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Ice age predicted in the 70s

Don Williamson at 23:06 PM on 18 August, 2023

To Eclectic

Use Google Scholar as well as a couple of search engines reading peer-reviewed paper on the 'hiatus' 'wsrming slowdown'

If you jot down the various reasons that were used in the multiple papers you'll understand why Dr Michael E Mann said, "The problem isn't that we cannot explain the temporary slowdown in warming — ???????????? ???????????????????????????? ???????? ???????????????? ???????????????????? ???????????? ???????? ???????????????? ???????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????? ????????"

Dr Kevin Trenberth Trenberth was a co-author on a paper published in Nature Climate Change that used models to show that pauses in surface temperature warming correspond to additional heat being stored deep in the ocean, ???????????????????? ???????????????????? ???????????????? ???????? ???????????? ???????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????.

The 'warming' was taking place where there's little to no measuring devices?

Is that sound science?

link to quotes above:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/has-global-warming-paused/

????

The New Climate War by Michael E. Mann - our reviews

Nick Palmer at 09:33 AM on 23 June, 2021

Just in case you lot are still resisting the idea that the politics relating to climate science have become extremely polarised - in my view to the point where ideologues of both the left and right think it justified to exaggerate/minimise the scientific truths/uncertainties to sway the democratically voting public one way or the other - here's a video blog by alt-right hero and part of the original Climategate team who publicised the emails, James Delingpole basically saying that 'the left' have infiltrated and corrupted the science for the purpose of using political deception to seize power for themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=866yHuh1RYM

Deconstruct or follow up Delingpoles' rhetoric elsewhere and you will find a helluva lot of intelligent articulate people who believe that the public's environmental consciences are being exploited by closet socialist forces to deceive them, using 'fear porn', into voting for policies which they otherwise wouldn't consider voting for, in a dark strategy to bring in some form of latter day Marxism. They insinuate this has got its tentacles into climate science which they assert has led to the reality of the science, as presented to the public, being twisted by them for political ends. It's absolutely not just Greenpeace, as I already said, who've 'gone red' to the point where it has 'noble cause' corrupted their presentations of environmental matters and, crucially, the narrow choice of solutions they favour - those which would enable and bring on that 'great reset' of civilisation that they want to see. It's much, much bigger than that.

I think we are seeing a resurgence and a recrystallisation of those who got convinced by Utopianist politics of the left and free market thinkers of the right taught at University - Marxist-Leninism, Ayn Rand, Adam Smith etc. Most of those students eventually 'grew up' and mellowed in time, leaving only a small cadre of incorrigible extremists but who are now, as the situation is becoming increasingly polarised politically, revisiting their former ideologies. In essence 'woking' up. I submit that the real battle we are seeing played out in the arena of climate matters is not between science and denialism of science - those are only the proxies used to manipulate the public. The true battle is between the increasingly polarised and increasingly extreme and deceitful proponents of the various far left and right ideologies and their re-energised followers.

It is now almost an article of faith, so accepted has it become, amongst many top climate scientists and commentators, that 'denialism' is really NOT motivated by stupidity or a greedy desire to keep on making as much money as possible but is rather a strong resistance to the solutions that they fear are just 'chess moves' to bring about the great Red 'reset' they think the 'opposition' are secretly motivated by.

Here's an excellent article by famous climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe identifying those who are 'solutions averse' as being a major factor in denialism. It touches on the 'watermelon' aspect. You can turn a blind eye to what I am saying if you want, but in that case you should also attack Hayhoe too - but don't expect many to applaud you...

https://theecologist.org/2019/may/20/moving-past-climate-denial

Also try this: https://www.thecut.com/2014/11/solution-aversion-can-explain-climate-skeptics.html

https://today.duke.edu/2014/11/solutionaversion

I think some people who fight climate science denialism still have the naive idea that just enlessly quoting the science to them, and Skepticalscience's F.L.I.C.C logical fallacies, will make denialists fall apart. I too used to think that if one would just keep hammering away, eventually they would give up. Anyone who tries this will find that it actually does not work well at all. Take on some of the smarter ones and you will rapidly find that you are, at least in the eyes of the watching/reading/listening public, who are the only audience it's worthwhile spending any time trying to correct, outgunned scientifically and rhetorically. That's why I don't these days much use the actual nitty-gritty science as a club with which to demolish them because the smarter ones will always have a superficially plausible, to the audience at least, comeback which looks convincing TO THE AUDIENCE. Arguing the science accurately can often lose the argument, as many scientists found when they attempted to debate such notorious, yet rhetorically brilliant sceptic/deniers such as Lord Monckton.

I haven't finished trying to clarify things for you all but right back at the beginning, in post#18, I fairly covered what I was trying to suggest is a more realistic interpretation of the truth than the activist's simplistic 'Evil Exxon Knew' propaganda one. In short, most of you seem to believe, and are arguing as if, the science was rock solid back then and that it said any global warming would certainly lead to bad things. This is utterly wrong, and to argue as if it was true is just deceitful. As I have said, and many significant figures in the field will confirm, I've been fighting denialism for a very long time so when denialists present some paper or piece of text extracted from a longer document as 'proof' of something, I always try and read the original, usually finding out that they have twisted the meaning, cherry picked inappropriate sentences or failed to understand it and thereby jumped to fallacious conclusions - similarly I read the letters and extracts that Greenpeace used and, frankly, either they were trying deliberately to mislead or they didn't understand the language properly and jumped to their prejudiced conclusions and then made all the insinuations that we are familiar with and that nobody else seems be questioning much, if at all. The idea that Exxon always knew that anthropogenic climate change was real (which they, of course, did) AND that they always knew that the results of that would be really bad and so they conspired to cover that bad future up is false and is the basis of the wilful misreading and deceitful interpretation of the cherry picked phrases, excerpts and documents that has created a vastly worse than deserved public perception of how the fossil fuel corporations acted. Always remember that, at least ideally, people (and corporations) should be presumed innocent until proven beyond reasonable doubt to be guilty. Greenpeace/Oreskes polemics are not such proof. Their insinuations of the guilt of Big Oil is just a mirror image of how the Climategate hackers insinuated guilt into the words of the top climate scientists.

Here's a clip from my post#18

NAP: "When activists try to bad mouth Exxon et al they speak from a 'post facto' appreciation of the science, as if today's relatively strong climate science existed back when the documents highlighted in 'Exxon knew' were created. Let me explain what I think is another interpretation other than Greenpeace/Oreskes'/Supran's narratives suggesting 'Exxon knew' that climate change was going to be bad because their scientists told them so as far back as the 70s and 80s. Let me first present Stephen Schneider's famous quote from 1988 (the whole quote, not the edited one used by denialists).

S.S. "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 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 climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means 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.""

Stephen Schneider, as a climate scientist, was about 'as good as it gets' and he said that in 1988. Bear in mind that a lot of the initial framing to prejudice readers that 'Exxon knew' used was based on documents from considerably longer ago, so what are the activists who eagerly allowed themselves to be swept up in it until no-one questioned it turning a blind eye to? It's that the computer models of the time were extremely crude because computer technology back then was just not powerful enough to divide Earth up into enough finite element 'blocks' of small enough size to make model projections of much validity, in particular projections of how much, how fast and how bad or how good... Our ideas of the feedback effects of clouds and aerosols back then was extremely rudimentary and there were widely differing scientific opinions as to the magnitude or even the direction of the feedback. The scientific voices we see in Exxon Knew tend to be those who were suggesting there was lot more certainty of outcome than there actually was. That their version has been eventually shown to be mostly correct by a further 40 years of science in no way means they were right to espouse such certainty back then - just lucky. As I pointed out before, even as late as the very recent CMIP6 models, we are still refining this aspect - and still finding surprises. To insinuate that the science has always been as fairly rock solid as it today is just a wilful rewriting of history. Try reading Spencer Weart's comprehensive history of the development of climate science for a more objective view of the way things developed...

ExxonMobil spokesperson Allan Jeffers told Scientific American in 2015. “The thing that shocks me the most is that we’ve been saying this for years, that we have been involved in climate research. These guys (Inside Climate News) go down and pull some documents that we made available publicly in the archives and portray them as some kind of bombshell whistle-blower exposé because of the loaded language and the selective use of materials.”

Look at the phrases and excerpts that were used in both Greenpeace's 'Exxon Knew' and 'Inside Climate News's' exposés. You will find they actually are very cherry picked and relatively few in number considering the huge volumes of company documents that were analysed. Does that remind you of anything else? Because it should. The Climategate hackers trawled through mountains of emails - over ten years worth - to cherry pick apparently juicy phrases and ended up with just a few headline phrases, a sample of which follow. Now, like most of us now know, there are almost certainly innocent and valid explanations of each of these phrases, and independent investigations in due course vindicated the scientists. Reading them, and some of the other somewhat less apparently salacious extracts that got less publicity, and comparing them with the 'presented as a smoking gun' extracts from Greenpeace/Oreskes/Supran etc I have to say, on the face of it, the Climategate cherry picks look more evidential of serious misdeeds than the 'Exxon Knew' excerpts. Except we are confident that the Climategate hackers badly misrepresented the emails by insinuating shady motives where none were. Why should we not consider that those nominally on the side of the science did not do the same? Surely readers here are not so naive aas to believe that everyone on 'our side' is pure as the driven snow and all those on the 'other side' are evil black hats?

Here's a 'top eight'

1) Phil Jones "“I’ve just completed Mike’s [Mann] Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s [Briffa] to hide the decline.”

2) “Well, I have my own article on where the heck is global warming…. The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” [Kevin Trenberth, 2009]

3) “I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple." Keth Briffa

4) Mike [Mann], can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith [Trenberth] re AR4? Keith will do likewise…. Can you also e-mail Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his e-mail address…. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.” [Phil Jones, May 29, 2008]

5) “Also we have applied a completely artificial adjustment to the data after 1960, so they look closer to observed temperatures than the tree-ring data actually were….” [Tim Osborn, Climatic Research Unit, December 20, 2006]

6) “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow, even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” [Phil Jones, July 8, 2004]

7) “You might want to check with the IPCC Bureau. I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 [the upcoming IPCC Fifth Assessment Report] would be to delete all e-mails at the end of the process. Hard to do, as not everybody will remember it.” [Phil Jones, May 12, 2009]

8) “If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s warming blip (as I’m sure you know). So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say 0.15 deg C, then this would be significant for the global mean—but we’d still have to explain the land blip….” [Tom Wigley, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, to Phil Jones, September 28, 2008]

Please at least consider the possibility that Greenpeace, who have been deceiving the public about the toxicity and carcinogenicity of this, that and the other for decades (ask me how if you want to see how blatant their deceit or delusion is... showing this is actually very quick and easy to do) were, in a very similar way, and motivated by their underlying ideology, deliberately (or delusionally) misrepresenting innocent phrases to blacken names excessively too.

Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

MA Rodger at 18:43 PM on 1 December, 2019

nyood @28,

I fear you rely on the commentaries of climate change deniers rather than the source documents they cherry-pick from.

Tom Wigley was taking issue with Kevin Trenberth in 2009 not 1997 (1997 also the date of the hockeystick work) and it was an entirely civilised and understandable interchange (although the actual e-mail thread does suggest that there was some history to the interchange).

Wigley argued that the global temperature evolution 2000-10 could be explained by ENSO, volcano & solar variation (as per Foster & Rahmstorf 2011) but this was not entirely what Trenberth was saying (note the CERES reference). Then Trenberth responds pointing this inexactness out with perhaps allusions to some past interchange.

I fail to see how this 2009 interchange in any way relates to uncertainty in climatology being kept private, unless it is within the febrile mind of a climate change denier.

Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

nyood at 02:16 AM on 1 December, 2019

MA Rodger @25

You try to relativise the harsh critic by Wigley with the concluding sentence:

"Wigley's response is robust because that is how academics fire off at each other."

To me, you attempt to downplay the criticism here and putting the email in a larger context like you did with your post, does not change its explanatory power whatsoever.

The message of Wigley is crystal clear, alarmed and referring to general scientific principles and ethics and exactly the high responsibility we are talking about. Therefore, other users already tried to discredit Wigley himself as obsolete and dangerous, standing in the way of the 11; skipping your attempt of just downplaying the message of Wigley.

What Wigley foresees here is the onset of political thinking and acting, documented by numerous emails of the coming years. Wigleys apprehensions will be confirmed and peak with Mann´s Hockeystick.

This is another example from 2009 where uncertainty is expressed, but must never be admitted in public:

M.Mann to K.Trenberth:

"Thanks Kevin, yes, it’s a matter of what question one is asking. To argue that the observed global average temperatures of the past decade falsifythe model projections ..., as the contrarians have been fond of claiming, is clearly wrong. But that doesn’t mean we can explain exactly what’s going on."

T.Wigley continues:

"Kevin,I didn’t mean to offend you. But what you said was “we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment”. Now you say “we are nowhere close to knowing where energy is going”. In my eyes these are two different things—the second relates to our level of understanding, and I agree that this is still lacking."

It's waste heat

AEBanner at 05:42 AM on 6 March, 2019

Energy causes Global Warming

michael sweet @174

In this post you have completely misrepresented some of my ideas/remarks; in reality, you are not the only one to have done this previously.
Or perhaps you have simply completely understood my post @172
Or again, perhaps, you carelessly made a genuine mistake, in which case no apology is expected.

I quote your first two paragraphs.
“You contradict yourself. You have claimed that sensible heat emitted by humans accumulates in the atmosphere. Yet you now claim that sensible heat from volcanoes is emitted to space as radient energy. A contradictory argument can automatically be dismissed.
You cannot have it both ways. If human heat accumulates than volcano heat must also accumulate. If volcano heat is emitted to space than human heat must also be emitted. Since the volcano heat is so much greater it is the dominant effect.
End Quote.

Now I shall quote from my own previous post @172 to you, last three paragraphs.

My Quote
“Anyway, back to the volcanoes. As far as I know, the output from a volcano consists of hot lava, hot material particles, and much heat energy in the form of sensible heat, that is kinetic energy. And, of course, the adjacent land area will also be raised in temperature.

The hot materials including lava, particles and the hot adjacent land will radiate energy, in line with black body radiation, which ultimately escapes to space. The sensible heat in the form of kinetic energy of the air molecules mainly enters the oceans, in line with the 97% value you are no doubt referring to from the IPCC AR4 report, and Kevin Trenberth’s 3% into the atmosphere. ( This latter subject to further interaction with the oceans and associated subsequent radiation.)

But the important thing here is that the oceans, being liquid, will also radiate, eventually to space, and this will proceed to maintain a satisfactory balance. Yes,
the volcano emissions started billions of years ago, but so did the balancing radiation, so maintaining a satisfactory temperature for the Earth’s surface, and not boiling away the oceans.”

End my quote

You will see that I wrote that, in respect of volcanoes, sensible heat in the form of kinetic energy of the air molecules mainly enters the oceans.
Then see my third paragraph.

Another quote from your @ 174

Scientists have shown that waste heat is emitted to space in the year that it was created

End quote

This, at least, is interesting. Please grant me the courtesy of a reference to this.

It's waste heat

AEBanner at 02:03 AM on 5 March, 2019

Energy causes Global Warming

michael sweet @169

Thank you for your new post. I’m sorry you believe I have not answered your questions about volcanoes. I thought I did quite well.

