over the same period" which is inconsistent with the primary driver of the warming being increased insolation or decreased cloud cover.
Alexander et al show that the frequency* of warm nights has increased faster than the frequency of warm days, and that the frequency of cold nights has decreased faster than the frequency of cold days:
(* technically the average % of land area experiencing a warm night etc.)
They use a different, and much more extensive dataset than used by you or Braganza et al, and do not show the large fluctuation in trend evident in your graph @78 between 1960 and 1980. That suggests the large fluctuation in trend may be an artifact of the data set. Note further that Braganza et al (which used an earlier version of the dataset you use) excluded cells which had less than 40 years of data between 1901-2000. (This raises the possibility that that odd variation in trend is an artifact of variation in reporting stations over that period.)
In any event, the graph you show does not contradict either of the findings by Braganza et al, nor the findings by Alexander et al. Nor do you show any analysis that suggests that it does. Frankly that should be the end of the story. Eyeballing of data does not trum peer reviewed analysis.
2) Being a stickler for accuracy, what I suggested was that you deliberately altered the smoothing window. I made no speculation as to why you altered that window, but did note that the move eliminated relevant data (such as the El Nino related trough in 97-98).
I note that you then drew particular attention to the "apparent diversion" from 1985-1993 which is at least partly an artifact of that smoothing window (due to the aggregating of the effects of the 1983 volcano plus El Nino with the 1988 El Nino due to the five year smoothing window), and whose prominence is owed to the smoothing away of peaks of similar magnitude. That shows that your deliberate change of smoothing window was either due to dishonesty or utter carelessnes with the data. Again, I made no speculation as to which, but either is reprehensible. Particularly given that you are attempting to refute peer reviewed literature by the mere eyeballing of data.
Finally, as I am being a stickler for accuracy (and as this inflation of language gets my goat), you have not "refuted" the non-existent inference that you are dishonest. To refute something, you need to mount a successful argument to the contrary. Nor have you even rebutted it, for which you actually need to mount an argument. All you have done is reject the claim.
I will accept that rejection on face value, and from my imputed dichotomy infer that you are as careless with the presentation of data, as you are reticent in actually presenting an argument and/or analysis.
3) You ask "...is their an explanation as to why DTR has not decreased." I have already provided one @ 82:
"From the first graph over the same period, and by eye, I would suggest that DTR decreases as a result of volcanic erruptions, and also as a result of El Ninos; and that it increases as a result of La Ninas, and that this explains the recent history. ... However, if that is the case the recent history of EL Nino's and volcanic erruptions would result in a spurious upward trend in DTR from 1980, despite the fact that the trend is flat."
To double check on my interpretation, I have looked at the 12 month running mean data in 10 year windows centered on major ENSO and/or volcanic events and can confirm the relationship ascribed. Ergo, the strong volcanic erruptions (1982/1993) coupled with the super El Ninos early in the period (1983, 1997/98) and strong La Ninas late in the period (2008, 20011/12) would definitely result in a spurious positive trend in DTR. That the trend is instead flat (0.00 C/decade) shows there is some countervailing factor resulting in a negative trend.
In short, your special window is merely another example of a cherry picked pause such as those in mean temperature extending from 1997. You are merely able to extend it further because of the lower trend in DTR and the coincidence that volcanos and El Ninos have the same sign in influencing DTR.
The accelerating decrease in DTR you refer to is an artifact of your own imagination, given the small relative effect on DTR and the lag between forcing and temperature response.
4) Your case has continued to be based on eyeballing and bald assertion. Absent actual mathematical analysis of the data in support of your position, I doubt you will have anything new to say on this topic worth responding to (and which I have not already dealt with). Ergo absent that analysis, do not expect further responses.
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mancan18 at 07:25 AM on 29 January 2016The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?
To change a mindset you need to understand it before you try. If those with the ardent denier mindset have considerable political power then the problem is acerbated.
