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Comments 47201 to 47250:
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Klapper at 21:40 PM on 22 March 2013It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low
@scaddenp #15:
Are you saying that the soot effect (warming) outweighs the sulphate effect (cooling) in the period 1910 to 1945? From the IPCC AR4 report, FAQ2.1, Figure 2, the net effect of anthropogenic aerosols is clearly negative (cooling), totalling about -1.2 W/m2 since the dawn of the industrial era in 1750 to 2005.
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sotolith7 at 21:15 PM on 22 March 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #4: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
My opinion used to be that this site was politically dispassionate and concerned itself only with scientific facts. But I've had to revise that, because whenever energy is discussed there is an exclusive and overweening concentration on renewables. It surely hasn't escaped the attention of the people who edit this site that it's highly controversial as to whether renewables can provide more than a minor contribution to the AGW problem. This was pointed out most prominently in the UK by MacKay of course, but he's by far from the only
qualified person arguing this (another tip: Scottish Engineers).Renewables as the panacea betrays a political agenda, which, it seems, is more important to the authors of this site than global warming.
Moderator Response: [JH] As stated in the SkS Comments Policy, we have a zero tolerance approach to trolling and sloganeering. Please cease and desist from doing either. -
Boswarm at 20:52 PM on 22 March 2013Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations
Why do you continue along this line:
However, there is no mention of Professor Betts in our final paper and we are certainly not claiming that he is a conspiracy theorist.
Why mention him in the 1st place. Leave it go.
Get back to the science, it works and you will win. This is not good if you don't.
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Ray at 20:27 PM on 22 March 2013Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations
To suggest, even by association rather than directly, in the supplementary data that Professor Betts, a lead author of the IPCC and head of Climate Impacts at the UK Met Office espouses conspiracy theory makes one wonder if any other of those who the paper claims "espouse conspiracy theory" are not "deniers" but proponents of CAGW. Professor Betts in his tweets on the matter states the suggestion he is "espousing conspiracy theory, that's just crazy" and "Lewandowsky et al are clearly deluded". Naturally I assume you regret this incident as it does rather put "egg on the face". Perhaps more significantly, Professor Betts, who is manifestly not a "denier" posted on Bishop Hill a site more anti- than pro-CAGW and asks this question "The thing I don't understand is, why didn't they (Lewandowsky et al) just make a post on sceptic blogs themselves, rather than approaching blog owners". He then refers to Steve Mcintyre at Climate Audit as "Moderating with a very light touch" and states "I doubt Steve McIntyre would have removed such an unsolicited post" These comments clearly show that a) although he is a well respected climate scientist he is not averse to reading and posting on anti-warmist sites and b) he regards these two sites as being vety lightly moderated.
(-snip-)
Moderator Response: [DB] Moderation complaints snipped. -
Barry Woods at 20:25 PM on 22 March 2013Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations
I was fascinated to find one of my comments was included in the Recursive Fury paper's Supplementary data, alongside such exalted company as comments/articles by Prof Richard Betts (Met Office- Head of Climate Impact, IPCC AR4, AR5 lead author), Prof Judith Curry, and Paul Matthews (Reader of Mathematics Nottingham Uni)
but I was concerned to find that my comment included appears to be quote mined and not displayed in full, 'quote mined' is how I perceive it, let me explain carefully.
ie when I tracked down the link (I could not cut and paste it, some tech probs from PDF) I found that my FULL comment had not been included/quoted... just this:
“someone has looked at the data. and the conclusions and title of the paper are utterly fraudlent. ie 45 out of 48 those that reject climate science REJECT the moon landing conspiracy theory” – Barry Woods
LOG12 heading/Tilte:
NASA faked the moon landing|Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax:
An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science
the url provided in the supplementary data didn’t work for some reason (tech issue), so I had had a search for my comment and found that just 2 sentences had been used from a much longer comment.
Why did the papers 'raw data' exclude my very next sentence? where I describe how some of the conclusions made (and title) of the LOG12 paper, is actually rected by its own data!
"Looking at the data, those that most strongly ‘reject’ climate science, ALSO strongly reject ALL the conspiracy theories…" - Barry Woods
MY full comment is show below, which backs up my statement, whilst linking to an analysis of Lewandowsky’s actual data for LOG12, a link which contains survey data, so anybody can check for themselves
Barry Woods (Comment #102532)
September 2nd, 2012 at 3:53 amsomeone has looked at the data. and the conclusions and title of the paper are utterly fraudlent. ie 45 out of 48 those that reject climate science REJECT the moon landing conspiracy theory
Looking at the data, those that most strongly ‘reject’ climate science, ALSO strongly reject ALL the conspiracy theories…
extract below-
http://manicbeancounter.com/2012/09/01/lewandowsky-et-al-2012-motivated-rejection-of-science-part-3-data-analysis-of-the-conspiracy-theory-element/
So what of the conspiracy theory that most the moon landings were faked? The one in the title 'NASA faked the moon landing:Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science'
45 out of 48 of those who dogmatically reject climate science, also dogmatically emphatically reject the conspiracy theory. The two who score 4 are rogue results.
In fact, the response is pretty emphatic in every group. Consider the abstract.
We additionally show that endorsement of a cluster of conspiracy theories (e.g., that the CIA killed Martin-Luther King or that NASA faked the moon landing) predicts rejection of climate science as well as the rejection of other scientific findings, above and beyond endorsement of laissez-faire free markets.
Let me be quite clear. The title of the paper makes a false claim from authors with an agenda of silencing opponents. It is entirely without any proper evidence.
The other eleven results are below
well worth a look at the pivot tables in the above link"
that was my full comment, link:
thus this full comment which linked to LOG 12 survey data, and fully backed up my concern that the title of LOG12 was not supported by the survey data (in fact, those that most strongly – as you say ‘rejected the science’ in fact STRONGLY rejected the conspiracy theories), making the title of the paper, problematic. and perceived by many, hence the criticism, that the paper was as deliberately and incorrectly provocative..