However, if you wish, I shall be happy to try again. But this may incur some repetition in parts, for the sake of clarity and continuity.

I feel sure you agree with my opening remarks in my initial response to you @167.
And I do, in fact, know what “black body” radiation is about.
But in my reply to you @167, I did not bring up the figures of 97% or 3%. So please let me know which of my posts you are concerned about. It would seem to be additional to your initial post. OK, no problem.

Anyway, back to the volcanoes. As far as I know, the output from a volcano consists of hot lava, hot material particles, and much heat energy in the form of sensible heat, that is kinetic energy. And, of course, the adjacent land area will also be raised in temperature.

But the important thing here is that the oceans, being liquid, will also radiate, eventually to space, and this will proceed to maintain a satisfactory balance. Yes, the volcano emissions started billions of years ago, but so did the balancing radiation, so maintaining a satisfactory temperature for the Earth’s surface, and not boiling away the oceans.

Please let me know if I have not covered some matter you are concerned about.

The Big Picture (2010 version)

AEBanner at 04:08 AM on 2 March, 2019

Thank you MA Rodger and Eclectic for your comments, but I am afraid that you have both completely missed the point I am making.

Firstly, though, my data came from the very data set you refer to, MA Rodger; namely the BP dataset, although the one I used went much further back. I took the figures each year from 1966 to 2016 inclusive.

You both seem to think along the lines of Watts per sq.metre, which is not my approach in my work.

I simply deal with the amount of primary energy, in Joules, consumed in total over the 50 years period from 1966 to 2016 inclusive. I added up the annual figures provided by the BP Statistical Review, as mentioned in my “paper”, but separately for the two hemispheres. It is these total amounts that I am using, not these values worked in reverse to get Watts per square metre.

The total amounts of energy as calculated in my work must go, initially, into the atmosphere because that is where it starts. From there the energy is distributed into the oceans, the continents and so on, but some remains in the atmosphere. This is illustrated very well in the IPCC report
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4-wg1-chapter5-1.pdf
and scroll to 5.2.2.3 Note that this data only goes up to 2003. We find that the energy entering the oceans was 89.3% of the total anthropogenic energy, and the energy remaining in the atmosphere was 3.14%, this latter figure being subject an error of +or – 40%. This means that the proportion of the total anthropogenic energy remaining in the atmosphere was between 1.89% and 4.40% of the total. The I have subsequently used the value 3.14%.
Please note that the number of joules entering the atmosphere was attributed to Kevin Trenberth.

The resulting kinetic theory then provides the temperature increase in the atmosphere, as calculated.

A careful reading of my wordpress post

https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/154908990/posts/50

makes all this very clear, and you will see that excellent results are obtained.

A profile of award-winning climate scientist Kevin Trenberth

nigelj at 19:03 PM on 28 July, 2017

And congrats to Kevin Trenberth of course. Well deserved.

Heartland: What's your story?

John Hartz at 04:35 AM on 11 April, 2017

To get a basic understanding of what climate models are, check out this recently posted article...

Yes, we can do ‘sound’ climate science even though it’s projecting the future by Kevin Trenberth & Reto Knutti, Conversation US, Apr 5, 2017

Note: Trenberth & Knutti recommend using the word projection (rather than predicition) to describe the output of climate models.

Models are unreliable

SemiChemE at 12:27 PM on 23 March, 2017

Here are a few references, discussing the importance of Ocean-effects on global Climate Sensitivity.

Balmaseda, Magdalena A., Kevin E. Trenberth, and Erland Källén. "Distinctive climate signals in reanalysis of global ocean heat content." Geophysical Research Letters 40.9 (2013): 1754-1759.

Meehl, Gerald A., et al. "Model-based evidence of deep-ocean heat uptake during surface-temperature hiatus periods." Nature Climate Change 1.7 (2011): 360-364.

Raper, Sarah CB, Jonathan M. Gregory, and Ronald J. Stouffer. "The role of climate sensitivity and ocean heat uptake on AOGCM transient temperature response." Journal of Climate 15.1 (2002): 124-130.

There are many, many more such papers. Clearly, the oceans are very important to climate Sensitivity.

As for the evolution of Ocean Currents over time, here's a nice summary:

https://earth.usc.edu/~stott/Catalina/Oceans.html

As you can see, prior to ~30 million years ago, the arrangement of the continents was different, which had a dramatic impact on ocean circulation patterns. The Atlantic Ocean was much smaller and the isthmus of Panama had not formed. Given that Atmospheric-Ocean coupling is a major factor in determining climate sensitivity (see references above) and that due to geological changes in the configuration of the continents the Ocean circulation patterns were different, it is entirely reasonable to believe that climate sensitivities prior to 30 million years ago may have been different from those today. Thus, as I stated before, I would be very skeptical of the relevancy of paleoclimate data from >30 million years ago for predicting the modern climate.

The Madhouse Effect, a review

moreover at 23:01 PM on 10 September, 2016

Regarding "Mann's unfortunate first hand experience" - I actually preordered the book from the organisation which was initially founded to help defend Dr. Mann (here's the article), namely the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF). (A signed copy is available, too).

I'm indebted to them myself when I was dealing with oil/gas industry threats over publizing a presentation by Dr. Kevin Trenberth. They gave me sound legal advice.

Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job

David Lewis at 16:34 PM on 29 January, 2016

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:

Ocean heat content doubles since 1997

which shows, according to their analysis, that ocean heat content doubled since 1997.

Models are unreliable

Klapper at 14:16 PM on 5 May, 2015

@Rob Honeycut/scandenp #894/#895:

You're complaining not because I didn't utilize the data, which I did, but I think because I don't embrace it as much as I should. It is what it is and I accept that, however, it's not only myself that has doubts about reliability of the data. See these comments from Kevin Trenberth et al 2012:

"...(XBTs) were the main source from the late 1960s to 2004 but, because depth or pressure of observations werent measured, issues in drop rate and its corrections plague these data and attempts to correct them result in varied outcomes.”

Certainly the data are far better with the ARGO collecting system was my key point and that analyses using these later systems should carry more weight than '60s/70's/80's analyses.

Changes in water vapor and clouds are amplifying global warming

billthefrog at 07:51 AM on 26 April, 2015

Kevin Trenberth has the dubious honour of belonging to a select cadre of scientists, i.e. those whose words have been most widely and wildly misconstrued by fake sceptics.

Those unfamiliar with the "travesty" story may care to look at an SkS article from December 2009 which provides a background.

It hasn't warmed since 1998

Peter99 at 21:59 PM on 6 April, 2015

Global temperatures seem to have plateaud. It is not only skeptics saying this, but many prominent warmists such as…

Dr. Kevin Trenberth – CRU emails – 12 Oct. 2009
“Well, I have my own article on where the heck is global warming…..The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”

Dr. Phil Jones – BBC – 13th February 2010
[Q] “Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming”
[A] “Yes, but only just

Dr. James Hansen – NASA GISS – 15 January 2013
“The 5-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade, which we interpret as a combination of natural variability and a slowdown in the growth rate of the net climate forcing.”

Notice they all acknowledge the pause and Hansen gives his “pause” interpretation. But apart from Hansen’s theory, there have been over 60 other different theories/reasons trying to explain where the “missing heat” has gone. But which one is correct? If the science is settled why are there so many and varied theories?

Hans von Storch is no AGW lightweight and to dismiss his quote above as “careless” is a bit presumptuous. Let me repeat the quote…

Dr. Hans von Storch – IPCC lead author - Spiegel – 20 June 2013
“…the increase over the last 15 years was just 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) — a value very close to zero….If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models….”“So far, no one has been able to provide a compelling answer to why climate change seems to be taking a break

Did a very senior IPCC author get it wrong? If the pause continues for another 5 years will it be acknowledged that climate models have a fundamental problem as he claims? He obviously doesn’t think any of the 60 or so “missing heat” theories are “compelling”.

So my question is, if the pause continues, how many years must pass before it’s conceded that “something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models”? In other words, if the pause continues for n years then can that then be classed as a falsifiable criterion for AGW?

California just had its worst drought in over 1200 years, as temperatures and risks rise

william11409 at 03:45 AM on 10 December, 2014

Thanks Dana. Yes the comment from Prof Mann mentioned in Will@3 was present in the article I linked to as was a comment by Kevin Trenberth "This study completely fails to consider what climate change is doing to water in California,". As both are well respected climate scientists I guess NOAA will address their comments in due course.

I note you consider "NOAA is doing the public a disservice by claiming otherwise". while the Moderator's opinion is "What you are observing is the scientific process at work. Over time, the seeming contradictions will be sorted out. This sifting and winnowing process occurs in all scientific disciplines". So is the sifting and winnowing a disservice to the public or just a necessary part of the scientific process?

He also berates me for suggesting " that conflicting explanations are unique to climate science is bogus". Actually ` didn't suggest that at all if I had meant to make that suggestion I would have written "in contrast to other branches of science only in climate science are two opposing explanations are put foward for the same event" That would clearly be utterly incorrect.

2014 Arctic sea ice extent - 6th lowest in millennia

knaugle at 02:18 AM on 29 October, 2014

Speaking of 30 seconds on Google (or Yahoo! in my case)

The "ever accurate" Wikipedia page on greenhouse gases has for years stated that water vapor is about 55% of the greenhouse effect, and CO2 about 17%, both with a fair uncertainty band.

Given 45 seconds I found a 2006 paper:
Earth’s Annual Global Mean Energy Budget, by J. T. Kiehl and Kevin E. Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado.
which gave a 60% Water Vapor and 26% CO2 contribution on a sunny day.

IF as Ingvar claims, water vapor has been excluded from the research, hidden if you will, it seems the "conspiracy minded climate scientists" have done a mighty poor job of keeping it out of the hands of lay scientists such as myself. I rather think this is one of many red herring arguments I see from those who seek to diminish the science.

Dinner with global warming contrarians, disaster for dessert

Tom Curtis at 23:50 PM on 15 October, 2014

Dikran @11, here are the members of the Editorial board registered with google scholar.

Chandra Shekhar Prasad Ojha cited 1126 times

water resources, evironmental engineering

Mohammad Hadi Dehghani cited 282 times

Environmental Health, Solid Waste Management, Air Pollution

Mrinmoy Majumder cited 70 times

watershed management, climate change, hydro power, nature based algorithm

Panagiotis T. Nastos cited 1382 times

Climatic Change, Human Biometeorology, Outdoor Thermal Comfort, Urban Microclimate, Atmospheric Pollution

T.N.Singh cited 1729 times

Rock Mechanics, Artificial Intelligence, Engineering Geology, Mining

That makes an avearge of 917.8 citations per editorial board member.

I don't have much perspective on that, but (for example) Kevin Trenberth has 39953 citations, Judith Curry has 12073, and John Church has 9905. It appears then, that they are on the lower end of a respectable citation results. However, the connection between their output and the journal's subject matter seems a little stretched in most cases.

2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #20

wili at 21:18 PM on 18 May, 2014

I'm not sure whether in rises to the level of "Weekly News," but robbertscribbler has a nice summary of where we are now sitting wrt El Nino predictions, including an interesting video interview with Kevin Trenberth.

http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/deep-ocean-warming-is-coming-back-to-haunt-us-record-warmth-for-2014-likely-as-equatorial-heat-rises/

Trenberth predicts a permanent rise in global temperatures of up to .3 degrees C from the event and from a likely flip in Pacific Decadal Oscilation (PDO) from cool to warm. That would put us well above the 1 C above pre-industrial temperatures mark and on our way to 2.

Cherry picked and misrepresented climate science undermines FiveThirtyEight brand

chriskoz at 18:29 PM on 29 March, 2014

Interesting turn on Pielke's critique. He responded by threatening his critics (he picked up Mike Mann & Kevin Trenberth - based on their prominence I guess) therefore ashaming himself. Up to the point that Nate Silver needed to appologise on his behalf.

IMO Pielke Jr has issues not just with his scientific integrity but also with his basic principles. His words:

"More generally, in the future how about we agree to disagree over scientific topics like gentlemen?"

actually apply to himself! True gentelmen never opine/argue with threatening language! They don't need to use threats to uphold their public image!

Cherry picked and misrepresented climate science undermines FiveThirtyEight brand

Albatross at 03:50 AM on 26 March, 2014

Thanks KR,

That is a good post at RC and I'm happy that they are dealing with some of the common fallacies used by fake skpetics like Pielke Jnr.

As I mentioned to Kevin Trenberth the other day-- "We are poking the climate system with a stick and physics dictates that it will get increasingly annonyed".

Another analogy for a trick that is used by fake skeptics is folks like Pielke Jnr. want us all to keep looking in the rear-view mirror while we accelerate towards a preventable disaster (e.g., a brick wall).

There were more problems with Pielke's 538 opinion pieces that we did not cover here because of space limitations. I'll add some more if I can find the time.

Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance

Tom Curtis at 21:05 PM on 1 February, 2014

chriskoz:

1) My post was primarily to illustrate that a growing energy imbalance is consistent with, and indeed required (on average) with a constantly growing forcing. Pluging realistic figures into the equations, however, reveals a probable discrepancy in the OP which had been commented on, and which therefore I also reported. I did not claim that my estimate was accurate. Only that the discrepancy was sufficiently large that a 0.3 W/m^2 figure was dubious.

In general, to have a mean decadal increase in energy imbalance of 0.3 W/m^2, it must be the case that the growth in forcing times (1-TCR/ECS) = 0.3 Even with ECS and TCR at, respectively the upper and lower end of the likely range from AR5, that requires a decadal growth of forcing of 0.39 W/m^2, significantly more than the figure you derived from the AR5 chart. Alternatively, with a decadal increase in forcing of 0.35 W/m^2, you need a ratio of TCR/ECS = 0.14, ie, that the ECS by 7 times the TCR. Neither of these conditions is plausible. Therefore I can be confident that the increase is not 0.3 W/m^2, without pretending to know how much less than 0.3 W/m^2 it is.

I note with interest your calculation using GISTEMP data, but unless you are committing to the belief that the current low temperatures relative to trend represent an actual reduction in the trend rather than the effects of transient features such as ENSO fluctuations, using the actual temperature value will lead to a poor estimate of the further evolution of the energy imbalance. Using the Foster and Rahmstorf adjusted GISTEMP trend of 0.17 C/decade, we get a temperature increase over three decades of 0.51 C, with short term fluctuations eliminated. That drops your figure to 0.22 W/m^2 per decade, which is certainly reasonable, but not definitive.

2) Rather than Fig 1, which only shows model outputs, I will show Fig 7, which shows emperical (reanalysis) estimates along with the model outputs from Fig 1:

I note two things. First, the energy imbalance according to the model has been declining since 1995. Over that period, with a decadal increase of 0.3 W/m^2, it should have risen to about 1.5 W/m^2, which is noticably outside the montly standard deviation. That strongly suggests that a trend rate of 0.3 W/m^2 is inconsistent with the model over the last two decades.

Second, the reanalysis values are very eratic on both monthly and 1-3 year time scales. That means estimating the decadal trend from that data will be very hard. However, overall it follows the models quite will, which does not support a 0.3 W/m^2 per decade increase.