The ardent climate change denier mindset that is being encountered today is similar in nature to the mindset of the ardent believers in the righteousness of slavery before its abolition. Slavery was accepted, even justified, by many people who thought of themselves as highly moral. Coincidently, their beliefs were also to their advantage. It took many many years to overcome the prejudice that underpinned the institution of slavery. In Britain slavery was finally outlawed though Parliament. In the US, it took a Civil War. In France and in much of Europe, it took the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars to do so. Even so, in Belgium, King Leopold was still exploiting slavery in 1900. Today, around the world, remnants of slavery still exists, but at least it is illegal. So it took a long long time to overcome the prevailing mindset towards slavery which was the centre of the economy. It also took the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution.
The other aspect to overcoming ardent climate change denial is how do you make a scientific argument that is effective and will change minds. It is much the same as was encountered before Evolution became accepted scientific theory. As the evidence accumlated, due to Darwin's diligence in making the argument and the leading of the debate by his scientific supporters, Evolution became accepted very quickly within the scientific community. The fundamental tenets of climate science have also been accepted by the majority of scientists. However, Evolution is still challenged by many outside the scientific community due to their fundamental non-scientific beliefs. Today, climate science is being challenged by people whose fundamental non-scientific beliefs and economic advantage will be compromised by it.
The only thing that can be done is marginalise ardent climate change deniers and minimise their impact. It is more important to change the minds of the genuinely sceptical, not to expect an epiphany in ardent deniers.
Unfortunately, unless the world's wealthiest 62 individuals change their minds becaused they control more of the world's wealth than the poorest 50%, it is unlikely that anything effective combating climate change will happen in the time needed. It certainly won't happen because of what the world's poorest 50% think. Perhaps, concentrating on the economic case and arguing how the wealthiest 62 may lose their money if they don't act on climate change might be a more effective approach.
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Rob Honeycutt at 04:38 AM on 29 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
TonyW... It's definitely right around the point where we'd expect the satellite data to make a big jump. The UAH data in 1997/98 went: Oct. 0.08, Nov 0.07, Dec. 0.24, Jan. 0.47, Feb. 0.65, Mar. 0.46, Apr. 0.73... and then headed back down. So, Dec had already shown a solid jump. This one might be a little more delayed even though the ONI data shows them running very similar trajectories.
Jan/Feb should be very interesting either way.
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jgnfld at 03:12 AM on 29 January 2016Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job
ubrew12...
Re. "stubborn obsession with 1998", as someone mentioned a while back in a comment on tamino's board: El Ninos on the left side of a graph do not count to a denier.
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ubrew12 at 02:49 AM on 29 January 2016Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job
Michaels: “Without El Niño, temperatures in 2015 would have been typical of the post-1998 regime.” There's that stubborn obsession with 1998 as a start date again. What was so special about 1998? Oh yeah, an El Nino year. Michaels now intends, for his business audience, to shackle 2015 with the same provision he just spent the last 18 years asking them to ignore of 1998. And his curiously uncritical audience will probably buy it.
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barry1487 at 21:15 PM on 28 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
OPOF,
Loth to keep posting off-topic, this is my last one.
SkS, I think, is doing what Steven Schneider said he was doing.
On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.
Most climate change blogs, including SkS, are involved in advocacy. The difference between SkS and, say, WUWT, is that SkS articles are more soundly rooted in the science, reflecting the mainstream view, whereas WUWT almost always distorts or muddies. Where both are similar is that they are have an agenda. That's not a criticism, nor is it controversial. John Cooke once posted his reasons for SkS, and they are not too dissimilar from your own interests.Science and advocacy are poor bed-fellows. Science rests on a non-biased approach, advocacy is the opposite. I've no doubt the authors here sweat over that friction.