NASA faked the moon landing|Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science - Lewandowsky et al
If you may recall from Skeptical Science and Shaping Tomorrows World comments by SkS regular Tom Curtis, he also had similar concerns (full comment, my bold):
"Sou @42, the direction of causation conspiracy theorist -> AGW "skeptic" correctly represents the findings of the paper. The use of "therefore" in the title, however, indicates that that is supposed to be a logical inference. That is not supported by the paper, and is not reflective of the reasoning of any person I am aware of, or (I believe) any real person.
It is very difficult to believe that the title is anything other than a deliberate attempt to be offensive so as to draw attention to a paper of poor quality, but which is thought to be useful for "messaging" in the climate wars. Steve McIntyre has incorrectly attempted to infer a moral condemnation of Lewandowsky from certain of my comments (now corrected). Let me leave no-one in any doubt. In choosing the title of his paper, Lewandowsky not only acted unscientifically, but immorally as well. It was a despicable act. - Tom Curtislink Shaping tomorrow world blog here
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/news.php?p=2&t=397&&n=166#1460
I await the final publication of LOG12 with interest, as it would be of course by far the best course of action, to respond formally to a journal any concerns or issues with LOG12, than by comment on blogs. Unfortunately that is all that I and others could do, despite the paper having wide media attention, yet it is still (not quite?) published. thus LOG12' many critics are not yet able (many of whom, whose blog comment/concerns that the Recursive Fury paper is about), to actually formally respond to the journal Psychological Science.
Personally, I do not see how LOG12, can be published with this title..
NASA faked the moon landing|Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax:
An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science
yet if the title were to change, the Recursvive Fury paper would be about, with criticisms about, a unpublished (in the journal) version of the LOG12 paper. This would make the publication, and of the Recursive Fury paper, in its current form problematic aswell.
Please add my full comment to the suplementary data, as I think you misrepresent a name identifiable person comments.
Additionally can you advice me of the ethics considerations and approvals for the Recursive Fury paper.
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bratisla at 19:24 PM on 22 March 2013Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations
@boblaw : reread once again the previous paragraph. The previous paragraph stated that they selected the comments exhibiting conspiracy thinking characteristics defined in other papers. In no way do they state that all critics of LOG12 meet the criteria.
You make the same logic mistake that was made for LOG12 : they study a subset of datas showing conspiracy thinking. In no way did they consider that the subset represents the whole set. And their focus is on the subset only, not the whole set.
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Bob Loblaw at 18:42 PM on 22 March 2013Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations
To me, the paragraph where you say
"A few critics have complained that we didn’t include their methodological critiques of LOG12. Such critiques do not fit the conspiracist criteria, which is why they weren’t included."
is quite interesting. It is, of course, a direct refutation of the earlier paragraph where you note that someone thinks that any critique of the original paper would be considered conspiratorial ideation.
Which is it? The net is cast so wide that any critique is conspiratorial ideation, and that is wrong? Or critiques that are not included in the analysis are omitted in error, because all critiques really are conspiratorial ideation?
But, as you note, consistency is not a requirement - any port in a storm.
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Bob Loblaw at 18:26 PM on 22 March 2013It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low
A second comment, because the issue is sufficiently different from the ones that I addressed in the comment above. In #12, Klapper says
"My real point is that I think you have a problem with your models in this period, which is a good one to evaluate as I've discussed above and it's not enough to just say it's within the margin of error and call it a day."
I think this is following on the discussion on the other thread, where it was stated that lack of accuracy in model inputs places limits on how well we can expect models to match past temperature records. This has led to the current discussion of reconstructing past TSI and aerosol forcings.
Klapper seems to feel that the models need some fixing to better match past climates, and seems unwilling to accept that there may be not much that can be done about it, due to inaccuracies. I will try to illustrate why limited accuracy of forcings limits our ability to "fix" a model, by using a very simple (non-climate) model.
Let's assume that we have a model that says A + B = T. We have measurements of T that tell us it was 15.2 +/- 0.1 at some past time. Unfortunately, we do not have good estimates of A or B at that time - we only have proxies, and our best guesses are that the past values were A = 10.4 +/- 0.6, and B = 5.6 +/- 1.0. Thus, our model says that T = 16.0 +/- 1.2 (assuming independent errors for A and B).
Is the model right or wrong? Well, the direct measurement of T is 15.2 +/- 0.1, and our model says it should be 16.0 +/- 1.2. The observation falls within the errors for the model, so the observation does not disprove the model. The model could be right.
More importantly, are we justified in modifying the model? We could "improve" the model, by making it 0.923*A + B = T, and our model would then predict T = 15.4, which matches the observation. Is this justified? We could just as easily make the model A + 0.857*B = T, and get an exact match. Or, we could play with any combination of fudge factors for both A and B to get a matchj - there are an infinite number of them that would work.
The problem is that there is no way of determining if any of these arbitrary "fixes" is correct, because we have no further observations of any kind that can differentiate amongst the possibilities. Indeed, within the error bounds of our data, the fudges that give an exact match between predicted and observed T are no better than our original model A + B = T. They all fall within the error bounds. Those error bounds already tell us that the original model may be correct.
When a model's output (value plus error bounds) already falls within the error bounds of the observations, it is a Bad Idea to try to tune a model through purely arbitrary adjustment of parameters. Such adjustments, even if they improve the match between model output and observations, do not mean that we have improved the model. It is a Good Idea to try to improve upon the knowledge of the various input variables/parameters, but you do not accomplish this by just trying different numbers in the model - you need an independent source of information. Blindly fudging parameters is just fitting to the noise.
The Blogosphere is full of fake skeptics that think they have a good model just because they can get an arbitrary series of equations (usually "cycles") with arbitrary fitting of parameters, all while ignoring the known physics. It will be gussied up in terms of statistics or Fourier Analysis, or some fancy words, but it is not good science. A great place to see these things taken down is Tamino's, where is is often called Mathturbation.