To summarize, energy imbalance will increase on average with constantly increasing forcing. With current forcing changes, the increase is likely less than 2.5 W/m^2, and possibly much less. Consequently, it is a mistake to say it is 0.3 W/m^2. I remain interested to see if Rob Painting or Kevin Trenberth (in particular) can give us a more accurate estimate.

Global warming is unpaused and stuck on fast forward, new research shows

chriskoz at 23:13 PM on 11 December, 2013

Time to update the top right widget guys, to 6HB/s?

It maybe a silly comment however I cannot help but saying the main science (i.e. IPCC and even widget now) underestimate AGW according to ignorant statistics. The best experts, e.g. Hansen, Stefan and now Kevin Trenberth, are saying "the better we look into the climate the more sensitive it appears to be". Even our own CW2013 provide some more evidence. Perhaps it's time to revise all Earth sensitivity parameters, less than 2 months after the releae of AR5!

Does the global warming 'pause' mean what you think it means?

grindupBaker at 17:06 PM on 21 October, 2013

@Dean #16 You might want to first look 1 step back at the foundation. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 40, 10 May 2013 pp 1754–1759 is 6 pages of "Distinctive climate signals in reanalysis of global ocean heat content" by Magdalena A. Balmaseda, Kevin E. Trenberth and Erland Källén with the graph & description of the ORAS4 reanalysis. Sure, they use models which can therefore be argued but my inference is that these are to interpolate in time & space between ocean temperature data from the 7,000 Argo floats & huge numbers of XBTs (I seem to recall climate scientist saying 240,000 in a video) which are sparsely spread at depth and back in time decades ago. Where you and I would simply average between the two distant measurements, I presume their fancy computers do a better job than a linear interpolation by simulating how the ocean moves. But basically it's underpinned by 7,000 Argo floats <huge numbers> XBTs. With all the work they've done it just doesn't look like they could have messed it up so badly that the 137 ZettaJoules they graph being added to the oceans from 2000 to 2012 could be off by any amount that's a game-changer. I doubt very much that the climate sensitivity IPCC uses is based on what's been seen, I think the big increase since 2000 is at the lower IPCC feedbacks. I infer that IPCC is using the models and I infer that they show increasing feedbacks so what we've seen so far hasn't even reached the lower end of the forcing+feedbacks they expect.

Time to change how the IPCC reports?

Tom Curtis at 06:38 AM on 17 October, 2013

With the greatest respect for Kevin Trenberth, I disagree. The IPCC provides an impartial, conservative benchmark on the state of climate science. As a consequence, its reports have a substantial impact in convincing the general society of the reality, and danger of climate change. It is for that reason the denier movement expends so much energy in attacking the IPCC. If the IPCC substantially changes its mission, that will be portrayed by deniers as a concession of defeat in its current mission, a portrayal that will resonate with the public. Therefore such a move would be a backward step in attempts to get global policy settings that will adequately tackle climate change.

IPCC model global warming projections have done much better than you think

grindupBaker at 13:04 PM on 3 October, 2013

@sereniac #73 There are numerous lectures on internet video if you are interested such as:

---science only---

David Randall: The Role of Clouds and Water Vapor in Climate Change - Simon Fraser University Kevin Trenberth: The Role of the Oceans in Climate - Simon Fraser University Sarah Gille : Long-term Temperature Change in the Southern Ocean - Perspectives - University of California Television climate modelling lectures by Prof Inez Fung (she has several, they all hurt my brain) Prof Inez Fung: Anatomy of a Climate Model: How Robust are Climate Projections? Professor Ted Shepherd: Understanding uncertainty in climate models

-- science & activism --

The Scientific Case for Urgent Action to Limit Climate Change - Richard Somerville Berkeley University: Dan Miller Extreme Climate Change Catastrophic Climate Change & Runaway Global Warming - David Wasdell

David Wasdell: various

Richard Muller: various

2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #35A

ubrew12 at 19:52 PM on 28 August, 2013

The link to 'Kevin Trenberth's take on climate change' is not working for me.

I found a valid link at

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/features/npr.php?id=214198814

A grand solar minimum would barely make a dent in human-caused global warming

chriskoz at 17:08 PM on 14 August, 2013

Dana,

I think your final formula to calculate ∆T is unreadable due to too many factors used. In the end, reading it, I'm confused which number is which factor.

I did my own calculation with simpler numbers as follows.

In my calculation, I don't need to consider ∆TSI. I can take amount of sun energy absorbed by Earth (∆TS_abs) and assume it changes by the same percentage as ∆TSI. I think your calculation makes the same assumption, although I'm not sure. Then, from (Kiehl and Trenberth, 1997), I look at this picture:

Earth Energy Balance

and find out the amount of Sun energy absorbed by Earth is 168+67 W/m2 = 235W/m2 (ground + athmosphere absorbtion on the left side of picture).

So ∆TS_abs = 0.25% * 235W/m2 = 0.5875W/m2

With the equilibrium sensitivity of 0.75K/Wm2, the corresponding ∆T is 0.5875*0.75 = 0.44K

So, my number is larger than yours (0.3K), other suties you quote. Why is that? Did I make a mistake?

A tale told in maps and charts: Texas in the National Climate Assessment

grindupBaker at 18:40 PM on 28 July, 2013

@william #5 Dr. James Hansen says his best estimate with feedbacks for CO2 doubling is +2.8 Celsius (climate sensitivity) and Dr. Davis Randall says +2.4C. 400ppm is 52% of CO2 doubling assuming steady feedbacks, so that's +1.3 to +1.5C. I recall somebody (maybe Dr. Kevin Trenberth) saying "another 0.5 degrees in the pipeline" so that fits with +1.4C if it is +0.9C now (I keep forgetting the base times). Apparently, +1.4C is a reasonable projection. The oceans are ~1,000 years behind land and air because of their mixing rates so it would generally stay somewhat below +1.4C for ~1,000 years, likely with little fits and starts like we've already seen because of variation in ocean mixing.

Why doesn’t the temperature rise at the same rate that CO2 increases?

grindupBaker at 15:26 PM on 25 July, 2013

@DAK4Blizzard #3: Extra info. Dr. Kevin Trenberth says in SFU lecture video posted as "The Role of the Oceans in Climate" oceans mix well to 20m depth in summer, 100m in winter - can take 90m as average and will delay response by 6 years. KT says 3.5m depth = all atmosphere heat. Dr. Randall says top 6.5m land is what's considered (insulates well) and equivalent to 3.25m ocean depth but I recall a lady climate scientist saying only ~2m ocean depth = all land heat (my memory vague on that latter).

CO2 effect is saturated

StealthAircraftSoftwareModeler at 02:04 AM on 17 July, 2013

KR @222. I went and read Myhre 1998 that produced the ΔF = 5.35*ln(C/C0) W/m2 estimate for CO2 forcing. The issue I have with this is that the alpha coefficient of 5.35 is derived from three different models, which assume that the models are accurate relative to the global atmosphere.

Being a software modeler myself (for 30+ years) dealing with RF energy through atmosphere, I understand that what is measured in the lab, what is model in software, and what the real world does are almost always very different. The real world is so noisy and chaotic that I have found models are almost useless in predicting what will really happen in the real world. I would be stunned if this is not also true for this forcing equation, and GCMs in general.

Trying to measure this value for the real world, on average, is probably impossible given that the atmosphere is so different moment to moment and place to place, and changes in long term trends may be hard to determine since we have so little empirical measurement data. So while this is the “best go-to reference” we have, I doubt it is realistic or correct relative to what is really happening in the real world. I admit it *might be* correct, but I cannot prove or disprove it, nor can anyone else. This isn’t meant as a criticism of experts in this field, only a realization of my experience that the atmosphere is impossible to model accurately.

Tom Curtis @226: I think you made a minor math error. If the average global temperature is 15C, or 288K, then 0.5% of this is 1.44K. I love the energy balance diagram by Stevens et al 2012. I went and read the paper and I found it quite interesting. Since Kevin Trenberth has generated a topic on the energy budget (http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=865), I am going to take my questions and comments about the energy budget over there.

Scaddenp @227. Just because warmer air can hold more water vapor, doesn’t mean it will. Charts I have seen (http://www.climate4you.com/GreenhouseGasses.htm) of humidity for the atmosphere over time has been about the same at low levels, but at higher altitudes relative humidity has been decreasing. If these charts are correct, this seems to suggest that water vapor has not increased as the atmosphere has warmed over this time period (65 years).

Global warming is here to stay, whichever way you look at it

Bob Tisdale at 07:29 AM on 1 June, 2013

Tom Dayton at 6 writes: “But frustratingly, the article undermines its own point by having the diagram labeled ‘Global Mean Temperature’ instead of ‘Global Surface Atmospheric Temperature.’ Likewise, the paragraph after the diagram does not specify ‘surface atmospheric.’ Will you change those, please?”

Tom, I didn’t find a response to your concerns on this thread, so allow me. The dataset Kevin Trenberth is using in his illustration is the NCDC’s monthly global surface (land and ocean combined into an anomaly) temperature anomaly index (degrees C). Refer to the overview here:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/anomalies.php

It is made up of sea surface temperature and land surface air temperature data, with most of it (about 70%) being sea surface temperature data. Therefore, Kevin Trenberth cannot call it “surface atmospheric” temperature.

Regards.

The Scientific Method

Ray at 17:32 PM on 1 April, 2013

I'm sorry scaddenp but having re-read the topic posted I can't quite follow the points you are making. The article under dicusssion is on the scientific method and the comments I make on the scientific method are, as far as I can see, entirely relevant. I presume therefore you are referring to my comment "However in the field of climate science this discussion is severely hampered by the entrenched positions on both sides of the debate." Is this inaccurate? There are discussions on climate science between Dr Pielke Snr, Dr Pielke Jnr, Dr Roy Spencer, Dr John Christie and Dr Judith Curry who have some reservations about CAGW and Dr Gavin Schmidt, Dr Phil Jones, Dr Michael Mann, Dr Kevin Trenberth and Dr Eric Steig who have few reservations about of CAGW. All of these are clmate scientists and it his hard to see how Drs. Christy, Spencer, Curry et al fall into your category "However, the "discussion" is between non-climate scientists, (ideologically-driven for most part), trying to fool the public with misinformation;. Similarly I wonder if Drs. Schmidt, Jones, Mann et all would be flattered by your comment "real scientists who on the whole are inept in public communication." All of these scientists publish and comment on the publications of others which seems to cover your point that " If there was real debate, then it would be reflected in the exchange in scientific papers." It is my opinion that there are entrenched positions but I accept that you don't consider this to be the case. I respect yoiur opinion. (-snip-).

New Research Confirms Global Warming Has Accelerated

grindupBaker at 11:56 AM on 28 March, 2013

mehus@19 dana1981@20 John Hartz@21 I inferred from Kevin Trenberth lecture on Utube that "missing heat" was discrepancy between radiation imbalance (KT stated 0.9 wm**-2) & delta ocean heat expected from it. If so, volcanos aerosols & others would not affect "missing heat". Did I misunderstand what the discrepancy was ? Was it rather a discrepancy twixt the underlying physics, or models, & prior delta ocean heat measured ?

New Research Confirms Global Warming Has Accelerated

Lazarus at 01:16 AM on 26 March, 2013

Trenberth recently mentioned the mising heat here;

http://www.rmets.org/weather-and-climate/climate/energy-and-climate-dr-kevin-e-trenberth

16 ^ more years of global warming

trunkmonkey at 09:23 AM on 3 February, 2013

Kevin C @ 123

Not really what I was saying. Ocean enthalpy is all over the map from Trenberth's dropoff and "missing heat" to Levitus's steady rise. Finally found the time to plot Foster and Ramshorf against Levitus as I mentioned earlier to curiousd. Not conclusive but shows similar structure.

http://geosciencebigpicture.com/2013/02/02/structural-sim…ocean-enthalpy/

16 ^ more years of global warming

Kevin C at 07:06 AM on 28 January, 2013

Trunkmonkey: Just to be sure I'm understanding you correctly - are you saying that the deviations of the 'human contribution' (or more correctly the ENSO/solar/volcanic-removed temperature) from linear (or more correctly from anthropogenic forced response) are due to variations in the rate of heat transfer to the deeper ocean?

If so, then I think there is another mechanism to consider. A while back Kevin Trenberth was answering questions on a post here, and I asked about the nature of the unaccounted-for radiation imbalance since 2003. If I remember correctly he attributed part of the answer to anomalous cloud response during an ENSO event. In which case it could be that clouds can play a significant role on short timescales.

I suspect these two mechanisms account for much of the deviation, but I wouldn't like to guess in what proportion.

16 ^ more years of global warming

KR at 10:31 AM on 24 January, 2013

Tom Curtis - One problem I see in discussing the AMO is multiple definitions; ESRL's, Trenberth, etc. Each definition really requires its own analysis, something not clear when discussing the "AMO" without further qualifications.

Kevin C - My expectations match your results. I'm looking forward to your updates.

Past 150,000 Years of Sea Level History Suggests High Rates of Future Sea Level Rise

Jim Baird at 09:21 AM on 11 December, 2012

Doug, Paul Curto, former Chief Technologist with NASA, recently pointed out, OTEC's impact on reducing the surface water temperature over time would be on the order of one degree F per decade at a power level of 2.5 terawatts.

Sea surface temperatures running at over 3C above normal along the Atlantic coast from Florida to Canada where the driver for hurricane Sandy. Global warming is estimated to have contributed about 20 percent of this heat which would not have been available had we been producing 2.5 terrawatts of OTEC power the past 10 years.

Kevin Trenberth points out, "With every degree C, the water holding of the atmosphere goes up 7%, and the moisture provides fuel for tropical storms.

Five terawatts of OTEC power each decade would negate this increase.

Five terawatts requires a lot of infrastructure but then so did the Manhattan Project and war efforts in general. I prefer to think that we should be on a war footing where global warming is concerned and so did over 70 percent of other Canadians in a poll a while back.

Past 150,000 Years of Sea Level History Suggests High Rates of Future Sea Level Rise

Jim Baird at 04:00 AM on 11 December, 2012

The poles are warming faster than the rest of the planet because of energy in the atmosphere that is carried to the poles through large weather systems. The consequence is we have the threat of methane releases from the permafrost and icecap melting.

These systems are driven in the main by sea surface heat which can be sapped to produce energy with OTEC. The more energy produced the more the ocean surface is cooled.

Part of this heat is converted to mechanical energy in the process but the bulk, 20 times the energy produce, is moved to the deep water heat sink that has a lower coefficient of expansion.

Kevin Trenberth, points out in a paper, "An imperative for climate change: tracking Earth's global energy", "The warming required to produce 1 mm SLR if the heat is deposited in the top 700 m of the ocean can take from 50 to 75 1020 J, or 110 1020 J if deposited below 700 m depth.

In other words you can move heat from the surface to the depths with OTEC to counter 50 percent of current sea level rise due to thermal expansion.

By sapping the heat of hurricanes you also diminish the amount of heat that would be moved from the tropics towards the poles and thus forestall melting.

This is the lesson of Hurricane Sandy, no one apparently cares to learn.

Disclosure - patents pending

It's El Niño

Bob Tisdale at 19:58 PM on 7 December, 2012

Tom Curtis at 146 says: “Why did Tisdale include a La Nina dominated period in his final period, when he must know that doing so will distort the comparison with the earlier period? And if La Nina dominated periods cause cooling, why has there been no cooling in the La Nina dominated period from Jan 1999 to the present?”