I'm a long-term reader here, pretty much since the blog started in 2007. I've noticed the scales tip slightly towards advocacy, where SkS was a bit more neutral back in the day - the agenda was always there, but content included more scientific uncertainty and deference to future research bringing different results etc. On rare occasions this view prompts me to post, as I did upthread. I want SkS to be effective as well as honest - I'm kind of attached to it. Usually I say nothing because I don't want to dilute the messaging, for anyone who reads down the comments. But I think SkS would be more effective if content was more like it was of old: uncertainties mentioned, alternative views discussed without being dismissive (not fake skeptic views, though), and, like you often see in conclusions of peer-reviewed papers, acknowledgement of or calls for future research changing of refining understanding.
Of course, I may not be like the target audience. Perhaps most people are swayed by a more authoritative tone, but I find a balanced inclusion of such caveats more convincing - more trustworthy. And, re my first point (flow of argment), I want SkS to advocate as effectively as possible at the same time. On the posibility that I'm typical of the target audience, I posted my first comment; feedback on presentation of the argument.
Enough off-topic from me.
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denisaf at 20:54 PM on 28 January 2016Carbon Brief’s 15 numbers for 2015
Whilst policies and practical measures to reduce the global rate of greenhouse gas emssions is to be encouraged as that will reduce the rate of increase in global atmosheric and ocean warming, the focus should be on practical measures aimed at adapting to the consequences of the irreversible rapid disruption of the climate that is under way.
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TonyW at 18:22 PM on 28 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
I've often read the idea that this el Nino is not showing up as much as the 1997/1998 el Nino, in the satellite "data". I don't undestand why this miscomparison is made, since the big satellite spike came in the second year of the last el Nino, not in the first. The second year in this el Nino is 2016, not 2015. This year is expected to be warmer than last for surface temp and I'd expect the satellite spike to occur this year (though there does seem to be a lot of discussion about what happened to the satellite data after 2000, as it deviated from surface and radiosonde data about then).
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dana1981 at 15:58 PM on 28 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
Tom - yes, the neutral trend is 0.15°C per decade. It would have been more accurate to say 0.15–0.16°C per decade, but given the uncertainty involved, 0.16°C is close enough.
barry - sure there's uncertainty in the OHC data, and there's also a massively large trend.
lamont - yeah, the axes shouldn't have changed. Excel was acting up on me in the neutral graph, and that slipped past me. Annoying. I blame Bill Gates.
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The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?
Upton Sinclair - "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
Folks like Morano and Michaels, paid lobbyists, and the think tanks funded to support their like, have no incentive to do anything but deny, no matter the evidence.
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Digby Scorgie at 11:01 AM on 28 January 2016The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?
It strikes me that these core deniers are a species of fanatic. And as I have read elsewhere, one does not attempt to reason with fanatics — it is an exercise in futility.
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shoyemore at 04:30 AM on 28 January 2016The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?
The graphic of proportions Science vs Policy is mind-boggling. It is exactly the opposite of what one expect i.e. that contrarians would be so beaten over the head by the scientific facts they would concede that line of defence and retreat to defend specific policies.
But it also makes sense, too. It is hard to defend policies when the science is against you. So they have to buttress their "front-line". Once it is breached, they have lost the game.
Also, it is surprisingly easy for people whose mentality is anti- or un- scientific to reject science as a procedure for deciding the truth, and view it as some ideological struggle where victory goes, not to the weight of evidence, but to the side with the superior rhetorical and propaganda resources.
But the decline of denial policy arguments is striking, too. Joe Romm pointed out that renewable energy came well out the last US budget, even with a Republican majority in both Houses of Congress..
The Surprising Winner Of Congress’ Budget Deal
And there does seem to be a swing towards environmentally friendly policies in most country, marked by the Paris Agreement. It is politically harder to advance anti-environmentalism as a policy, and what is possible is obscured in many western countries between what is good for the country, and what is good for political donors.
Maybe the chart means that while denial is more shrill and strident against climate science, it is all the time being hollowed-out and impotent at preventing climate-friendly policies? It is a win, sort of.