In Klapper's case, it appears that he is looking at the experts' models, for which observations do fall within model output (value plus uncertainties), and replacing them with worse models, which show a poorer match with the observations, and convincing himself that the experts are wrong.
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jyushchyshyn at 18:18 PM on 22 March 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #4: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
What could I say that could be deleted? My comment to the effect that skepticalscience should not be saying that the U. S. State Department is being fraudulent.
Moderator Response: [JH] The contents of the articles linked to in the OP stand or fall on their own merits. SkS provides these links as a service to its readers. Readers are encouraged to provide links to other articles about the Alberta Tar Sands and the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project in this comment thread. -
Bob Loblaw at 17:32 PM on 22 March 2013It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low
First, a quick clarification for anyone that reads this portion of the thread at some point in the distant future. Klapper's comment #8 is the result of a thread happening here that was getting off topic, and is moving into this thread where it is more on topic.
Now, to address a few of Klapper's points:
From what I understand, you have regressed TSI in the recent period against sunspot numbers, and then used that to estimate TSI in the period 1910-1945, and then used that TSI trend to compare to the temperature trend. In essence, what this is doing is just attempting to explain the temperature trend by correlating it with sunspot numbers. This is not a very sophiitcated model, and the idea that your model is better than the models in the literature is - shall we say - somewhat dubious. All I can suggest is that you take scaddenp's comment to heart, and think about how crude your model is (and it is a model).
But to expland on certain points, let's first think about your use of sunspots. Sunspots are dark areas on the surface of the sun, and thus are spots that emit less radiation, not more. This has been directly observed using space-borne measurements of TSI during times of transit of sunspots across the visible solar disk. Yet increased sunspot numbers are associated with increased TSI on average, so the increase can't be just because of the sunspots. In fact, sunspots are just an indicator of something else that is going on with the sun, just as tree rings are an indicator that something is going on with the local climate. Sunspots are a proxy for solar activity, not a measurement of TSI. Sunspots are a not the best that science has to offer. Thus, you are basing your conclusions on a poor proxy for TSI, and this is leading you astray. Better estimates of past TSI use more sophisticated models, and are more likely to provide more useful results.
Your understanding of aerosols and their effects is also very simplistic. In #14, you say "aerosols can't cool", and this is wrong. The effect of aerosols differs greatly depending on whether they are mostly-absorbing (e.g., soot), or mostly-scattering (e.g., light-coloured dust). This is usually quantified in terms of the "single scattering albedo". Although generally aerosols cause surface cooling, this is not always the case. A highly-scattering aerosol over a highly-reflective surface can have a warming effect, because is also affects the solar radiation reflected off the surface. A highly-absorbing aerosol reduces the solar radiation reaching the ground, but causes warming at the altitude the aerosol is located at. To thoroughly account for aerosols, you have to have knowledge of their optical properties and size distributions, as well as their geographical location and altitude. The trends in these properties over time will affect the temperature trends. Thus, you are basing your conclusions on a poor understanding of aerosols, and this is leading you astray.
Looking solely at direct relationships between forcing factors (TSI, aerosols, etc.) and temperature ignores any time lags in the climate system. We know that forcings don't instantaneously result in temperature changes - it takes time for the climate to equilibrate. Thus, your anaylsis uses a simplistic relationship between forcings and temperature, and this is leading you astray.
You have assumed that your simplistic reconstruction of TSI is better than the experts. You have assumed that aerosol effects over the period are zero. You have assumed that a simplistic model of T = f(CO2, sunspots) is valid. You then conclude that the experts have something wrong, even though the experts' models are much more sophisticated. Thus, you have assumed your conclusion. This is leading you astray.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 17:07 PM on 22 March 2013Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations
Doug
Don't forget Cascsading Idea Deficit Implosion.
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Doug Bostrom at 16:50 PM on 22 March 2013Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations
Further research can delve into classification of fissioning of rationality via uncontrolled mental chain reactions produced by excessive crowding of the like-minded into blog comment threads:
Prompt Criticality Excursion
Transient Criticality Excursion
Exponential Excursion
Steady State Excursion -
Glenn Tamblyn at 15:10 PM on 22 March 2013Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations
mandas
And why would I want to just give away my money to you mandas?
One thing that really stood out in blogosphere reaction to LOG12 (and I am certain will occur again in response to this paper) is the self-sealing behaviour. The usual suspects will be utterly incapable of seeing that there is anything off-key or irrational in their behaviour. And it isn't simply self-sealing by individuals. It is actually a complete, self-sealed community.
They truely think that they have created a great movement against a terrible wrong, that something called 'citizen science' has been created by them; a superior tool for evaluating the world.
I am sure their closed world offers some sense of emotional sustenance to them. Sadly it is a sustenance that has the same food value as fairy floss.
We can now await Recursive Fury2
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2013 SkS News Bulletin #4: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
Terranova - Please remember: Reality has a well known liberal bias.
On a more serious note, current American politics seems to involve the Republican party denying the scientific basis of reality, in favor of emotional/ideological constructs. It's a very sad state of affairs - the Republicans used to be the party concerned about the environment, but are now the party of social issues over facts...
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mandas at 14:08 PM on 22 March 2013Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations
(I have cross-posted this comment on Shaping Tomorrow's World :-))
Thanks once again John and Dr Lewandowsky.
I especially love the last paragraph before the conclusion, regarding some of the discussion that has taken place on this blog and elsewhere (disclosure - I have been involved in some of them).
Can I make a prediction? You have suggested that: "It will be interesting to see whether this commenter resists the "Something Must Be Wrong" urge......:
I predict that he won't - and will post his usual long diatribes and he will be completely immune to any evidence or rationality that he may be incorrect. Anyone want to bet against me?