Tom, you’re referring to this graph. If you had been following the conversations on this thread you would have discovered that the global oceans did not respond proportionally to the La Niña events of 1988/89 and 1998-01 and that that failure to cool proportionally during those La Ninas was why the sea surface temperatures for the Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific oceans (referred to as the Rest-of-the-World in earlier comments) acquired its long-term warming trend. So why then are breaking the latest warming period at 1999 during the 1998-2001 La Nina when the Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific data acquires part of its long-term trend? If the Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific data cooled proportionally during the La Niña events of 1988/89 and 1998-2001, it would have no warming trend like the East Pacific!

Tom Curtis at 146 says: “Interestingly, in his comment @137 Tisdale quotes Compo and Sardeshmuk…”

You then go on, Tom, to attempt (and fail at your attempt) to fault me for using a single index in the above graph, but then immediately compromise your position by referring to your preferred single index, the Southern Oscillation Index.

Second, you’ve apparently misunderstood Compo and Sardeshmuk. Their discussion of a using a single index had to do with regression analysis. They wrote:

In particular, defining ENSO in terms of a single index and ENSO-related variations in terms of regressions on that index, as done in many previous studies, can lead to wrong conclusions. This paper argues that ENSO is best viewed not as a number but as an evolving dynamical process for this purpose.

In this graph, I did not use the ENSO index in a regression analysis. I simply averaged the NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies. There’s a very basic difference, Tom.

You also failed to recognize the importance of what I wrote after I quoted Compo and Sardeshmuk. It was:

Compo and Sardeshmukh have not accounted for the left over warm water associated with major El Niño events, like the 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 El Niños. In time, maybe they will.

Compo and Sardeshmuk are a step in the right direction, as I noted before I quoted them in my comment at 137.

Tom Curtis at 146 says: “Therefore simply taking the SST anomaly in the Nino 3.4 region over vastly different time periods cannot plausibly be considered a measure of ENSO activity. It in no way allows for the effects of other factors which we know will cause changes in the SST in the Nino 3.4 region as much as anywhere else.”

What “other factors” are referring to, Tom? Are you aware the authors of peer-reviewed papers about ENSO consider NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies to be “a measure of ENSO activity”? An example is the Giese et al (2009) paper The 1918/19 El Niño. They argued that the 1918/19 portion of the 1918/19/20 El Niño was underestimated in the NINO3.4 sea surface temperature reconstructions, and that it was likely comparable in strength to the 1982/83 and 1997/98 El Niño events. Giese et al (2009) also suggested that the 1912/13 and 1939/40/41/42 El Niño events were also under-rated. If as you say, the NINO3.4 data “cannot plausibly be considered a measure of ENSO activity”, why would Giese et al (2009) have even written their paper, Tom? Why would NOAA use NINO3.4 data as the basis for its Ocean NINO Index? Why would Kevin Trenberth recommend NINO3.4 data over the SOI? Read on.

Please also note the dataset used by the ENSO experts who wrote that paper, Tom. It was HADISST, the same one I used. It was not HADSST3 or HADSST2, which you used in your comment 151.

With respect to your preference to the Southern Oscillation Index data, are you aware of all of the difficulties with that dataset? Refer to Trenberth (1997) The Definition of El Niño. He writes (my boldface):

Various versions of the SOI exist although, in recent years, most deal only with atmospheric pressures and usually only those at Darwin and Tahiti. In using the SOI based on just two stations, it must be recognized that there are many small scale and high frequency phenomena in the atmosphere, such as the Madden-Julian Oscillation, that can influence the pressures at stations involved in forming the SOI, but which do not reflect the Southern Oscillation itself. Accordingly, the SOI should only be used when monthly means are appropriately smoothed (Trenberth 1984, Trenberth and Hoar 1996a). For many years, Tahiti data were available only after 1935. Ropelewski and Jones (1987) outline an extension of the SOI prior to then using newly discovered Tahiti data, and they also discuss different ways of standardizing the data for use in the SOI. However, there are questions about the integrity of the Tahiti data prior to 1935 (Trenberth and Hoar 1996a), as the Tahiti-Darwin correlation is much lower in spite of strong evidence that the SO was present from other stations, and the noise level and variance in the early Tahiti data is higher than in the more recent period. Although Ropelewski and Jones (1987) state that they believe that months with data contained a full complement of daily values, several monthly means are missing and the monthly means that are present for the earlier period are more consistent with the view that they originate from an incomplete dataset in which values contributing to monthly means are missing. There are also questions about whether the diurnal cycle in surface pressure, which contains a strong semidiurnal tide component, has been adequately dealt with in forming the means. Ropelewski and Jones (1987) use a 5 month running mean to define their indices (as is done in NOAA's Climate Diagnostics Bulletin).

It took a couple of years after that paper, but in response to those deficiencies in the SOI, Tom, NOAA and many scientists adopted NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies and the Cold Tongue Index (which is based on sea surface temperature anomalies of a similar region) as the better measure of the frequency, magnitude and duration of El Niño and La Niña events.

Further to your comment 151: One of the reasons Giese et al used HADISST is because HADSST2 or HADSST3 are spatially incomplete. That is, there’s missing data. This can be seen in the output from the KNMI Climate Explorer of NINO3.4 data for the periods of 1912 through 1944 and 1944 through 1976, using a 15% cutoff as you did:

HADSST2 NINO3.4 from 1912-1944

HADSST2 NINO3.4 from 1944-1976

HADSST3 NINO3.4 from 1912-1944

HADSST3 NINO3.4 from 1944-1976

Note how much data is missing. I’ve limited the graphs to 3+ decade periods so that you could see all of the missing data, unlike your graphs in comment 151. That lack of data appears to have skewed the results you presented in comment 151, Tom.

If you had asked me what dataset I used in this graph, Tom, I would have told you HADISST. It’s been infilled so there’s no missing data. Here are the HADISST-based graphs from the KNMI Climate Explorer of NINO3.4 SST anomalies so you can visually compare them to the HADSST2- and HADSST3-based graphs above:

HADISST NINO3.4 from 1912-1944

HADISST NINO3.4 from 1944-1976

The differences between the HADISST-based NINO3.4 data and the others are quite extraordinary. Also if you had asked, I would have explained why I used HADISST—the HADSST2 and HADSST3 datasets are spatially incomplete in the NINO3.4 region. And I would have told you I used the base years of 1950-1979 in agreement with Trenberth (1997) The Definition of El Niño. He stated that 1950 to 1979 was the best base period for NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies. Trenberth writes:

Figure 1 shows the five month running mean SST time series for the Niño 3 and 3.4 regions relative to a base period climatology of 1950-1979 given in Table 1. The base period can make a difference. This standard 30 year base period is chosen as it is representative of the record this century, whereas the period after 1979 has been biased warm and dominated by El Niño events (Trenberth and Hoar 1996a). Mean temperatures are higher in the Niño 3.4 region than in Niño 3 and its proximity to the Pacific warm pool and main centers of convection is the reason for the physical importance of Niño 3.4.

If you had asked, Tom, I would have been happy to explain all those things. You could have saved yourself a lot of time, and you would not have jumped to all the wrong conclusions.

The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science

chriskoz at 12:57 PM on 3 December, 2012

In the Wikipedia article, Clyde@14 has linked to, Trenberth is quoted:

"The answer to the oft-asked question of whether an event is caused by climate change is that it is the wrong question. All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be."

And he goes on to explain the differences between weather and climate. The fact that after having read it (supposedly), Clyde continues to ask a question of "proof what Sandy would have been if..." indicates that Clyde did not understand own link!

We all know the basic difference between weather and climate predictions: weather is about extrapolating the current precise conditions into the short future, climate is about modelling the average long-term conditions.

Clyde's question does not make sense because it confuses/contradicts weather terms with climate terms (especially this silly "proof, what if" requisition made me laugh big times!), while Kevin's question is a very reasonable question about an average fingerprint of a changing climate.

The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science

Clyde at 17:56 PM on 2 December, 2012

@dana1981 - 10

Hyper linked from the link you claim i never read.

But the issue is far from settled, and climate change is not the only factor. For example, while sea surface temperatures are currently about 3 °C above average along the Atlantic coast, the expected increase due to global warming is just 0.6 °C, according to Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. So while the changing climate certainly plays a role, Trenberth says, there is plenty of space for natural variability.

Looks like Trenberth agrees with me. Nobody can say how much a role GW played.

On the link you claim i didn't read.

"While it’s impossible to say how this scenario might have unfolded if sea-ice had been as extensive as it was in the 1980s, the situation at hand is completely consistent with what I’d expect to see happen more often as a result of unabated warming and especially the amplification of that warming in the Arctic"

Trenberth said that the null hypothesis would be that the negative North Atlantic Oscillation was just part of the oscillation's natural phases, and at present the influence of polar warming was speculative.

There is actually a fairly simple answer to this question: human-caused climate change amplified the hurricane's impacts.

My question is by how much? If there was no GW would Sandy's damage been mild compared to what is actually was? So for news article to say GW caused Sandy to do X amount of damage is "Gish Gallop." I'm not saying GW had zero effect on Sandy. I'm just saying it can't be proved how much of an effect it did have, nor can it be proven what Sandy would have been like say in 1980.

Was the climate a whole lot different in 2011? Why didn't Irene turn into a Sandy?

Hurricane Sandy and the Climate Connection

OregonStream at 12:30 PM on 2 November, 2012

"However, note that during the hurricane event, SSTs along the coast were approximately 3°C above average, whereas global warming has increased SSTs by closer to 0.6°C. Thus as Kevin Trenberth notes, while global warming contributed to the hurricane intensity, so did natural variability".

And can't natural variability regionally amplify a forcing? That 0.6 C isn't exactly evenly distributed, and future warming won't be either. As the NERC/Met office/Royal society statement put it, "We expect some of the most significant impacts of climate change to occur when natural variability is exacerbated by long-term global warming, so that even small changes in global temperatures can produce damaging local and regional effects".

Nuccitelli et al. (2012) Show that Global Warming Continues

From Peru at 17:40 PM on 12 October, 2012

I don’t know who trunkmonkey is , but here you can found perhaps one of the most extreme bloggers in the ”climate skeptical” community.

In the link there an agrresive attack against Kevin Trenberth, who is called among other things a “hardcore Stalinist” and a then insulted in a way that is so offensive that I cannot quote it without being snipped (read the blog post if your stomach is strong enough).

What is more shocking is that this blogger, Lubos Motl, is a superstring theory quantum physicist(perhaps the most advanced area in the physics community), yet he cannot understand the elementary thermodynamics of planetary climate.

I suspect that the explanation for the paradox of having people that are scientifically educated yet deny the evidence is ideology, since he believes that the climate consensus is a a “worldwide communist conspiracy” against capitalism and the free market. Maybe he had a trauma with the Stalinist regime decades ago, because he is Czech.

What is more sad is that he is not alone in his beliefs. Czech Republic president Václav Klaus believes in this , and had even said things like calling environmentalists "the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, market economy and prosperity" and even "Environmentalism should belong in the social sciences" along with other "isms" such as communism, feminism, and liberalism”.

Not to mention some sectors of the US Republican Party...

I have two questions:

1) How widespread are in the physics community this kind of ideas? I used to believe the physics community one of the more liberal and progressive among the scientific community

2) Maybe this skeptical science team paper could be used at Lubos Motl blog to show how wrong he is about the Kevin Trenberth’s “missing heat”(I think a paper will have a zero effect on himself, but maybe it could wake up true skepticism among his readers)

Models are unreliable

Clyde at 05:04 AM on 1 June, 2012

Bob Loblaw 512

I have no idea if Pielke Sr is right or wrong when he issued the challenge. All i know is if anybody has taken him up on it he hasn't posted it..at least not yet. The link below is not the challenge (I'll try to find it later) but has several peer reviewed papers casting doubt on predicting future climate based on computer models.

Read more here.

I've read articles that Kevin Trenberth has a theory where the "missing heat" went. Another example of the models not being very accurate. How can you just a model[s] that missed 10 years of heat?

My first try with the hyperlink deal. Hoping this works.

Roy Spencer finds negative feedback

skywatcher at 09:43 AM on 22 April, 2012

Uncle Ben, your comment "Will any warmist check Spencer's method?" really is rather funny. Perhaps you didn't note who wrote the "advanced" rebuttal on this theread, one Kevin Trenberth. The same Trenberth from Trenberth et al 2010, which rebuts one of Spencer's core arguments. The post is essentially a reporoduction of the post by Trenberth and Fasullo at RealClimate (Mods - should that connection be highlighted or am I not seeing the link?). Barry Bickmore has also deconstructed Spencer's models here, and also the modelling in his book here (more on Spencer's book here) These issues have been repeatedly looked at by those professionally competent to do so, and every time Spencer's little models have been found desperately wanting.

Spencer's in the same position as you are, having no clue how to generate the ice ages
"... it is reasonable to suspect that the ice ages and the interglacial periods of warmth were caused by some as yet undiscovered forcing mechanism. (p. 69)" In the real world, they are rather less of a mystery.

Claims of publication supression are perennially comical - if so, how did Spencer and Braswell get published? Lindzen and Choi? The laughable, lamentable McLean et al? Bad papers get published, even in good journals, quite regularly - and for papers that are even worse, there's always Energy & Environment. And funny how claims of supression come from those who are demonstrably doing bad science (not just contrary science, but demonstrably bad).

I'm not sure what you're on about in regard to Mount Pinatubo. "Laboriously removed"? (source?). It's actually been used to estimate climate sensitivity too (e.g. Bender et al 2010)!

Roy Spencer's Junk Science

RonManley at 18:14 PM on 5 March, 2012

Thanks for the comments - most of which I accept - which is why my description of the 'model' is littered with caveats. For example, I state explicitly that the use of “natural climatic oscillations” as independent variables is “questionable”. Such a simple ‘model’ cannot of course trace the transfer of heat and, for that matter, CO2, into and out of the oceans. It cannot handle water vapour feedback. All I claim to have done is to show that temperature variations for the last 150 years can be easily simulated if you included GHGs; if you exclude them you have to postulate some other undefined alternative forcing mechanism.

When Kevin Trenberth suggested that the null hypothesis should be that humans are changing the climate I did not agree with him; now I am starting think that he might be right.

NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)

Rob Painting at 07:58 AM on 6 February, 2012

Old Mole @ 16 - Almost finished a blog post on Loeb (2012), a large part of the uncertainty is the XBT (expendable bathythermograph) data, which was sparsely sampled in both time and space. That comprises the bulk of the ocean heat content data between 2001-2003 in the 2001-2010 period that Loeb (2012) looks at. Also there is substantial variation in the 3 ocean heat content records.

These are things that Kevin Trenberth was complaining about in the first place, so progress has been limited.

Not sure about Hansen (2011) have had a read through, but will have to look at that again. It's an interesting paper, if you can see beyond the disturbing implications of such a strong aerosol cooling effect. Will write something up about that too in the future. Need to digest it a bit more though.