That would be an optimistic view, and I would not want to be over-optimistic. I always saw this as a war of attrition, anyway, with no single glorious win, but a sequence of small victories, interspersed with setbacks.
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jhoyland at 03:18 AM on 28 January 2016The Little Ape That Could
The rather excellent comic XKCD also has a nice infographic regarding the dominance of humans -
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:40 AM on 28 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
Barry,
In addition to my previous post the misleading marketing related to climate science is not just misrepresentation of the best understanding.
The fight against the developing better understanding of climate science started with efforts to keep the topic from becoming a topic that the general population was aware of. Many powrful wealthy people aware of the issue deliberately did not promote public awareness of the issue.
Another related aspect of misleading marketing related to climate science is attempts to divert attention to other 'human activity that could be blamed'. Population is one of the marketing diversionary tactics I have seen. People claim that the global populaton is the problem. Of course the real problem is the portion of the population with the highest per-capita impact. If the population is reduced without any reduction of the highest impacting portion of the population nothing would be accomplished.
A further misleading activity realted to climate science is efforts to claim that economically the costs faced by a current generation of humanity to stop cuasing challenges for future generations is 'accounted' to be more than the costs incurred by future generations. That economics through the generations is obviously a dihonest way of evaluating acceptability. It is like saying you can do something you believe gives you $1000 of personal benefit as long as the cost to your neighbour, as you figure it, is less than $1000.
Of course, another misleading marketing tactic against climate science awareness and required action is the creation of 'larger issues to be focused on' such as Terrorism. That tactic presumes that multiple issues cannot be concurrently addressed, and it ignores the reality that the socioeconomics and politics that are increasing the climate change problem are also creating a more significant terrorism problem.
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:55 AM on 28 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
barry@13,
I am still developing my thoughts on all of this. But basically, I support Skeptical Science remaining focused on the development of more understandable presentations of Climate Science related to Global Warming impacts of human activity.
What is becoming very clear to me is that the real problem to address requires more than just Skeptical (Climate) Science. Other sites similarly Skeptical are required for the other fields of science that are not being effectively developed and understood by the global population because, like climate science, the developing better understanding is undertood to likely be contrary to developed popular, profitable interests and contrary to unsustainable perceptions of prosperity that have developed.
In addition to the variety of Skeptical Science, there needs to be Skeptical Politics and Skeptical Economics.
What all of the Skeptical groups would have in common is the need to address misleading marketing.
Skeptical Marketing would be a common interest of all of the topic specific Skeptical groups. It would develop better awareness and understanding of how 'specific people' among us deliberately abuse misleading marketing to get away with developing and prolonging cheaper and quicker more damaging ways of living and getting what 'they want' even if it is able to be understood to not contribute to developing a lasting improvement for all of humanity.
It is important to get to the root of the problem which is identifying specific people and how they choose to behave. Skeptical Science does this related to climate science.
One of the most distrurbing developments due to the power of misleading marketing is the formation of powerful partnerships of callous greedy and intolerant people who work very hard at getting what they want any way they can get away with, including striving to get just enough electoral influence to get their type of people elected on election day, or to get elected people who dislike them to support their unacceptable desires because of the real fear of not being re-elected (that is the worst result because it can force an elected member to support a decision they understand is unacceptable because it may allow them to 'do other good things', like Democrats elected in Coal regions supporting Coal lobby interests so they can remain elected). And carefully timed effective misleading marketing is a key to the unacceptable success of these groups that likely fully understand the unacceptability of their pursuits.
Misleading Marketing (selective presentation of appealing claims, or totally false claims that will work because of a scientifically understood emotionally trigger) is a very well developed science. Misleading Marketing is far more popular, prevelant and successful than honestly and most fully informing others. And the damaging results of its success are clear, including the way it will produce worse results in a Freer socio-economic environment.
Misleading Marketing Science is the science most deserving of a Skeptical focus.
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Bruce Boyes at 00:53 AM on 28 January 2016The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?