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chriskoz at 13:54 PM on 22 March 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #4: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
Terranova@3,
Please provide a proof to your point that John shows "extremely heavy left-wing liberal bias". If I was you, I would not pronounce such heavy weighed opinion without any proof (in this case an alternative choice of articles that acurately analyse KXL from an oposing, say right-wing, conservative point of view) otherwise, I could just be accused of sloganeering.
Accordingly, I am interested in analysing any reputable article that you are going to cite, or I'm going to ignore the sloganeering.
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chriskoz at 12:37 PM on 22 March 2013The ^ New! Abridged Skeptical Science Quick Reference Guide
Climate Change Cluedo by Tom Curtis is a perfect complementary explanation of 10 AGW points above, together with nice pictures, recommended if you haven't seen them yet. Also very useful reader comments (apart from few moderated/snipped ones worth skipping) therein.
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Chappo at 12:34 PM on 22 March 2013The ^ New! Abridged Skeptical Science Quick Reference Guide
Thank you Daniel. Very useful.
A later edition of this basic, essential piece might include a little more on the key scientific proofs (further to the NAS summary thing). Eg step by step proof - with the latest key references as published. Sufficient to PROVE clearly why a 'trace' molecule in the atmosphere causes what it does.
With that also including a little of those authors' own words perhaps, or as translated into plain english.
Also, some more diagrams and graphs.
So that any fool in the media can follow it, and take it in.
JC -
Terranova at 12:17 PM on 22 March 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #4: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
John Hartz, your choice of linked-to articles show an extremely heavy left-wing liberal bias. Are you posting articles that you personally like (and that is ok), or are you posting articles that advance the science?
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It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low
Klapper, others - Note that there is some ambiguity about the sunspot numbers - according to Svalgaard 2012, due to changes in counting methods the sunspot numbers pre-1875 are low by a factor of 50%, and the numbers from 1940 onward are high by a factor of 20%.
I don't know if these adjustments are generally accepted, but if they are correct your TSI estimates will be off accordingly.
[Source]
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GCNP58 at 11:38 AM on 22 March 2013Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations
You guys are cracking me up. In a good way. Thanks.
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bill4344 at 11:33 AM on 22 March 2013Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations
Minor typo, sub-para #1 - New York Times
Response: [JC] Fixed, thanks. -
bill4344 at 11:17 AM on 22 March 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #4: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
Gee, let's see now, you don't know if your comments will be deleted, and this concerns you? (In fact you appear to be reluctant to make any unless you can be reasonably certain they will be deleted! Could this be what's known as a Freudian error? ;-) )
Here's a suggestion; try reading the comments policy (handy link above), comprehending it, and then making them! See what happens!
(If you reverse-engineer it enough you might even achieve your apparent goal! But I'm being facetious, of course; you wouldn't want to do that...)
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scaddenp at 10:43 AM on 22 March 2013It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low
We do not agree on net aerosol effect. Again, you are claiming that your construction of the net forcings over this period is better than the published ones, but you do not seem to be making reference to any of the published papers to challenge their methodology and, as TC and Bob have pointed out, ignored important factors in aerosols. (Change in BC, volcanic quienessence).
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Klapper at 10:38 AM on 22 March 2013It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low
@Tom Curtis #13:
Your point 2: Show me the math on aerosols warming 1910 to 1945. Aerosols can't warm, they can only cool (not quite true since black carbon can be a positive forcing).
Your point 3: I'm not "benchmarking" (whatever that is in this context) on the solar minimums. I'm saying you can only calculate trends in pseudo-waveform functions like TSI by calculating trends from peak to peak or trough to trough, either method works, hence my adoption of the 1910 to 1945 as a good period to evaluate. My calculated delta TSI of 0.09W/m2/decade is based on a minimum to minimum trend period only since the minimums are less noisy than the maximums. I checked both 1902 to 1954 and 1912 to 1944, but got the same number (0.09W/m2/decade) for delta TSI.
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Tom Curtis at 10:12 AM on 22 March 2013It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low
Klapper @12:
1) Regarding anthropogenic aerosols, the period 1910-1940 saw the phase out of coal and replacement by oil as a fuel for ships, and a partial replacement of coal with oil for stationary power generation. That means there were less aerosols produced per unit CO2 in that period than during the preceding thirty years.
2) More importantly, the virtual elimination of stratospheric aersols over that interval represents a strong positive forcing. I believe it, rather than the enhanced solar forcing, is considered to be the primary reason for the rapid increase in temperature during that interval, just as the reintroduction of stratospheric aerosols is a significant factor in the slight cooling from the mid 1940s to the late 1960s. I do not think we are agreeing. I think you have missed my point.
3) Even allowing that you are interested in the period from 1910-1945, peak solar output increased far more over that period than did minimum solar output. By benchmarking your trend on the minimums, I still believe you to be underestimating the increase in solar forcing.
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jyushchyshyn at 10:08 AM on 22 March 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #4: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
How can I even respond to all this without knowing that my comments will be deleted?
Moderator Response: [DB] Do as bill advises below: consult the Comments Policy, take it to heart and always compose your comments to comply with it. You will then have no issues with moderation, as similarly do the vast majority of participants in this venue. -
Klapper at 09:50 AM on 22 March 2013It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low
@Scaddenp #10:
Exactly. My crude reconstruction of TSI (albeit based on a good correlation between ACRIM and smoothed SSN) shows that the lower end of the TSI estimate discussed in the post above is more likely to be correct. Here's the quote from this post on TSI:
"As you can see, in the early 20th Century, from about 1900 to 1940 there was an increase in TSI from about 1365.5 to 1366 Wm-2"
My estimate for delta TSI from 1900 to 1940 is 0.36W/m2. Just round it off to 0.4W/m2. This posts starts out by saying the increase is 0.5W/m2, but because there have been higher estimates, ups that to 1W/m2 delta TSI, without justification in my mind.