It hasn't warmed since 1998

Rob Honeycutt at 03:35 AM on 17 December, 2011

SirNubwub... What you're describing is exactly what "Trenberth's Travesty" is all about. The work Kevin Trenberth does is, basically, doing a full accounting of where the heat energy is going within the climate system. The "travesty" he talks about is the fact that science is still so limited in its ability to track where that heat is going. We have top of atmosphere measurements that tell us the planet is retaining heat, but we primarily look at only one measure that directly relates to us, and that's surface temperature.

So, when there is a slowdown in surface temperature, it's not because the Earth is retaining less heat energy, it's because the heat energy is moving around in places where we can't adequately measure it.

The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for download

Tom Curtis at 13:03 PM on 29 November, 2011

skept.fr @14, the following from DeepClimate (also quoted at Real Climate) is exactly why do not consider a comparison between Tamino and McIntyre is appropriate:

"... it is very clear that a new round of out-of-context quote mining and error-filled “analysis” is already unfolding. And the leader out of the gate, so to speak, appears to be Ross McKitrick, whose recent National Post piece on the IPCC and the latest batch of stolen emails is now being spread far and wide.

In one particularly outrageous and error-filled passage, McKitrick accuses IPCC AR4 co-ordinating lead authors Phil Jones and Kevin Trenberth of selecting their team of contributing authors solely on the basis of whether they agree with the pair’s scientific views. He even goes so far as to accuse Jones of “dismissing” (i.e. rejecting as a contributing author) one qualified expert who, supposedly in Jones’s own words, “has done a lot, but I don’t trust him.”

But the record clearly shows that it was Trenberth who made that last comment, and that he was expressing misgivings about the quality of the researcher’s work, not whether he was on the “right side” of scientific issues. And the expert in question, climatologist Joel Norris, was in fact selected by Trenberth as a contributing author. Even worse, McKitrick has reversed the order of the Jones quotes, taken them out of context, and then juxtaposed them to make it appear as if they were part of the same exchange. Meanwhile, an examination of the two separate email discussions show chapter co-ordinators trying to fill out their team with authors who will be able to contribute effectively, in complete contradiction to McKitrick’s central thesis."

So, McIntyre has misattributed quotes, taken them out of context, and stitched them together out of chronological order to aid misinterpretation. Further, he ignores the fact that the person discussed was in fact accepted as a contributing author, thus invalidating his thesis. It has long been my firm belief that out of context quotations are simply a form of lying. So while Tamino gives us clear analysis of statistical issues relating to climate science, McIntyre gives use data (in this case quotations) deliberately out presented out of context with intent to deceive. That is why it is inappropriate to use McIntyre as a source, but appropriate to use Tamino.

Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming

Rob Painting at 21:47 PM on 16 November, 2011

Norman @ 37 - yup, I'm aware of the draft. Rather than focus solely on the issues raised by Rahmstorf and Coumou, I'd also like to see them (Dole [2011]) cast their net much wider in terms of detection & attribution. They were heavily criticized by Kevin Trenberth here. Be nice if they addressed these.

Continued Lower Atmosphere Warming

pielkesr at 23:47 PM on 18 October, 2011

Bernard J. -

You write

"If Pielke Snr has the reference for the work that the planet has in fact not warmed since 1998 (or whenever) I would be most interested to read it."

I have never said that. What I have reported on is the limited warming in the upper oceans in recent years (since 2004) which is clearly evident in http://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/. If you (and the others) want to ignore the obvious you certainly can do that. Even Kevin Trenberth and Jim Hansen have not ignored this observation.

The lower troposphere similarly has not warmed in recent years, nor has the lower stratosphere cooled. Stating the obvious should not be a source of disagreement.

Your analogy to the ice baths is certainly unclear except I like your connection to heat (Joules) rather than temperature directly.

What I presume everyone will agree with is that from 2003 onward, the most appropriate diagnostic to monitor global warming is the ocean heat content changes. If we can agree on that (and since you use the bath tub analogy which involves heat in Joules), than this thread and the others would have been time well spent debating.

In terms of this thread, enough has been said. I will be posting my views on the experience on my weblog sometime this week.

Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions

dana1981 at 02:40 AM on 14 October, 2011

Dr. Pielke:

"The OHC accumulation for the upper 700m since 2003 is positive but small [see http://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/]. We seem to agree on tha (as does others such as Kevin Trenberth)."

Yes, I think we're all in agreement that the accumulation in the upper 700 meters has been relatively small, as compared to previous decades. However, there's nothing special about the 700 meter mark, either. And the warming of the upper 1500 doesn't appear to have slowed appreciably.

"If there is heat accumulating at depth (and I have been discussing this issue at Real Climate, the question is whether we see this transfer of heat downward in the Argo data)."

I'm not sure that is the question. It's an interesting question whether or not the ARGO network could detect this transfer, but regardless of the answer to this question, the heat at greater depths has been measured. I view your question more in the "interesting" category than "important", necessarily.

"Regardless, if the heat is actually there, it has important consequences:

1. The use of the global annual average surface temperature to monitor global warming misses a component of this heating. This means the current trends using this metric underestimate global warming, but also make the difference between its trend and that of the lower tropospher even greater."

I don't follow you here. I agree with the first sentence about the heat in the deeper oceans not being reflected in surface temperatures. But heat going into the deep oceans doesn't impact surface temperatures or the ratio of TLT to surface temperatures.

"With respect to the reported deeper ocean heating, why would this heating recently have become larger?...If this heat was going to depths for all of the previous years, it increases the magnitude of global warming during those years."

I don't know - I'm no oceans expert, and I'm sure there will be a lot of research on this subject in the near future, just as there has been more research on OHC in deeper layers. It's an important question.

Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions

pielkesr at 00:00 AM on 14 October, 2011

dana1981 - Regarding

"We appreciate your acknowledgment that your blog post claiming that OHC has not increased since 2003 was incorrect. We agree that increase in OHC for the upper 700 meters has slowed in recent years. However, as we discussed in the post above, and Rob P's recent post, and John's post today, heat is also accumulating in the oceans at depths below 700 meters."

The OHC accumulation for the upper 700m since 2003 is positive but small [see http://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/]. We seem to agree on tha (as does others such as Kevin Trenberth). If there is heat accumulating at depth (and I have been discussing this issue at Real Climate, the question is whether we see this transfer of heat downward in the Argo data).

Regardless, if the heat is actually there, it has important consequences:

1. The use of the global annual average surface temperature to monitor global warming misses a component of this heating. This means the current trends using this metric underestimate global warming, but also make the difference between its trend and that of the lower tropospher even greater.

2. The reduction of surface ocean heating means that the evaporation of water vapor into the atmosphere would be less. Indeed, in recent years, the water vapor content in the tropsphere does not seem to have been increasing.

3. If there is heat at depth, it is hard to see how it quickly remerge back into the atmosphere in order to affect weather.

Thus, the identification of greater heating at depth introduces yet another complexity into the real climate system.

The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall

David Lewis at 03:56 AM on 10 October, 2011

I would hope that everyone understands that scientists often find they disagree on how to interpret data and that their disagreements are often resolved over time.

I described what I understood of Hansen's ideas in order to ask if it appears to others that Hansen's idea that most models respond to forcing too slowly because they send too much heat into the deep ocean contradicts this NCAR research.

Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate (in his reply to comment #3 under his post Global Warming and Ocean Heat Content) appears to have answered a question similar to mine by saying there is no contradiction.

Here is the question posed at RealClimate:

"[regarding “Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications”] In that paper, especially in sections 6 & 7, it appears – to me anyway – that James Hansen and his colleagues have given up on the search for the so-called “missing heat” in the deep ocean and have instead concluded it must have been radiated away as a result of the negative anthropogenic aerosol forcing. I take this as suggesting that Hansen has parted company with Kevin Trenberth and others and has conceded that the IPCC models are flawed – flawed in their “climate response functions”.

Do you know if the model used by Meehl suffers the same problem with the “climate response function” that Hansen discusses? Do you have any other comments on the Hansen et al. paper?"

[Response by Gavin Schmidt]: I don't see any contradiction. Meehl et al are looking at a generic behaviour which will exist in all models, while Hansen is thinking about the specific forcings and response for the last decade. Different issues. - gavin

Yet in Earth's Energy Imbalance and Implications Hansen republished Trenberth's "Global Net Energy Budget" diagram from Trenberth's "Perspectives" piece, which was originally published in Science, i.e. this one

And Hansen says this about it: "the slowdown of ocean heat uptake, together with satellite radiation budget observations, led to a perception that Earth's energy budget is not closed (Trenberth 2009, Trenberth and Fasullo 2010), as summarized in Fig. 19A. However, our calculated energy imbalance is consistent with observations (Fig 19b), implying there is no missing energy in recent years."

Which sounds like he is making sure everyone knows he is contradicting Trenberth and the NCAR research as described in this "The Deep Ocean Warms when Global Surface Temperatures Stall" Skeptical Science post.

When describing the NCAR work it seems there must at least be a mention that a scientific group with the stature of Jim Hansen's appears to completely disagree.

Or, is Gavin Schmidt correct that Hansen is not contradicting NCAR?

Or, is it the case that Hansen is losing scientific credibility in the minds of the writers here at Skeptical Science?

Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp

grypo at 10:20 AM on 20 September, 2011

Just to give people an idea of the asymmetry involved in this debate, as far as "tone" goes, let's inspect Climate Audit's latest thread.

1. Asserts Trenberth is a plagiarist
2. Asserts Trenberth was given special treatment
3. Says the "Team" (there's a name) are obstructionists on data and opposed to his ideas about openness

A few threads earlier:
1. "climate capo Kevin Trenberth"
2. Refers to the analysis of Dessler as "Mannian"
3. Another assertion about the process that Dessler 2011 was published
4. Ends, "Perhaps the editor of Science will send a written apology to Kevin Trenberth."

Do Watts and Pielke object to this treatment? And name-calling? Not that I've seen. The constant attacks on scientists from those now attempting to demean SkS for a few silly names on buttons can't be called anything less than preposterous from what I can see. If tone trolling is the best people can do to take down SkS than that should be more of a compliment. It's like in the middle of war zone and one side has stopped to criticize their enemy for grunting too loud. It was a nice try.

But if the word 'Crocks' bothers the important crowd (ie not the blogging ideologues) we are trying to reach, I think changing it is correct.

One-Sided 'Skepticism'

Rob Painting at 16:58 PM on 17 September, 2011

Critical Mass @ 110 - ".....then the only explanation is that the CO2 and other positive forcings have been overestimated (or Solar cyclical effects underestimated)"

I know Kevin Trenberth disagrees, but there are several papers awaiting publication which support global dimming, through Asian aerosols, as the cause of the warming slow-down in the 'noughties'. The dimming occurred in the Southern Hemisphere, which would explain the slow-down in ocean heat content over the last decade.

Mythic Reasoning about Climate Uncertainty

muoncounter at 08:44 AM on 29 August, 2011

chris#9: That is a stunning find; the paper is indeed available in pdf from your link - thanks!

It is quite a difference from the current party line, which includes:

And finally, I’m sure you knew it had to be coming:

Irene’s got a middle name, and it’s Global Warming

The quote is from Bill McKibben, cited in a post at Collide-a-Scape. Apparently Kevin Trenberth’s reversal of the null hypothesis has taken hold in certain segments.

The 2006 paper quotes Trenberth as inspiration:

Trenberth (2005) published a commentary in Science raising the issue as to whether the increase in North Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995 could be attributed to global warming. This paper motivated us to begin looking at global hurricane data.

Here is Curry's own reversal of the null hypothesis:

while there are uncertainties and heterogeneities in the global hurricane dataset, the magnitude of the trend identified by WHCC is sufficiently large that the null hypothesis must be rejected based upon the currently documented uncertainties in the dataset.

Acknowledgments go to Trenberth, Emmanuel and others - most notably the arch-enemy Joe Romm; a far cry from thanking the denizens of ClimateEtc for their 'contributions.'

I believe this is known in political circles as a flip-flop.

Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change

skywatcher at 12:56 PM on 15 August, 2011

Doug, as others have said, you're clearly making up an alternative universe here, and ignoring the physics and mathematics, and most crucially the evidence along the way. You should be aware that a major in physics and maths does not automatically confer an understanding about earth science or climate science, just as the reverse is true. You have been directed to a number of excellent initial sources of information by the patient commenters above. Have a read of them, and you can begin your journey into the world of real climate science.

I admire the patience of people here dealing with you, but I am also disappointed that you have been allowed to totally derail a thread in which Kevin Trenberth at #68 took the time to answer queries regarding his opening article. It's kudos to SkSci that he did this as you don't often get a chance to exchange views with the most active climate scientists in the world, but a shame the discussion could not have continued from there. Up until that point I was learning quite a lot. I presume he's no longer reading this thread, but I appreciated both the article and his reply to some of the first 67 posts.

Perhaps this is another example where a RC-like 'bore hole' or 'climastrology' thread into which to drop these kinds of persistently made up and irrelevant posts by DougCotton would be a good addition to Skeptical Science? The fish can be shot in the barrel in a place where they do not detract from interesting topics!

There is no consensus

Tom Curtis at 14:33 PM on 9 August, 2011

Eclipse @366, I am not sure of the correct thread, so I'll make my response here.

First I should say, what a load of tripe Douglas Cotton has produced. He persistently claims that the IPCC "assumes" values which have been measured, while asserting without measurement "facts" to be true simply on the basis that they are convenient to his theory. Like many deniers, he obviously has no idea what goes into a General Circulation Model, assuming that they have the properties of a one dimensional model, while he himself employs an unphysical model of radiative transfer, the most obvious flaw of which is that he assumes any upward transmitted radiation from the atmosphere is immediately emitted to space (whereas most of it is simply absorbed by higher levels of the atmosphere).

His core assumption is that:

"The IPCC models assume far too much radiation from the Earth's surface instead of convection with air molecules which do not emit photons that can be captured by CO2"

He defends that claim with this illustration:

The defense consists of simply reasserting his claim, and an analogy based on a cooking pot. Of course, the IPCC (actually Kiehl and Trenberth 1997, which has since been updated with Trenberth, Fasullo and Kiehl 2008 [PDF]) based their conclusions on actual measurement.

The difficulty arises because it is not possible to measure the upward surface IR radiation at all, or even many locations around the globe. Rather, detailed measurements have been done over particular land surface types under various conditions. These measurements produce results like these:

Note that the upward IR radiation is consistently greater than 400 W/m^2. (It is shown as a negative number to distinguish energy leaving from energy entering the surface.

For comparison, consider these measurements of Net radiation, Q*, (Incoming shortwave plus incoming longwave minus outgoing shortwave minus outgoing longwave), latent energy, LW, and sensible heat, H.

Sensible Heat, Cotton's "conduction" does not rise above 200 W/m^2 except over a dry lake bed, and is negative for much of the time. Clearly, averaged across the twenty four hour day, and across a variety of locations, it is a much smaller component than the outgoing surface IR radiation.

Khiel and Trenberth's figures where generated by taking a great number of measurements such as these, and using them together with knowledge of the proportion of the Earth's surface covered by each surface type to estimate a global figure.

In contrast, Cotton's alternative estimate was made by waving his hand near a cooking pot.

The difference in procedure is a true indicator of the difference in value of the two works.