Thanks John for this excellent article, and for SkepticalScience. I've long lost count of how many times I've posted your myth page links into emails and discussion threads.
With experience in environmental communications, I have a strong interest in the issues around communication and science denial. I'm
also editor of the new RealKM Magazine, which assists the adoption of evidence-based approaches in the field of knowledge management
through articles discussing recent knowledge management research and also research in related disciplines such as communications,
marketing, psychology, biology, sociology, and management.Further to the findings in your article, from looking at a number of papers, the complexity of climate science and policy is a significant factor in climate science denial. I explore this complexity and potential ways forward in the article The Paris Agreement: knowledge management and climate science denial.
The possible solutions I proposed are based on the considerable success I've had in unpacking such complexity in other areas of environmental management, as I discuss in the article Case Study: How to overcome resistance and denial when engaging stakeholders. I'd like to further explore how the approaches I discuss in that article could be applied to climate science communication. (As an aside, the communication approach I describe in that article was learnt as part of psychology studies at UQ).
Another factor is the extent to which climate science and policy have become intertwined, as Andrew Campbell discusses in this article.
I'm very interested in your thoughts on the perspectives raised in the articles I have linked.
Many thanks,
Bruce Boyes.
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Steeph at 22:49 PM on 27 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
@ Tom and Rob, I fully understand what you're putting forward. And from a scientific point of view I can accept it.
But there's a big PR side to this issue. It's a huge difference if, in 10 years time, we state that the 1.5 line has already been crossed (call to more action!) but others will counter with saying we're only at 1.2 or 1.3.
(You all know some parties will use everything to delay things)
Something to be aware of. -
Rob Honeycutt at 22:20 PM on 27 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
Steeph and Tom... Per what Tom has stated here, there really isn't a perfectly accurate way to track the 2°C limit. The same goes for global mean temperature as well. Too often people get the idea that surface station data is like an actual thermometer stuck into the ear of the planet. Each data set is, at best, an approximation of global mean temperature with various limitations to each set. So, we have imprecise current data. We have imprecise historical data. And we have an imprecise guardrail. Ultimately that shouldn't make a difference as long as the best effort is being made to quantify each of these.
The 2°C limit is merely a way to generally guage where we are, where we're headed, and about how long it's going to take to get there. Precise numbers aren't necessary in order to comprehend the nature of our challenge. Having that 2°C line in the sand starts to help us force the issue, to help people wake up and pay attention.
The reason I'm posting this number each month is because I think this needs to become like a drum beat. People have to see this figure over and over and over again for it to really take hold. I'm just one guy here, on one small website, beating that drum. Hopefully, over time, others will hear and start to pick up the beat.
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Tom Curtis at 20:20 PM on 27 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
Steeph @7, the 2C guard rail on temperatures is not a hard barrier. 2.1 C is only slightly worse than 1.9C. It was selected as a convenient number because, first, it represented a temperature not seen by humans as a climate average since the end of the last glacial; second, because beyond that limit it is reasonably certain that there will be bad consequences from global warming, whereas below it it is reasonably certain the consequences will be managable (despite a significant risk of individual tragedies); and third, because it was a convenient round number.
That being the case, it is not a problem that we cannot exactly say when we cross the 2 C line. We cannot exactly say even if we knew the exact 1721-1750 average in any event, because the guard rail is crossed when the global climate average crosses that value, not when some particularly strong EL Nino takes us to 2 C above the preindustrial average. And plus or minus that value based on the actual 1721-1750 mean makes only a minor difference in net damages.
For these reasons, taking the 1880-1909 value as an approximation is entirely OK, and if some other team preffers the 1861-1880 mean, that is OK also. We just should be aware that each is a relatively arbitrary approximation to the true preindustrial value, and that both approximations if treated as absolutely valid will tend to make us overshoot the target (the latter more than the former).