Let's summarize what I think we agree on for this period 1910 to 1945:
1. We agree the CO2 forcing results in approximately 0.15C warming
2. We agree that the cooling effect from aerosols trends is low
3. We agree the period is long enough to detect the climate signal
4. We agree the observations are coherent from dataset to dataset and the warming over this period is SAT is approximately 0.5C
5. We agree the error in the observed warming is approximately +/-0.14C
If the above 5 points are true then we just have one major point to agree on: delta TSI. Of course these are back of the envelope calculations but that's the starting point of this post in the first place. My real point is that I think you have a problem with your models in this period, which is a good one to evaluate as I've discussed above and it's not enough to just say it's within the margin of error and call it a day.
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Klapper at 09:20 AM on 22 March 2013It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low
@Tom Curtis #9:
Actually I'm talking about the 1910 to 1945 period. I tried to reset my period to match the discussion by SKS in this post, which was probably a mistake. See my all my comments over at another thread:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/jones-2013-attribution.html
(-snip-). Read my other posts on aerosols since I agree with you that aerosol component had low leverage in the 1910 to 1945 period. I checked the trend calculation also from 1915 to 1945 since that avoids the effects of the Katmai eruption at the beginning of the period. It doesn't really change much from trends calculated for SAT in the 1910 to 1945 period; the numbers to 2 significant digits are between 0.15 and 0.14C/decade.
As for the point on solar minimums, 1910 is a solar minimum and so is 1945, so I'm including 3 complete solar cycles in my solar analysis, which is another advantage to analyzing this period (along with minimal aerosol input). If you wanted to be nitpicky, the trend 1912 or 1913 to 1945 would be a better one to evaluate since it's more "perfect" in isolating the solar cycles to complete ones, but as I've noted the 1915 to 1945 trend is really no different than the 1910 to 1945 one in the observations.
Actually, although my most recent comment sets aerosol cooling to zero, we should be careful about minimizing aerosol leverage in this time period. While it is true there was only one major volcanic episode, the anthropogenic component was more coal, less oil (hence more sulfur dioxide), plus emission controls were nil in that period. Total fossil fuel consumption in the period 1910 to 1945 was about 1/4 to 1/5 the consumption rate from 1970 to 2000, but it was pretty dirty. I'm only saying this to note I know the anthropogenic aerosols from this period can't be directly compared to the emission rate per fossil fuel input as later in the 20th century.
In the end the 1910 to 1945 period is a good period to check your climate sensitivity for the following reasons:
1. We have reasonable low error limits on CO2 growth
2. We have poor direct information on aerosols, but the fossil fuel consumption rate is low, and there is only one major volcanic episode, so we can assume aerosol cooling is not significant.
3. We have good correlation of the three observational SAT datasets
4. The period includes complete solar cycles (and I would argue we have reasonable reconstructions of TSI but that may be a point of argument for some).
In short, what's not to like about 1910 to 1945?
Moderator Response: [DB] Moderation kvetching snipped. -
scaddenp at 07:56 AM on 22 March 2013It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low
Klapper, can see if I have the argument right?
Observed warming is consistant with published model hindcasts for this period (especially when difficulties with forcing estimation is accounted for).
However you are discounting this because the forcing that the models use do not match your own fairly crude estimates of forcings which you prefer to estimates based on published papers?
Is this a fair summary? If so then I think you should presenting direct critique of relevent forcing papers, outlining where you think they have overlooked or made errors.
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Tom Curtis at 07:47 AM on 22 March 2013It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low
Klapper @8,
1) What is missing from your argument above is stratospheric aerosols from volcanoes (B in the graph below):
The distinct lack of major volcanism between 1915 and 1960 is a major factor in the rapid warming in the early twentieth century.
2) Your trend calculation ignores that 1910 was very close to a solar minimum while 1940 is close to a solar maximum. Simply taking the trend while ignoring the difference in the position in the solar cycle underestimates by about half the change in TSI between the two periods.
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Dumb Scientist at 06:13 AM on 22 March 2013Tung and Zhou circularly blame ~40% of global warming on regional warming
I'm sorry, I don't understand why you object to Tung and Zhou 2013 assessement. Taking the temperature of the earth in 1910 and 2013 and joining the dots, we get a total temperature rise of 0.8°C, as confirmed by the Hadcrut 4 Global Mean temperature. Isn't that an average of 0.08°C per decade? Isn’t that what the IPCC claims is the extent of Global Warming? [Watson]
The IPCC and virtually all scientists agree that the Earth's surface has warmed by ~0.8°C since 1900. However, Tung and Zhou call this anthropogenic warming and claim that it's been steady before and after 1950. That's just unphysical, because our radiative forcings spiked after 1950. As I explained, this circular conclusion is actually a result of their assumption that they could subtract the AMO without subtracting anthropogenic warming signal after 1950.
Meanwhile, the extended period of cooling by almost 0.3°C from 1880 to 1910 has never been explained by conventional climate science. CO2 didn't rise much in that period, but it definitely didn't fall, and yet the temperature declined for 30 years! You might like to offer that explanation today.
Whack-a-mole time. When Judith Curry made a similar argument regarding 1910-1940, Gavin replied:
"Your statement is equivalent to stating that we can't find someone guilty of a crime today because some other cases in the past are still unsolved. It is a non sequitur. It is precisely because we have more information about changes today than we have about changes longer ago that attribution gets easier. We know for the recent period that ocean heat content went up, not down. We don't know that for 1910-1940. We know for the recent period that the stratosphere has been cooling. We don't know that for 1910-1940. We know for the recent period that solar has been flat. We don't know that for 1910-1940. Etc. ...
You appear to be demanding a level of certainty about 1910-1940 that doesn't exist before you will accept the level of certainty about recent trends that does. I fail to see how that makes sense. Each attribution problem is unique, and while the same techniques can be used , and the same logic applies, the answer, or even whether an answer can be sensibly given depends entirely on the specifics of the case." [Gavin Schmidt]
After 1940 there is another AMO explicable cooling phase that is always explained away by a magical process involving the increase in light reflecting aerosols. ...