The human fingerprint in the daily cycle

Norman at 12:49 PM on 7 August, 2011

Albatross @ 96

I read the Zhou et al. (2010) paper you linked to. What the paper seems to be saying is that the ALL simulations (ones with both anthropogenic and natural forcing) could not match observed DTR. The model simulations did not have a large enough DTR.

In this paper they talk about another paper Dai et al. (1999) which I looked up. This paper makes the claim that 80% of the observed DTR can be explained by a slight increase in cloud cover over the time of observation.

From the Dai article (co-written by you friend Kevin E. Trenberth):
"The historical records of DTR of the twentieth century covary inversely with cloud cover and precipitation
on interannual to multidecadal timescales over the United States, Australia, midlatitude Canada, and former
U.S.S.R., and up to 80% of the DTR variance can be explained by the cloud and precipitation records. Given
the strong damping effect of clouds on the daytime maximum temperature and DTR, the well-established
worldwide asymmetric trends of the daytime and nighttime temperatures and the DTR decreases during the last
4–5 decades are consistent with the reported increasing trends in cloud cover and precipitation over many land
areas and support the notion that the hydrologic cycle has intensified."

Link to Dai article.

On a bigger scale number crunching. I have been entering daily High and Low temperature for Omaha, Nebraska for the past 626 days. I did the Daily high temp minus normal high temp and averaged the 626 days. I came up with -0.65 F. I also did the low temp = the low normal and came up with 2.48 F. The High temps are cooler while the low temps are warmer. Clouds explain 80% of this effect.

Oceans are cooling

Kevin C at 21:07 PM on 2 August, 2011

Highly relevant paper here (h/t Ari):
http://www.knmi.nl/publications/fulltexts/katsman_voldenborgh_grl_all.pdf

It is also interesting with respect to Kevin Trenberth's recent guest post on the energy imbalance.

Ocean Cooling Corrected, Again

Bibliovermis at 04:47 AM on 2 August, 2011

BP,

Let's do a quick "back of the envelope" calculation.

Ocean's Depth and Volume Revealed

ocean volume: 1.332 billion cubic kilometers
water heat capacity: 4.186 joule/gram °C

90% x 1.322 billion cubic kilometers x 1 million grams / cubic meter x 1 billion cubic meters / cubic kilometer x 4.186 joule/gram °C x 0.002 °C = 9.96 x 10^21 joules

argument #122: Trenberth can't account for the lack of warming
A global energy imbalance of 0.9 W/m^2 means the planet is accumulating 145 x 10^20 joules per year.
---

The surface is warming the deep ocean, rather the deep ocean inducing the surface to warm. The easier heat goes into the deep ocean, the slower the surface is able to warm up if it is heated. Think about it.

You are simultaneously presenting contradictory arguments and dismissing entire fields of research with that hand waving.

Michaels Mischief #1: Continued Warming and Aerosols

Bob Lacatena at 00:11 AM on 31 July, 2011

80, Composer99,

An oft repeated quote in the blog entries I've found (I'll trust Trenberth over Spencer any day of the week, year, decade or century):

"I cannot believe it got published," said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Earth's Climate History: Implications for Tomorrow

muoncounter at 10:49 AM on 28 July, 2011

Sally #12: "Are we able to scientifically link the rise in extreme/severe weather events in terms of being attributable to climate change ?"

That's a hot button issue. Most people will respond with a cautious 'maybe'; statements like the probability of extreme events has increased due to global warming. See the prior extreme weather thread for cautious discussion of 2010's events.

The frequency of extreme warm anomalies increases disproportionately as global temperature rises. "Were global temperature not increasing, the chance of an extreme heat wave such as the one Moscow experienced, though not impossible, would be small"

See this recent Scientific American series for this year's version:

Increasingly, the answer is yes. Scientists used to say, cautiously, that extreme weather events were "consistent" with the predictions of climate change. No more. "Now we can make the statement that particular events would not have happened the same way without global warming," says Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.

Is it a good sign that the language used by the experts is changing? Sorry, didn't mean to give you another reason to lose sleep.

Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change

Kevin Trenberth at 02:29 AM on 25 July, 2011

As has been noted, I have been traveling, and I have quickly gone through the 67 comments. A few responses follow.

There seems to be some confusion over Fig. 3. This represents the total net radiation from CERES EBAF and so it does include effects of clouds. It is not just the clear sky component (that is a lot more uncertain). Ironically the working definition of "clear sky" used in the community excludes clouds but includes aerosol. Since aerosols affect clouds (the indirect effect), I find this rather unsatisfactory. Still it does not affect things here.

There is discussion in the comments of the supposed finding that increasing aerosol (pollution) from China may be the explanation for the stasis in surface temperatures and I do not believe this for a moment. Similarly, Jim Hansen has discussed the role of aerosol as a source of discrepancy. However, the radiation measurements at the top of the atmosphere from satellites (CERES) include all of the aerosol effects, and so they are not extra. They may well be an important ingredient regionally, and I have no doubt they are, but globally they are not the explanation.

How did the imbalance occur (comment 2) can be seen from Fig 3 broken into ASR and OLR (not shown here). ASR increased, suggesting fewer clouds as occurs in La Nina over the tropical Pacific, but OLR decreased. The latter seems to be mainly a temperature signal: colder conditions mean less radiation to space. This is often a complex relationship because the biggest variations occur in the Tropics and there is typically a large offset in OLR and ASR signals in association with variations in convection that largely relate to albedo effects being offset by the radiation to space from tops of clouds. Thus fewer clouds means more ASR and more OLR (since the radiation to space comes from warmer lower levels). But that works only in the tropics. At higher latitudes OLR is dominated by surface temperature effects.

Comment 17 asks about "back radiation" which is really "downwelling radiation" that is the downward component emitted from the atmosphere in all directions. Clouds, water vapor, and all the greenhouse gases play a key role and the emissions correspond to the temperature of the air. For clouds, the key temperatures are the cloud top temperature for emissions to space and the cloud bottom temperature for emissions back toward the surface. An important point is that to understand the energy flows (which include radiation), the full three (or really four) dimensional structure of the atmosphere is needed, and the simple Figure 1 does not show the vertical structure of temperature.

In response to 26: yes melting permafrost can take up some energy but the amount turns out to be very tiny.

The last topic I'll touch on is the ocean heat content (OHC). A couple of references were made to the von Schuckmann and Traon paper, which was nice to see, but has some flaws. For instance the data down to 2000 m in the ocean have increased since 2002 and since the beginning of that analysis, yet their error bars are constant. New analyses will be of considerable interest and are underway.
I discussed this in this article here in Nature:
Trenberth, K. E., 2010: The ocean is warming, isn't it? Nature, 465, 304. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/NatureNV10.pdf

ENSO involves a redistribution of OHC and losses to the atmosphere in the latter part of El Nino, and gains during La Nina, so this is internal to the climate system, not external (comment 31). The southern ocean is clearly playing a role (comments 48, 49)in taking up heat and mixing it deep, even though the magnitude of the observed warming is small. But the data are fragmentary and unsatisfactory in many respects. Nonetheless, the southern oceans, while playing some role, are not the main place where the heat goes in our model. We have a paper submitted that describes and documents that in more detail so it is premature to go into detail here.

A nice paper is in press in GRL by Palmer et al (UKMO) using two Hadley climate models that details the relationship between SST and OHC to different levels in their model. Going all the way to the bottom accounts for all of the OHC but the upper OHC in the top 300 m and the SST (which relates to that) are not always good indicators of total OHC. So they also find that energy can go missing into the deeper ocean, and moreover the main phenomenon in their model associated with this is La Nina. [This latter point is not in their article].

The bottom line is that the ocean plays a major role in climate and especially in interannual and decadal variability, and a lot more will be written on this topic. Maintaining an adequate observing system is extremely important.

Kevin Trenberth

Why Wasn't The Hottest Decade Hotter?

David Lewis at 06:49 AM on 17 July, 2011

Kevin Trenberth led the IPCC group that produced this chart:

He says: "We used 25 years in Chapter 3 of IPCC as the lowest trend we provided that was meaningful…."

All the denier noise about "trends" with shorter time periods is much ado about nothing.

Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change

Andy Skuce at 05:42 AM on 15 July, 2011

Humanracesurvival @ 52

It may be true that rapid removal of glaciers from volcanoes may provoke eruptions to occur earlier than they otherwise would have. It's also conceivable that sudden reductions in ice sheet thicknesses could cause earthquakes. However, these would temporarily and slightly increase the amount of energy coming out of the Earth. What we are looking for are hidden sinks and not extra hidden sources for the energy budget.

Anyway, the total amount of energy emitted from the Earth's interior is only about 1/10,0000 of the amount of solar radiation (not even big enough to be worth showing on Kevin Trenberth's Figure 1) and any small increases in this quantity due to climate-tectonic interactions would be entirely inconsequential in terms of the planet's energy budget.

Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change

David Lewis at 00:13 AM on 15 July, 2011

Rob Painting @50 and 51 - I haven't studied some of the papers you point to yet.

Hansen addressed Trenberth's "missing energy" in a talk which is on Youtube Here he is around minute 41:00:

Hansen: “There’s been discussions about this in the literature the last couple of years, where Kevin Trenberth had pointed out that there’s some discrepancy between what he thought the energy imbalance should be, and what the ocean data was telling [him]. And this is kind of a smooth curve, which I don’t know quite how he constructed this. But he thought there’s some imbalance, some missing energy [Hansen points to a projection of the chart that originally appeared in Trenberth’s Science magazine “Perspectives” piece]. I think that’s not actually the case. It actually agrees very well [pauses, stares at the chart], provided that you use this intermediate response function.” [he indicates the chart below Trenberth’s in the screenshot above].

[Discussion of this “intermediate response function" appears around page 20-21 in Hansen et.al., Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications. It’s an educated guess Hansen makes about what the actual climate response function is, given his suspicion that models may be looking good in the do they tend to reproduce climate changes we know about department because offsetting errors in assumptions compensate to allow them to simulate past reality pretty well. He’s doing some educated speculating about what if compensating changes are made to common assumptions underlying models along lines he suspects may be correct, what do things look like then?

He warns, again, that aerosols are still so poorly understood he’s on as sound ground about their effect in models as any scientist, if he asks his grandchildren what number he should use to represent their overall net effect.

He displays a picture of the very knowledgeable grandchildren he claims he consulted as he prepared his input to the IPCC AR4 in the above screenshot. He commented on this grandchildren joke (which he also presented in his Bjerknes lecture at the AGU) at around the 8:20 mark saying:

“Now if that doesn’t seem like very good scientific method, you should see what the other guys do”.

That Hansen paper also contains more discussion of the Trenberth "missing energy" chart on page 35.]

Uncertainty in Global Warming Science

Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 17:11 PM on 28 June, 2011

I - like Cambrun - I agree that we now have a significant and rapid GW, that currently GW (and formerly) can not be explained by climate change without GHG's.
Uncertainties the type "C", however, are very significant.
These "uncertainties" in the "fitting curve" have the effect of significant errors in risk assessment and risk management.

Camburn (synthesizing) mainly says: The main uncertainty concerns the natural influences on climate - especially the Sun.
Practically same way - also - concludes NOAA:“ Our understanding of the indirect effects of changes in solar output and feedbacks in the climate system is minimal ”

@KR
If not Scafetta - may we quote - Beer et al., 2000., The role of the sun in climate forcing: “If one computes the global and annual mean of solar forcing caused by the 100 kyr period of eccentricity one gets an amplitude of in the spherical mean. This value is too small to be detected in climate records. But, despite the tiny global forcing value, we can observe the 100 kyr frequency during the last 800 kyr in most paleoclimatic records. The global mean temperature changes between glacial and interglacial periods are large: about 20C for polar (Johnsen et al., 1995) and 5 for tropical regions (Stute et al., 1995).”

"0.12Wm ~ 2" - so would sometimes even multiply by 100 (!) - for the sum of direct and "indirect effects" influence of the Sun in palaeoclimate?

Let us look at uncertainties based on an interesting example. The rotational motion of the earth. The authors of this figure: , on this basis - in this paper, write: “...the LOD [Length of Day] fluctuations are largely attributed to core-mantle interactions and that the SAT is strongly anticorrelated with the decadal LOD. It is shown here that 1) the correlation among these three quantities exists until 1930, at which time anthropogenic forcing becomes highly significant ...”
All right ..., just that newer data (LOD) - from 198? year - are completely different from those shown on the aforementioned figure.

If the author of the Wikipedia chart is right - that is, its graph - "curve" - is more "fit" - the true - is to "present day" - we have a (sometimes shifted in time - it's true) excellent correlation (ie anti-correlation ) - shorter day = higher temperature.
What it can affect the climate? Earth rotating faster, the heat transport is closer to the poles (as in a glass - when we quickly mix tea ...), so the increase of CO2 added to the atmosphere with melted the "ancient" permafrost ...

Kevin Trenberth ( More knowledge, less certainty, 2010.):

„So here is my prediction: the uncertainty in AR5′s climate predictions and projections will be much greater than in previous IPCC reports ...”
“But while our knowledge of certain factors does increase, so does our understanding of factors we previously did not account for or even recognize.”

Sk.S. - skeptic, "denier", to the IPCC, and "mainstream" climate science?
I think that - at least in some significant points type “C”- certainly yes.

Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming

Eric the Red at 04:23 AM on 18 June, 2011

For instance, the large tornado outbreak in the U.S. this spring was largely a result of warm, moist gulf air colliding with the unusually cold midwestern air. This resulted in greater wind speeds, and cyclonic clouds occurring at the storm fornts. This affects winds speed, but not necessarily rainfall.

Much has been written concerning tropical cyclones and a warming world, with several divergent views as to what to expect. Kevin Trenberth summarizes the observations to date as being largely unclear.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/308/5729/1753.short

Trenberth can't account for the lack of warming

SoundOff at 23:09 PM on 2 June, 2011

Follow-up ...

It looks like the missing heat in Earth’s energy budget has been found. Apparently, it’s in the deep ocean. The paper below concludes “the ocean has absorbed considerably more heat than reported by observations, particularly below 700 m”.

Tracking Earth’s energy: From El Niño to global warming
Kevin E. Trenberth and John T. Fasullo
National Center for Atmospheric Research
May 15, 2011

Tracking Earth’s energy: From El Niño to global warming

Climate Change Denial book now available!

tallbloke at 00:56 AM on 31 May, 2011

Skywatcher@63
"Uncertainties about climate change do not, from a scientific perspective, include a range of climate change where there will not be serious consequences for modern human society from coastal swamping, extreme weather and poor food security."

The range of uncertainty on measurement of the top of atmosphere energy balance is around three times the size of the claimed theoretical signal from co2 plus alleged positive feedbacks. Kevin Trenberth knows this, which is why he worries about the location of the theoretical 'missing heat'.

Sensitivity may therefore be well below the range you state.

Humlum is at it again

Tom Curtis at 13:33 PM on 23 May, 2011

Camburn @13, if you mean the link provided @2, there is no discussion by you on that thread. I am not here to play some silly guessing game about which comments by other posters you may or may not agree with. If you have problems with Von Schuckmann et al (2009 or 2011) you should explicitly state them on the appropriate thread. Otherwise, as I have said, you are rightly considered to be merely hand waving.

@14 and @15: you left out some quite revealing quotes.