Put another way, we could simply redefine the guard rail as 2 C above the 1880-1909 (or 1861-1880) mean. However, if we did so it would decrease our certainty that keeping under this newly defined guard rail would keep the harm form AGW reasonably managable. For policy purposes it is important to be aware of that decreased certainty. But having said that, the exact value of the guard rail is inevitably a matter of convention and not something we should worry too much about.
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Steeph at 17:49 PM on 27 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
Tom @5 Thanks for your reply. But this means that there is no "official" way we can actually track this. Only an approximation? Which is kinda weird for such an important agreement...
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POJO at 17:26 PM on 27 January 201610 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
Sorry I should point out that my reference to #7 in the above post was to the opening piece statement
7. If an increased greenhouse effect is causing global warming, we should see certain patterns in the warming. For example, the planet should warm faster at night than during the day. This is indeed being observed (Braganza 2004, Alexander 2006).
my bold highlighting
not poster 7 on this thread
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POJO at 17:21 PM on 27 January 201610 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
#82 Tom,
Sorry Tom, I assumed i had made it clear.
#7 stated that diurnal temperatures should be decreasing.
The first chart supplied for last century shows the decreasing trend of DTR up until the 1980 ish It then shows the deceleration of that trend and then subsequent rise (in my view)
The next chart posted was for your benfit. To remove the noise I did smooth it out more.
I am shocked that you have inferred my intentions were not honest. I refute that.
All I have done is use a 5 year average that NOAA, NASA and even Skepticalscience use when showing charts. I am confused why that is acceptable for them to apply to Crutem4 data but it is not when i apply a 5 year average to the CRUTEM4 data.
So is their an explanation as to why DTR has not decreased. At worst why has it stalled when it clearly should be accellerating in its shrinking of the DTR??
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One Planet Only Forever at 16:06 PM on 27 January 2016The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?
An aspect of this issue that would be more difficult to investigate is the actual level of awareness and understanding of the issue by the deniers. A denier can be expected to declare they do not understand the issue. They can even come up with a multitude of cherry-picked bits of 'confusion regarding the issue' from their perspective.
I am personally convinced that the leaders of the denial industry actually have a very thorough understanding of the topic. And they abuse that understanding to create claims with just enough selective facts presented to appeal to others who are inclined to not want to accept climate science.
And powerful motivations for people to resist accepting the developing better understanding of climate science are:
- They understand that the required action is a reduction of 'standard of living' for many of the people at the top of the current 'standard of living pyramid'. The required changes include reduced energy use and more expensive energy. A few among the most fortunate have chosen to significantly reduce the impacts of their lives, but many people at the top have not.
- The most powerful deniers are wealthy people who fully understand that admitting to the climate scinece is also admitting that the Free-Market has been proven to fail to advance humanity (failed to rapidly develop truly sustainable improvements for all of humanity) in response to the developing better understanding of what is going on.
Their fighting against climate science may actually become the global motivation to significantly overhaul the global socio-economic game to end the competitive advantage that can currently be gotten by a person who is willing to try to get away with behaving less acceptably (including selectively drumming up unsustainable popular support for their understood to be unacceptable pursuits ... because popular support is only needed at election time in enough electoral regions to get out the 'desired voters' to win the election of just enough of their desired leaders.
My hope is that these people are so focused on maximizing their personal benefit in the short-term any way they can get away with that they believe they can delay the inevitable end of the game they love getting away with unacceptable behaviour in just long enough for their personal interests.
That would mean that eventually there will be a rapid end of their ability to succeed. Unfortunately, history is full of cases where massive damage was done before humanity mobilized to protect itself from the understood to be unsustainable damaging activity being gotten away with.
There is definitely a lot a stake. That means that the fighting is very unlikely to end just because of more understandable information being developed and presented.
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One Planet Only Forever at 15:10 PM on 27 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
In addition to the current ONI tracking very similar to the 1997/98 event, the current SOI monthly values are also currently tracking in a manner that is very similar to the 1997/98 event. The SOI monthly values (since 1876) are here.