Your numerous uncited claims seem to be aimed at someone who disputes the existence of natural multidecadal variability. But as I wrote to a colleague, I just object to Tung and Zhou's assumption that detrending the AMO removes the nonlinear anthropogenic trend, which led them to unknowingly subtract signal after 1950.
I also mentioned multidecadal variability in a comment on the webpage associated with the video in this article. Kevin C's response doesn't involve anthropogenic aerosols and suggests that contributions from multidecadal oscillations are small, and so do other analyses. In the original version of this article I also referenced Isaac Held's analyses of internal variability, which are highly recommended.
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Tung and Zhou circularly blame ~40% of global warming on regional warming
Tamino has examined the AMO data several times, and in this post he states:
I regressed global temperature on AMO, and of course I get a strong correlation (nobody disputes they're correlated, but causation can go either way). I also allowed for lag in the impact of AMO. The best-fit lag for AMO was -3 months. Yes, negative -- suggesting that global temperature is cause, not effect.
I also regressed global temperature on AMO and a time trend. This time the best-fit lag was -2 months. Again negative.
I even detrended both global temperature and AMO nonlinearly (with a "slow" lowess smooth) and repeated the regression, to see whether AMO might at least account for some of the short-term fluctuations (just as ENSO does). Again the best-fit lag was -2 months. Which again suggests that global temperature is partially the cause, even of the short-term fluctuations in AMO, not the other way around.
[Emphasis added]
Cause precedes effect - and global temperature changes precede the AMO. Tung & Zhou in their analysis are removing a significant portion of the global warming from the global warming, artificially decreasing the trends. It's an easy mistake to make in MLR, but it is still a mistake.
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ubrew12 at 04:35 AM on 22 March 2013Tung and Zhou circularly blame ~40% of global warming on regional warming
Article: "The... AMO... is a long-term fluctuation in N. Atlantic sea surface temperatures" Sea SURFACE temperatures. Why would such temperatures NOT reflect the global surface temperature trend? Indeed, as the article states: "...anthropogenic global warming can increase the AMO index. This means subtracting it potentially ignores AGW." In like manner, if I believe that the urban heat island effect is responsible for AGW, why can't I just subtract the urban temperature profile from the global surface temperature record and 'whalla', problem solved. ENSO at least says something PHYSICAL about how heat is being entrained in the deep ocean: a La Nina ought to anchor global surface temperatures to the deep ocean and cool it. What a surprise: it does! But if you google 'noaa ocean heat and salt content' and compare the first two graphs ("0-700m global ocean heat content" versus "0-2000m global ocean heat content") you will see that the sea SURFACE temperature is much more reflective of what is going on in the atmosphere than the oceans depths. Hence, subtracting one from the other is a bit like subtracting one from itself: you end up with zero (rate of change) which, quelle surpise, is what Tung and Zhou ended up with.
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Klapper at 04:34 AM on 22 March 2013It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low
@Bob Loblaw #39:
I made a few mistakes in my regression of TSI vs SSN. The 0.80 R-squared is from the ACRIM TSI dataset (not PMOD) vs the smoothed SSN (not raw SSN). Plus as stated I used post 1992 data to avoid the "ACRIM gap" issue. For comparison the post 2003 TIM TSI dataset shows an R-squared of .73 when regressed against the smoothed SSN. Standard error on ACRIM TSI vs Smoothed SSN regression is 0.21 W/m2. All of these numbers from monthly average datasets.
Moving on I created my own TSI reconstruction from the regression formula (0.0109x+1360.9), and looked for the TSI trend in the period of interest. Regression trends from psuedo-wave functions like SSN are tricky, your period should go from peak to peak or trough to trough, anything else introduces a bias. So I calculated the trend from 1902 to 1954 to straddle my area of interest. The slope is .09W/m2/decade, which would work out to an approximate change of 0.36W/m2 in TSI from 1900 to 1940. Note that above the discussion starts by quoting an approximate increase in this period of about 0.5W/m2 in TSI, so my TSI reconstruction number is lower but in the ballpark.
Using the method above, but my delta TSI for 1910 to 1945 (about 0.3W/m2), the temperature increase from the TSI change is about 0.05C, or 1/2 to 1/3 of the number above.
Let's say we agree on the Skeptical Science CO2 calculation above (0.15C increase from CO2 alone). Let's also say my calculation on TSI is correct (0.05C). Let's also say the contribution from aerosols is zero (it should be some small negative number since they were increasing, and the net effect of aerosols is cooling, but we'll ignore for this analysis).
Add the TSI/CO2 change up and you have a global SAT increase of 0.2C in the period 1910 to 1945. However, the observed change is close to 0.5C in this period. Say the error on CO2 is +/- .04C, and the error on TSI is +/- .05C. The maximum temperature change is about (0.19+.10) 0.3C. Still not close to the actual of 0.5C. Thats assuming the aerosol impact is zero, but it's not. It's cooling, thereby dragging the model number lower than my 0.2 to 0.3C model increase calculation.
My argument is that despite the presentation above, you cannot account for the rapid increase in temperature from 1910 to 1945 using only TSI and CO2 and aerosol inputs. There is some other factor at play missed by the models. Obviously the main disagreement between myself and the above Skeptical Science calculation is the TSI input, but after doing my own reconstruction based on a very good correlation between ACRIM and SSN (smoothed), I think the 1W/m2 delta TSI in this period is just too high.
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DSL at 04:30 AM on 22 March 2013Tung and Zhou circularly blame ~40% of global warming on regional warming
I don't think AMO has ever definitively been shown to be anything other than SST response to surface warming. AMO lags surface temp by, at least and at most, a few weeks, IIRC.
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MA Rodger at 04:28 AM on 22 March 2013Tung and Zhou circularly blame ~40% of global warming on regional warming
It is rather telling that Tung & Zhou 2013 is so shy at presenting the actual CET data. The global data over the latter half of the analysis period is shown but no CET. Indeed, the peaks (or rises) they show at 1780 & 1840 do not exist outside their heavily smoothed frequency analysis. Once their analysis is shorn of this fantasy, is this any more than a sophisticated version of the drivel Akasofu produced a few years back?