"I do not agree with your comments[that absent of measured ocean heat content is best interpreted as lack of OHC]. We are well aware that there are well over a dozen estimates of ocean heat content and they are all different yet based on the same data. There are clearly problems in the analysis phase and I don’t believe any are correct. There is a nice analysis of ocean heat content down to 2000 m by von Schuckmann, K., F. Gaillard, and P.-Y. Le Traon 2009: Global hydrographic variability patterns during 2003–2008, /J. Geophys. Res.,/*114*, C09007, doi:10.1029/2008JC005237. but even those estimates are likely conservative. The deep ocean is not well monitored and nor is the Arctic below sea ice."

(Kevin Trenberth, 16/4/2010, my emphasis)

So if you appeal to Trenberth's authority, the proper conclusion is that Von Schuckmann and Le Traon 2009 is superior to previous papers, but probably still underestimates OHC. That is hardly supporting your position.

"Actually, Kevin, I do not think that they are all very different. It sounds like you are familiar with Lyman’s upcoming Nature paper and in both Figure 1 and Figure 2 of that paper, you can see that the estimates after 2005 all have the same basic variability. In fact, if these estimates did not include the XBT data, they would be even more similar in terms of their variability. I have personally verified that my own estimtes of OHC variability are very similar to those made by von Schuckmann, Eric Leuliette and another Argo-only analysis by Dean Roemmich for the post 2005 period. During this period, the technique and statistics used to interpolate the data is really not that important because the data coverage is very good. In fact, the same is true for the period of the 1990s. One of the main points of the Lyman Nature paper is that the data biases are by far the most important remaining error–much larger than the differences caused by different interpolation techniques or differences in the assumed statistics."

(Josh Willis, 17/4/2010, my emphasis)

So, you have one expert who thinks the analysis is inadequate, and that it underestimates OHC increase; and another who thinks the analysis is adequate, and that it shows significant OHC rise (as in Von Schuckmann and Le Traon 2009 and Von Schuckmann et al 2011). From this you conclude, "When looking at a lot of literature, the error bars overlap enough that about all that can be concluded is that the OHC is flat with a negative bias." In other words, from expert agreement that there is a positive trend in OHC, you conclude that there is a slight negative trend in OHC. No more needs to be said.

Humlum is at it again

Camburn at 12:25 PM on 23 May, 2011

Tom:
I have to let others who are immenently qualified speak clearer than I can I guess:

I do think that Pielke Sr, Dr. Trenbeth and Josh Willis have a pretty good idea of what they are talking about:

http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/further-feedback-from-kevin-trenberth-and-feedback-from-josh-willis-on-the-ucar-press-release/

Carter Confusion #1: Anthropogenic Warming

Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 19:07 PM on 19 May, 2011

More knowledge, less certainty, Kevin Trenberth, 2010.):

„So here is my prediction: the uncertainty in AR5′s climate predictions and projections will be much greater than in previous IPCC reports ...”
“Is it not a reasonable expectation that as knowledge and understanding increase over time, uncertainty should decrease? But while our knowledge of certain factors does increase, so does our understanding of factors we previously did not account for or even recognize.”

National Academy of Sciences on Climate Risk Management

Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 18:46 PM on 19 May, 2011

Well ...

... write the same words of other people - and otherwise. Let me quote the words Kevin Trenberth ( More knowledge, less certainty, 2010.):

„So here is my prediction: the uncertainty in AR5′s climate predictions and projections will be much greater than in previous IPCC reports ...”
“Is it not a reasonable expectation that as knowledge and understanding increase over time, uncertainty should decrease? But while our knowledge of certain factors does increase, so does our understanding of factors we previously did not account for or even recognize.”

Trenberth repeats the arguments Earth System Models: The Next Generation, Meehl & Hibbard, 2006.:
“However, these components will introduce new feedbacks that will need to be understood through the analysis of sparse observations related to our limited understanding of how these components function in the climate system. These could include, for example, aerosol/cloud/climate feedbacks, vegetation/ocean/biogeochemistry/climate feedbacks.”

Of course I know that the interpretation (and explaining) the uncertainty must be based on the following recommendations ( The role of social and decision sciences in communicating uncertain climate risks, Pidgeon & Fischhoff, 2011.):
“Atmospheric scientist Kevin Trenberth of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, has explicitly warned that unless such seemingly paradoxical results are communicated carefully, the more complex modelling being used in climate simulations for the upcoming fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) may confuse both the public and decision-makers, thereby reducing their willingness to act.
The discourse of scientists can be a further source of confusion. For example, scientists do not normally repeat facts that are widely accepted among them, focusing instead on the uncertainties that pose the most challenging problems. As a result, lay observers can get an exaggerated sense of scientific uncertainty and controversy, unless a special effort is made to remind them of the broad areas of scientific agreement. Even that may fail unless it is made clear how 'scientific consensus' (as represented in the IPCC process for assimilating and deliberating evidence) differs from that in everyday life.”
“But understanding risk requires more than just knowing risk estimates People also need cognitive representations (or 'mental models') of the processes creating and controlling the risks, and thus causing uncertainty about them. For example, they may need to know how warmer oceans affect tropical storms, marine phytoplankton and winter precipitation, or how rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels lead to increased ocean acidification. Knowledge of such processes allows people to follow public debates and grasp the rationale for alternative policies. It protects (or 'inoculates') them from being 'blind-sided' by unfamiliar facts or perspectives. It affords them the warranted feelings of self-efficacy needed before acting.”

In this work also presents an interesting "uncertainty. " It shows, however - by the way - how these uncertainties are large (including economic), and that does not relieve the researchers explain: „... 'blind-sided' by unfamiliar facts or perspectives.”, because only this will help policy makers make decisions.

Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming

Albatross at 04:16 AM on 13 May, 2011

Bud,

Perhaps a more appropriate, more powerful, term to use is 'consilience'.

I agree though, nature and physics do not give a hoot about polls, and science is not a popularity contest.

With that said, the theory of AGW is well established.

If the 'consensus' issue is irrelevant, please then explain why those in denial about AGW or so-called 'skeptics' insist on falsely claiming that there is no consilience and second, then claiming that this somehow refutes the fact that the theory AGW is real. These studies and polls have been conducted to address that very strawman raised by "skeptics".

Regarding the stolen emails and the often mangled interpretation of Trenberth's words, that has been dealt with at SkS here, here and here.

The latest research suggests that the 'heat' may not have been 'missing' after all, we just were not looking in the right places.

Lindzen Illusion #6: Importance of Greenhouse Gases

akbetts at 05:20 AM on 11 May, 2011

The October 7, 1991 testimony to the Senate Hearing before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate on "Global Change Research: Water Vapor and the Climate System" gives an informative perspective on the scientific perception of water vapor and cloud feedback issues in 1991. I have posted a full transcript of this hearing (which is otherwise unavailable on the web) at
http://alanbetts.com/workspace/uploads/us-senate-roleofcloudsinclimate-7-1283380998.pdf

This hearing, chaired by Senator Al Gore; including prepared statements by:

Albert Arking, Alan K. Betts, Robert Cess, Robert Charlson, Michael Hall, Richard S. Lindzen, V. Ramanathan, William B. Rossow, Shelby Tilford, Col. Robert Townsend and Kevin Trenberth

as well as the lengthy discussion that followed, which clarified several issues.

This hearing is an interesting snapshot of scientific opinion on the climate change issue in 1991. Speakers were invited to present a range of opinions. I was invited to present a counter argument to the negative feedback mechanism (upper tropospheric drying by deep convective clouds in the tropics) proposed by Lindzen at that time.

My prepared statement ("The Role of Clouds in Climate Change") is P33-37; Lindzen's is P14-20. The general discussion starts on P50. The discussion of Lindzen's hypothesis is mostly P64-76. Lindzen formally withdrew his hypothesis during the discussion (on P68 - this was news to Al Gore). However I don't think this retraction was well-publicized; and Lindzen has continued to suggest other mechanisms for low climate sensitivity - which are discussed elsewhere on this site.

How climate change deniers led me to set up Skeptical Science website

scaddenp at 12:17 PM on 5 May, 2011

Ken, I have responded to you here

CO2 effect is saturated

Berényi Péter at 02:13 AM on 27 April, 2011

#136 KR at 22:44 PM on 26 April, 2011
Trenberth may have thought that it wasn't necessary to to spend much time on a value that has been known for >80 years. A value you could have determined with a few moments of web search, I'll note.

Really? I thought the proper way to determine values of physical quantities is to measure them. On the other hand Trenberth simply assumes it is 40 W/m².

We can get a deeper insight into his thought process if we consider an old paper of his where the problem is elaborated on briefly.

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 1997
Earth's Annual Global Mean Energy Budget
J. T. Kiehl & Kevin E. Trenberth

"Some of the radiation leaving the atmosphere originates near the earth's surface and is transmitted relatively unimpeded through the atmosphere; this is the radiation from areas where is no cloud and that is present in the part of the spectrum known as the atmospheric window, taken here to be the wavelengths 8-12 µm (Fig. 7). The estimate of the amount leaving via the atmospheric window is somewhat ad hoc. In the clear sky case, the radiation in the window amounts to 99 W m^-2 , while in the cloudy case the amount decreases to 80 W m^-2, showing that there is considerable absorption and re-emission at wavelengths in the so-called window by clouds. The value assigned in Fig. 7 of 40 W m^-2 is simply 38% of the clear sky case, corresponding to the observed cloudiness of about 62%. This emphasizes that very little radiation is actually transmitted directly to space as though the atmosphere were transparent".

Taken here to be & somewhat ad hoc, indeed. A value of 40 W/m² would imply a broadband thermal infrared optical depth of 2.29 (which roughly means the average photon gets absorbed 2.29 times before it escapes to space).

On the other hand this value averaged over the entire surface is below 1.9, that is, total thermal radiation flux escaping from surface to space unimpeded is above 60 W/m².

Trenberth's simple calculation makes two omissions. One is the polar window (above wavelength 16 μm), covered only by weak water vapor absorption lines, so in extremely dry regions (like polar ones) a considerable amount of radiation can get through in that frequency band. The other one is clouds. As clouds are always fractal structures, cloud covered surface has a fractal dimension less than 2 (and decreasing poleward). Cloud fraction is usually determined by counting cloudy vs. clear sky grid cells (pixels). However, the finer the grid resolution is, the less the ratio of cloudy pixels will be, because fractals are just like that. It means even in areas categorized as "cloudy" some thermal IR can get through to space unimpeded.

Therefore thermal IR radiation flux originating near the earth's surface and transmitted relatively unimpeded through the atmosphere is measured to be more than 40 W/m², Trenberth's back-of-the-envelope calculation is only good as a lower bound.

An error on the order of ~20 W/m² in one of the components is a serious one if an average planetary imbalance of less than 1 W/m² is pursued.

The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on

Berényi Péter at 18:58 PM on 21 April, 2011

#145 Alec Cowan at 23:34 PM on 20 April, 2011
So which one is The Email?

As it is not allowed to publish "other peoples stolen private emails" at this site, that question will not be discussed here.

I do not think "private email" is a proper characterization of correspondence between government employees (or scholars working on government grants) during office hours using their work email addresses, but ( -Snip- )

Anyway, the thread including Trenberth's travesty was started by Narasimha D. Rao, PhD Candidate at Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER), Stanford University, student of the late prof. Stephen H. Schneider, who denounced Paul Hudson, BBCs reporter on climate change to his mentor on Sunday, October 11, 2009 at 18:25:53 UTC in an email for publishing the article titled What happened to global warming? at the BBC site on Friday, 9 October 2009 15:22 UTC. Prof. Schneider elected to forward the message on Monday, 12 October 2009 at 22:32 UTC (14:32 local time) to the Team, encouraging them to "straighten this out" in an op-ed response.

What follows is the discussion of this question by various Team members including Distinguished Senior Scientist Dr. Kevin Trenberth. That's the context.

The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on

Gilles at 21:32 PM on 16 April, 2011

[complaint about moderation snipped]

did, or didn't Dr Kevin Trenberth write these sentences in reply to Tom Wigley :

[hacked private email snipped]

[complaint about moderation snipped]

The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on

Alec Cowan at 20:56 PM on 16 April, 2011

@Gilles #123

What's next? An e-mail with Trenberth telling John Calvin where is Miguel Servet hiding? Trenberth saying "no where close", was he eating "a whole nother apple"? Trenberth quoting his own e-mails ("Hi Tom >blah >blah >blah >Kevin"). Trenberth using the word "travesty" one each fifty words. Trenberth loving exclamation marks and speaking in an emotional way like he's part of Jersey Shore's cast. Trenberth saying "we will never be able" to do something.

Don't worry, I would be the first to complain if your message were deleted, as it clearly depicts yours, not Trenberth's.

The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on

Albatross at 17:00 PM on 10 April, 2011

I'm sure that Viabolo knows that the planet is in an energy imbalance (~0.9 W m^-2) on account of the radiative forcing of elevated GHGs, and as a result, in the long term, the planet is accumulating heat and warming.

In Trenberth's own words:

"Energy may be stored for some time, transported in various forms, and converted among the different types, giving rise to a rich variety of weather or turbulent phenomena in the atmosphere and ocean. Moreover, the energy balance can be upset in various ways, changing the climate and associated weather."

Also, Trenberth says:

"This paper tracks the effects of the changing Sun, how much heat went into the land, ocean, melting Arctic sea ice, melting Greenland and Antarctica, and changes in clouds, along with changes in greenhouse gases. We can track this well for 1993 to 2003, but not for 2004 to 2008. It does NOT mean that global warming is not happening, on the contrary, it suggests that we simply can't fully explain why 2008 was as cool as it was, but with an implication that warming will come back, as it has. A major La Niña was underway in 2008, since June 2009 we have gone into an El Niño and the highest sea surface temperatures on record have been recorded in July 2009."

And 2010 was tied with 2005 for the warmest year on record.

More here and here.

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

RickG at 08:51 AM on 19 March, 2011

damorbel,

The diagram, or schematic as Trenberth calls it, is from one of his many PowerPoint presentations. In other words the schematic is meant to be presented with discussion in context with his presentation.

The schematic as many of us have pointed out to you is about incoming solar energy and how it is distributed throughout the climate system taking different forms of energy. In describing this, not only by Trenberth, but all scientists, use the proper units of measure which is watts per square meter, not temperature.

But since no one seems to be able to convince you of that, watch Trenberth describe that very schematic himself in this video.

The Dai After Tomorrow

Stephen Leahy at 06:53 AM on 18 February, 2011

I covered the Dai study as well as another on the decline in the evapotranspiration rate over land here for IPS along with some comments from Kevin Trenberth and implications. (for those looking for an easy intro to the topic).

Monckton Myth #10: Warming in the Pipeline

barnErubble at 03:11 AM on 12 February, 2011

RE: dorlomin
"The 'in the pipeline' phrase is often misused to suggest it is stored in the oceans (well by the less well educated contrairians), . . ."

I take it that you believe Kevin Trenberth to be among the, 'less well educated contrairians'? Or is it just the phrase, 'in the pipeline' that should not be used to define the theory of stored heat in the Oceans? And Kevin is talking about vast amounts of heat being stored in the Oceans (albeit yet to be detected/found).