December 1997 was a signficantly weaker SOI followed by a very strong SOI average for January 1998 (and Feb, Mar, Apr).
November and December 2015 were significantly weaker SOI values, however the SOI 30 day average shown here is currently at -23.0 with only a few days left in January.
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Tom Curtis at 10:39 AM on 27 January 201610 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
POJO @81, first, you have missed the point of my comment. You are presenting data that, at least broadly, is in agreement with the peer reviewed assessments cited above as contradicting those assessments. That at least requires some detailed explanation by you as to why you think that data contradicts those assessments. Absent that explanation, you have not point. Indeed, absent that explanation you are at least contradicting the spirit of the comments policy were it states:
"No link or picture only. Any link or picture should be accompanied by text summarizing both the content of the link or picture, and showing how it is relevant to the topic of discussion. Failure to do both of these things will result in the comment being considered off topic."
(Underlinging mine)
Indeed, I would go further, you have taken no effort at all to show "how it is relevant ot the topic of discussion".
When I challenged you on that by asking you, "what was your point" you simply evaded the question. You do not make a point, preffering to set me homework. I pressume that is because you do not have a coherent point at all.
Second, what I make of your second graph is that you have (deliberately) increased the smoothing window, thereby eliminating information and preventing a coherent intepretation of the data. From the first graph over the same period, and by eye, I would suggest that DTR decreases as a result of volcanic erruptions, and also as a result of El Ninos; and that it increases as a result of La Ninas, and that this explains the recent history. I am not firmly committed to that interpretation because my alignments are by eye only. However, if that is the case the recent history of EL Nino's and volcanic erruptions would result in a spurious upward trend in DTR from 1980, despite the fact that the trend is flat. That in turn requires an explanation as to why that spurious trend has been nullified - with Braganza (2004) providing just such an explanation.
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barry1487 at 10:20 AM on 27 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
Slip of the finger:
- Whereas GISS have 2015 at top rank with "94% certainty."
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barry1487 at 10:18 AM on 27 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
I was interested to see if 2015 would be a record year within or without statistical (/structural) uncertainty. The UK Met Office has 2015 as a clear record-breaker even with the 95% uncertainty interval.
www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2016/2015-global-temperature
NOAA also have a clear record-breaker.
www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201513
Whereas GISS have 2014 at top rank with "94% certainty."
www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20160120/
What is the confidence interval for GISS 2015 global?
0.87C +/- (?)
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Tom Curtis at 10:01 AM on 27 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
Steeph @4, according to the IPCC AR5 Glossary (Annex 3), "In this report the terms preindustrial
and industrial refer, somewhat arbitrarily, to the periods before and after 1750, respectively." On that basis, I would treat the Preindustrial temperature as the 30 year average temperature 1720-1749. Unfortunately we do not have a global instrumental record extending back that far.In fact, we do not have a global instrumental record extending back prior to 1880, with the temperature record from HadCRUT4 and BEST in those periods conisting of Europe, Eastern US, Argentina, South Eastern Australia, India, and sea routes between those points. NOAA and GISS do not cut of their records at 1880 because they do not have that data, but because they think the data insufficient to reliably indicate global temperatures.
HadCRUT4 publishes the percentage of the Earth covered by their data for each month, and show (prior to 1880), never more than 36% and sometimes as little as 13%. Where that data evenly distributed it would constitute a suitable record, but unfortunately it is not.
The upshot of that poor coverage is that for periods prior to 1880, and certainly prior to 1850, paleotemperature reconstructions are our best indicator of global temperatures:
From them, for the global record (lower right panel), global mean temperatures were about 0.3 C below the 1881-1980 average in 1750, or in turn, about 0.2 C below the 1880-1909 average. Of course, the margin of error is considerable so that the 1990-1909 average is a reasonable approximation, but likely to result in an underestimate of the increase since the pre-industrial.
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