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Marco at 04:15 AM on 22 March 2013David Rose Hides the Rise in Global Warming
funglestrumpet, I sincerely hope you do not want to present the Architects and Engineers 911 Truth organisation as anything worth emulating. They're not. They are conspiracy nutters using appeals to authority. It's like the faux sceptics using their PhDs to claim their opinion about climate science carries weight.
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Bob Loblaw at 04:14 AM on 22 March 2013How Increasing Carbon Dioxide Heats The Ocean
Hmmm. While preparing what now appears as #53, I think some pruning of Kevin's sloganeering (and responses to it) may have occurred, as suddenly there are several missing comments.
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Bob Loblaw at 04:11 AM on 22 March 2013How Increasing Carbon Dioxide Heats The Ocean
I'm hesitant to weigh in on this, as poor Kevin may well feel that there is dog-piling going on, but I wish to address a phrase of Kevin's that KR has already commented on in #58, regarding the air a water being at the same temperature. KR points out that the water and air are not at the same temperature, but a key element I think frames why Kevin is leading himself astray at this point:
1) at the surface, which separates the water and the air, there is only one temperature, and this surface temperature will be the same regardless of whether you are looking at it from the perspective of the water or the air. This may be what Kevin has in mind whe he says the water and the air are at the same temperature.
2) The surface isn't water, and the surface isn't air. The surface is the plane between the two. The water is below the surface, and the air is above the surface. The fact that the water and the air share the same temperature at the surface does not mean that the water below and the air above are at the same temperature. Thus, KR is right.
3) Saying that the water and air are at "the same temperature", and restricting the statement to the surface, is as useful as saying "the air temperature at 2m is the same as the air temperature at 2m". It essentially means nothing - except that a graph of temperature through that point will not have a sudden jump or discontinuity. What matters is the gradients, and calculus tells us that lines can have gradients (slopes) at a sinlge point (i.e., we don't need two points to calculate a slope), and that tells us that gradients can exist at the surface. So again, KR is right: there are gradients at the surface.
(As an aside, chances are that the gradient in the water and the gradient in the air close to the surface will not be the same, so a plot of gradient versus height/depth likely will have a discontinuity. This is not a mathematical difficulty, and arises from consideration of all the energy flows towards and away from the surface,)
And Kevin: this is not a personal attack, but an evaluation of what I see from what you write here - I agree with Tom Curtis that your level of understanding leaves you ill-equipped in this discussion. You have fundamental misunderstandings that you need to unlearn before you can provide constructive analysis of what is being said to you.
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michaelbassey at 04:00 AM on 22 March 2013David Rose Hides the Rise in Global Warming
- Last June I made a submission to the Leveson Inquiry which I entitled ‘The press should speak truth to the people so that the people can speak sense to power’.
- This is an extract relevant to this discussion:
- “PRESS REPORTS ON GLOBAL WARMING JANUARY TO JUNE 2012 Using an iPad to search for items on global warming in the eight major national daily newspapers published in England I have identified 76 items of news and comment over the period 1 January to 25 June 2012. …
- “In summary, the Daily Telegraph (0.7 million readers), the Daily Express (0.7 million readers) and most of the time the Daily Mail (2.1 million readers) reject the scientific evidence that gives a high probability to the Earth warming up due to human activity in releasing greenhouse gases; the Sun (3 million readers) and the Daily Mirror (1.2 million readers) are not concerned; while the Times (0.5 million readers), the Independent (0.2 million readers), and the Guardian (0.3 million readers) are committed to giving their readers the latest evidence and pertinent comment on man-made global warming leading to climate change.
- “That adds up to 3.5 million readers exposed to rejection of ‘human responsibility’, 4.2 million unaware from their newspaper reading, and 1.0 million given the scientific viewpoint. Or as percentages of the presumed daily readership: rejection 40%, unaware 48% and acceptance 12%.”
- It shows why journalists like David Rose and James Delingpole, with potential audiences of 31/2 million readers endanger us all.
Michael Bassey
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Hyperactive Hydrologist at 03:26 AM on 22 March 2013Tung and Zhou circularly blame ~40% of global warming on regional warming
This might be a stupid question but does the AMO not just act a heat sink during cold phases?
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Tom Curtis at 00:53 AM on 22 March 2013How Increasing Carbon Dioxide Heats The Ocean
trunkmonkey @55, got it. Your argument is that you will ignore data you find inconvenient.
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Tom Curtis at 22:18 PM on 21 March 2013How Increasing Carbon Dioxide Heats The Ocean
trunkmonkey @50 would like an explanation as to why the Indian, North Atlantic and Arctic are warming, while "All the other oceans are flat or cooling". I can offer no explanation for his claim is simply false:
As can easilly be seen, the South Atlantic, South Indian, and North and South Pacific are all warming quite strongly. Of course, Levitus et al (2012), the source of the graph, just divide the worlds oceans up into three oceans, so that the Southern Indian, Southern Atlantic and Southern Pacific oceans by their division includes the Southern Ocean. Perhaps it is flat or cooling?:
trunkmonkey, it appears, wants to claim falsehoods, and then fault climate science for not explaining why those falsehoods are true. No doubt he will next disprove climate science by pointing out, quite correctly, that it has no explanation as to why the moon is made of green chease.
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Watson at 21:45 PM on 21 March 2013Tung and Zhou circularly blame ~40% of global warming on regional warming
I'm sorry, I don't understand why you object to Tung and Zhou 2013 assessement. Taking the temperature of the earth in 1910 and 2013 and joining the dots, we get a total temperature rise of 0.8o C, as confirmed by the Hadcrut 4 Global Mean temperature. Isn't that an average of 0.08o C per decade? Isn’t that what the IPCC claims is the extent of Global Warming?
Some of us have been observing the AMO effect for years, noting the almost perfect coincidence between a plot of the peaks of the 'apparent' AMO cycle, as reflected in the Southern Hemisphere temperature peaks circa 1880,1940, and 2000 and the steady rise in concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.
If the CO2 curve is extended with ice core data, the rise in the peaks follows the carbon dioxide rise for 160 years. Meanwhile, the extended period of cooling by almost 0.3oC from 1880 to 1910 has never been explained by conventional climate science. CO2 didn't rise much in that period, but it definitely didn't fall, and yet the temperature declined for 30 years! You might like to offer that explanation today.
After 1940 there is another AMO explicable cooling phase that is always explained away by a magical process involving the increase in light reflecting aerosols. But that explanation is deeply flawed for two reasons. One, the major global cooling in the Southern Hemisphere during the period 1940-1960 takes place in the early part of the period before the aerosol build up, which according to the theory, mostly affected the industrialized Northern Hemisphere. Secondly it magically reverses the cooling trend moment clean air legislation to reduce SO2 emissions is passed, despite the fact that the SO2 emissions have fallen only slowly.
That sudden temperature rise, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, corresponds not to aerosol effects but the return of the warming phase of the AMO, a cycle that began in the Southern hemisphere in the 50s. Since 2000 the Southern hemisphere has shown some slowing in cooling followed by the Northern Hemisphere. This is exactly the same hemispheric pattern that occurred during the 40s and 50s and again in the period 1880, 1905. All the evidence is there to explain why there has been a slowing in global warming over the past decade or so, pointing to a return to rapid waming by 2020 at the latest.
What I can't understand is, why, if as this analysis shows, the AMO makes no difference to the fact that real global warming is being driven by CO2, and it is clearly accelerating alarmingly, why not tell the full story?
Moderator Response: [RH] Fixed links that were breaking page formatting. -
CBDunkerson at 20:52 PM on 21 March 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
So... extracting uranium from the oceans is a feasible plan, but storing wind and solar power for later use is not.
Right, we've crossed the 'five fold crazy' line. I'm done here.
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Tom Curtis at 19:35 PM on 21 March 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
Lanfear @20, the GRIP and GISP2 icecores where both drilled at the Summit. Hence the difference in temperature as measured at GRIP is a reasonable proxie for the difference at GISP2.
Your chart shows the difference between the absolute temperature in 1895 as measured using the GISP2 ice core proxy, and the absolute temperature as measured at a nearby location using the thermometers in the 2000s, ie, the difference between the end of the GISP2 icecore and the higher of the two blue crosses in last graph in the original post. However, as can be seen in the second last graph, GISP2 temperatures are cold relative to GRIP site temperatures in 1895, so it is far better to take the anomaly as is done in the OP or in the second graph @15. Even that should be taken as indicative only, rather than an exact measure.
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Lanfear at 19:14 PM on 21 March 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
Here is my very crude attempt to recreate the graph to modern times, and I would very much like to hear what mistakes I have done along the way.
FWIW I'm not a scientist, so there...
Anyway, the reason for my effort is that I have for some time been a bit annoyed that the current temperature (2009) grafted on the last graph in the text is not directly from the GISP/dome, rather it is derived from GRIP. This IMO makes it a bit weaker as a argument when presented to a layman/'skeptic' even if it does have a sound scientific methodology behind it.
So after some hunting I found some near surface temp measurements here; from the summit, which AFAIK is where GISP2 was drilled. The station numbers are documented here.
I threw the data in a spreadsheet and took the average from (after converting each timepoint to decimal) 2005.813 - 2011.813, which gave me -28.3°C. Incidently, and not necessarily meaningfully, the max temperature of the last 3 years are all above 0°C and 'rising'.
Anyhow. I take that average and add it as a data point in to the Alley record linked in the text as for 2008 and get the following graph:
The trend is for Alley data only (-9000 - 1880), just as reference.
I'm sure I have made some grave errors in the process, and would appreciate constructive input. Thanks.
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trunkmonkey at 14:47 PM on 21 March 2013How Increasing Carbon Dioxide Heats The Ocean
On average the oceans are always warmer that the atmosphere and net transfer is skewed 14% from the oceans to the atmosphere. Theoretically the thermal mass of the atmosphere, if it were warming, would reduce the margin and warm the oceans. (snipped)
The oceans on average have continued to warm, quite a bit. This is really wierd. But what is even wierder is that all of the net ocean warming can be accounted for by the North Atlantic, the Indian, and the Arctic oceans. All the other oceans are flat or cooling.
So if you can explain to me how the atmosphere could cause these three oceans to warm and allow the rest to languish or cool, I would be very interested to hear it.
Moderator Response: (Rob P) - Sloganeering snipped. Do you have a reputable scientific link to back up your claim? I'm aware the the Pacific Ocean has not warmed in the last few years, but this is nothing new. It's happened many times before, each time followed by abrupt warming. The oceans are dynamic and shuffle a lot of heat around - even while the oceans are gaining heat though the greenhouse gas forcing of the cool-skin layer. There is no expectation that year-to-year warming is continuous because changes in ocean circulation, such as ENSO (La Nina/El Nino), can temporarily act against the long-term warming trend. Therefore, over short time frames, it can appear very noisy, but thus far, over longer (decadal) timescales, the warming pattern is smooth and incompatible with natural variation. See Sedlácek & Knutti (2012). -
Composer99 at 12:42 PM on 21 March 2013How Increasing Carbon Dioxide Heats The Ocean
Kevin, even with greater evaporation, when one considers all the energy fluxes into and out of the ocean cool skin layer, as long as the change in net energy flux causes the cool skin to warm, the temperature gradient between the cool skin layer and the bulk ocean below it will decrease.
Conduction from atmosphere to ocean is not the only (and I suspect not even the primary) manner by which energy transfers from the atmosphere into the ocean cool skin layer.
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