Kind Regards,
-Peter

Oceans are cooling

Berényi Péter at 13:10 PM on 22 January, 2011

#32 Albatross at 15:15 PM on 21 January, 2011
But then again it seems that you think that you know more about OHC than Palmer, Lyman, Trenberth, Levitus, Domingues, von Schuckmann, Good,Gouretski, Ishii, Komoto, Johnson, Smith, Haines, Murphy, Reseghetti, Antonov, Mishonov, Garcia, Locarnini, Boyer and Willis.

You are railing against an awful lot of grey matter, experience, expertise and training BP.

I do. And I tell you why.

Your figure of OHC history is from Trenberth 2010 (link corrected), which is a simplified remix of Figure 2 from Lyman 2010.

Nature, Vol. 465, pp. 304 (20 May 2010)
doi:10.1038/465304a
Global change: The ocean is warming, isn't it?
Kevin E. Trenberth

Nature, Vol. 465, pp. 334–337 (20 May 2010)
doi:10.1038/nature09043
Robust warming of the global upper ocean
John M. Lyman, Simon A. Good, Viktor V. Gouretski, Masayoshi Ishii, Gregory C. Johnson, Matthew D. Palmer, Doug M. Smith & Josh K. Willis

On the other hand I have used the OHC reconstruction published online at the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) NODC (National Oceanographic Data Center) OCL (Ocean Climate Laboratory) site, based on Levitus 2009 and updated regularly.

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 36, L07608, 5 PP., 2009
doi:10.1029/2008GL037155
Global ocean heat content 1955–2008 in light of recently revealed instrumentation problems
S. Levitus, J. I. Antonov, T. P. Boyer, R. A. Locarnini, H. E. Garcia & A. V. Mishonov

Fortunately the NOAA NODC OCL OHC site also has annual data in tabular format with proper error bars. If it is copied to your figure, it looks like this:

Now. As you know science is never about pictures. It is about propositions, preferably with a truth-value attached to them or at least a not-known tag. Figures like the one above is only meant to be concise representations of complex propositions.

For example OHC history reconstruction according to Levitus can be translated to a proposition like "There is a constant c that if ohc_k is the sum of c and the true value of OHC measured in 10²² J units for year k, then 0.246 < ohc₁₉₉₃ < 1.122 and 0.764 < ohc₁₉₉₄ < 2.256 and 1.615 < ohc₁₉₉₅ < 2.913, etc., etc."

A similar proposition can be constructed for the curve in your figure which is Trenberth's representation of Lyman's finding.

If you put the two propositions together like I did above by making a joint representation, it is clear that they contradict each other. Therefore if they are supposed to be joined by the logical operation conjunction as the graphical representation suggests, what you get is a false proposition. As you know, from a false proposition anything follows with the force of logical necessity, and of course among the many possible consequences there is the one you are seeking. Or its negation.

The problem is the error bars do not overlap. If it happens for different measurements of the same quantity, it is a sure sign it was not a measurement just some pure guesswork. Based on guesswork (as opposed to measurement with proper error analysis) you can never say things like "OHC is increasing". Of course you can say "I guess OHC is increasing" or "the educated guess (using some as yet unspecified system of fuzzy logic) of Palmer, Lyman, Trenberth, Levitus, Domingues, von Schuckmann, Good, Gouretski, Ishii, Komoto, Johnson, Smith, Haines, Murphy, Reseghetti, Antonov, Mishonov, Garcia, Locarnini, Boyer and Willis is that OHC is increasing",. However, it is not a factual statement, but a proposition regarding the personal or community beliefs of a group of individuals. As such, it belongs to the field of social, not natural sciences.

The Climate Show #5: Green roofs and Brisbane floods

Steve Meacher at 22:54 PM on 21 January, 2011

Thanks John,

I picked up on the "900 Sydney Harbours" comment as I recently read a similar calculation stating the additional global precipitation in "Lake Superiors" (here).

The most authoritative source I can find for the volume of Sydney Harbour (other than Wikipedia, which gives approximately 500 gigalitres ) is this -

"An informal unit of storage capacity commonly used in Australia is the “Sydharb”, which is the amount of water in Sydney Harbour, about 530 000 megalitres or roughly half a cubic kilometre of water", (in Water History - Lessons for the Future)

Also, The Honourable Craig Wallace, in a media release, December 13, 2007 says, "A sydharb is used as a unit of volume of water in Australia. One sydharb is the amount of water in Sydney Harbour - approximately 562,000 megalitres at high tide".

The Encyclopedia of Earth figure used in the Lake Superior calculation (13,000 cubic km water in the atmosphere) came from an article on the Hydrologic Cycle and is consistent with the 1970 figure you used.

I'd be interested if anybody can refine your calculation.

The Queensland floods

John Mason at 02:42 AM on 13 January, 2011

John,

Good to hear you are managing, but my heart goes out to those stricken by this calamity.

Here in Mid-Wales we have our first sou-westerly Warm Conveyor of 2011, with orographic enhancement leading to maybe 100mm of rain - but it's steady moderate stuff, not the convective deluges you guys have had.

With regard to the AGW element of this, one way to look at it is to imagine the weather being the lump sum of money and AGW being the interest - as Kevin Trenberth noted, 4% per extra degree Fahrenheit (or ~6% per degree C if you like).

Cheers - John

Is it safe to double atmospheric Carbon Dioxide over a 200 year period?

Albatross at 03:25 AM on 28 December, 2010

For those trying to argue that people have not been dying becasue of anthropogenic climate disruption, please consider the wise words of Dr. Kevin Trenberth to the New York Times recently:

"It’s not the right question to ask if this storm or that storm is due to global warming, or is it natural variability. Nowadays, there’s always an element of both."

Also research has shown that anthropogenic climate disruption played a role in the European heat wave which killed about 40 000 people.

And preliminary statistical analysis and has shown that the Russian heat wave (which also killed thousands) was probably also, in part, attributable to climate disruption.

And there are more examples where those came from.

An Even Cloudier Outlook for Low Climate Sensitivity

Albatross at 06:40 AM on 13 December, 2010

Maybe Dr. Dessler would be kind enough to also answer questions here?

Other prominent and respected climate scientists (including Trenberth and Soden) agree that Dr. Dessler's methodology is sound. Certainly much more sound that that used by Lindzen and Choi (2009).

From ClimateProgress:
"This is a very important check of the models,” says climate researcher Qiang Fu of the University of Washington, Seattle. “It shows no evidence of a large negative cloud feedback.” But climate researcher Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama, Huntsville, disagrees. He published one of the two papers finding evidence of a strongly negative cloud feedback. He finds in his own analyses signs that Dessler is seeing not only cloud changes caused by temperature changes but also temperature changes caused by natural cloud fluctuations. Such effects garble the true negative feedback beyond recognition, he says.

Spencer’s “interpretation is wrong," says Soden, but even if Spencer were right that there’s a cause-and-effect problem, Dessler’s method of comparing observations and models "eliminates some possibilities, such as the models being egregiously wrong. It’s about as good as we can do with current data sets."

Also,

"Dr. Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, is one of the leading experts on cloud modeling. He had been critical of some recent studies on the cloud feedback effect, so I asked for his thoughts on this study. He replied:

"The work is sound and is a very useful contribution. It is a foil to some of the misleading work that Richard Lindzen has published (and which we have shown is wrong). Kudos to Andy Dessler for trying to do this and doing it as well as it can be done."

Those are some pretty glowing reviews from some very critical and discerning climate scientists. Trenberth in particular, is a stickler for details, so his support of Dessler is important.

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Berényi Péter at 00:15 AM on 2 December, 2010

#220 KR at 02:59 AM on 1 December, 2010
However, when you say that "...Earth is a system very far from thermodynamic equilibrium", I would like to point out that as far as we can tell (again from Trenberth 2009, although I'm sure there are slightly different estimates out there) the balance sheet is currently tipped only about 0.9 W/m^2 from dynamic equilibrium. If we can reduce or prevent further GHG emissions, we can reduce that imbalance, and the resulting shift in global temperatures.

Thermodynamic equilibrium and steady state are very different concepts. Earth is not in thermodynamic equilibrium in any sense of the word, because its environment is not in thermal equilibrium. About one part in 184,801 of the skies around it has an effective temperature of 5777 K, while the rest is at 2.725 K. In first, second and third approximation there is only radiative coupling between Earth and its cosmic environment. In spite of the fact the Sun occupies only a tiny portion of the sky, due to the T⁴ dependence of thermal radiation flux, in excess of a hundred million times more radiative energy comes from it than from CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background).

What you call dynamic equilibrium has nothing to do with thermal equilibrium proper, when entropy of the system is supposed to be at its maximum. Quite the contrary. The overall entropy content of the climate system (which includes at least the atmosphere and hydrosphere of Earth, probably the biosphere as well) is kept at the smallest possible value by continuously getting rid of the entropy produced inside the system (OLR has a much higher entropy flux than ASR).

This low entropy state can only be maintained by working as hard as possible, that is, producing entropy at the highest possible rate (then radiating it away into outer space as soon as possible). This is what MEPP (Maximum Entropy Production Principle) is about.

Obviously an energy balance has to hold in the long run and on average, otherwise sooner or later the system would enter some absolutely crazy state (contrary to observations). But this balance is best described by the concept of steady state, not as a dynamic equilibrium, because it's only too easy to mix up the latter one with thermal equilibrium.

It is easy to show that whenever the climate system is in a MEP state, increasing the opacity of the atmosphere in thermal IR (that's what so called GHGs do) decreases rate of entropy production if all else is held unchanged. At the same time entropy content of the system goes up. That's what is described as warming, because warmer stuff has higher entropy in general.

BTW, if the climate system were in some suboptimal state by having less IR opacity in the atmosphere than required by MEPP, adding GHGs would increase overall entropy production and decrease entropy content, hence temperature. Saying the addition of some more GHG causes warming is equivalent to insist current IR opacity is already at or above the value implied by MEPP.

The fictitious value of 0.9 ± 0.15 W/m² TOA energy flux imbalance from Trenberth 2009 has nothing to do with reality. What is actually measured by ERBE and CERES satellites, is 6.4 W/m² (which is obviously wrong beyond repair). Therefore they apply all kinds of adjustments to the measured dataset so as to match computational model projections and this is how they arrive at the value which was assumed to be the correct one from start. The logic behind this exploit surely makes one's head spinning.

J. Climate, 2008, 21, 2297–2312.
doi: 10.1175/2007JCLI1935.1
The Annual Cycle of the Energy Budget. Part I: Global Mean and Land–Ocean Exchanges.
Fasullo, John T., Kevin E. Trenberth

J. Climate, 2008, 21, 2313–2325.
doi: 10.1175/2007JCLI1936.1
The Annual Cycle of the Energy Budget. Part II: Meridional Structures and Poleward Transports.
Fasullo, John T., Kevin E. Trenberth

The only measurement having a chance to shed some light on the true value of energy imbalance at TOA is ARGO Ocean Heat Content data, and only after mid 2003, not before (because OHC measuring network before that date was far too sparse, with serious undersampling as a result).

An energy imbalance of 0.9 W/m² is equivalent to a heat accumulation rate of 1.45×10²² J/annum. In seven years (between mid 2003 and mid 2010) it would be more than 10×10²² J. The NOAA/NODC figure above shows somewhat less than zero J went into the upper 700 m of oceans, so more than 10²³ J had to go somewhere else. But there is no place on Earth where such a huge quantity could possibly hide, therefore it is not hiding anywhere, but has left the terrestrial climate system by crossing TOA (as outgoing thermal radiation). In other words, there is no energy imbalance whatsoever, Trenberth's speculations are falsified along with the computational climate model calculations they were based on (which means Trenberth's famous "missing heat" is nowhere to be found at the moment, but it used to be in the oceans earlier, unobserved by the much less reliable XBT/MBT system, making steep parts of the NOAA/NODC OHC graph wanting). Present climate is as close to a steady state as it can possibly be. It is as simple as that.

And now back to theory. The most lucid point to have is that Earth is not getting any heat from the Sun, just short wave EM radiation. This radiation is turned into heat when and if it is absorbed by either the atmosphere or the surface (accompanied by a huge increase in entropy).

Concerning the effect of GHG addition, the "if all else is held unchanged" clause above is an all-important one. Of course there is no one there to hold things unchanged as some more CO₂ is added to the atmosphere, making it more opaque in a restricted thermal IR band. The real climate system has an astronomical number of degrees of freedom (vastly more than any computational climate model can possibly have), so it can adjust itself in any number of ways if a single parameter (like IR opacity in the 14-16 μm band) is changing.

If CO₂ addition has decreased entropy production rate initially (that is, if the system was close to a MEP state), it will readjust itself to increase its entropy production rate if possible, but under no circumstances would readjustment decrease entropy production rate further. That is, there is a strong tendency to counteract climatic effects of CO₂, but MEPP would not allow any change which would amplify it.

And indeed, that's what is observed. In the 7 years considered atmospheric carbon dioxide content went up from 376 ppmv to 390 ppmv, which is 5.3% of the radiative effect of a CO₂ doubling. Yet, it has induced neither "radiative imbalance" nor "heat accumulation" in the system, as it is indicated by actual measurements (as opposed to computational models).

Extreme weather isn't caused by global warming

OPatrick at 17:02 PM on 23 November, 2010

Here's somewhere it might be worth keeping an eye on (NCAR) Attribution of Climate Events
It appears to involve Peter Stott, Myles Allen, Martin Hoerling and Kevin Trenberth, so I'm guessing they know what they are talking about.

So far they largely seem to be highlighting the need for more cohesive research "A clear conclusion of the meeting was that there are important research needs in
developing an attribution service sufficiently reliable and timely to be applied routinely."

The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'

The Skeptical Chymist at 18:06 PM on 22 November, 2010

Ken @ 139

So you have read Kevin Trenberth's papers? Great. Then you will be aware than using his email to suggest he wouldn't agree with the statement "The evidence for human caused global warming is as solid as ever" was not consistent with his views.

Aside from his published work, another easy way to "ask" him is to check his website, where he says of the email you quoted:

"In my case, one cherry-picked email quote has gone viral and at last check it was featured in over 107,000 items (in Google). Here is the quote: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." It is amazing to see this particular quote lambasted so often. It stems from a paper I published this year bemoaning our inability to effectively monitor the energy flows associated with short-term climate variability. It is quite clear from the paper that I was not questioning the link between anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and warming, or even suggesting that recent temperatures are unusual in the context of short-term natural variability."

(bolding is my emphasis)

So no Ken, I don't think you are a dunce, but when it comes to the meaning of Kevin Trenberths' papers, I'll stick with what Trenberth says he means, not what others claim he means.

The Fake Scandal of Climategate

fydijkstra at 06:58 AM on 22 November, 2010

And here is a rewritten version of the post to which Caerbannog (#26) replied:

According to Longman’s Dictionary of Contemporary English a ‘conspiracy’ is ‘a secret plan made by two or more people to do something that is harmful of illegal’.
It is a matter of taste whether certain events that are elucidated in the Climategate e-mails can be called a conspiracy. On 8 July 2004 Phil Jones e-mailed to Michael Mann about some papers by Michaels and McKitrick and by De Laat and Maurellis, both discussing the influence of urbanisation on temperature. About half of the observed warming could be explained from the warming effect of urban agglomerations. Jones and Mann were not amused, and Jones wrote:
‘I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is! Cheers, Phil’

Keeping some papers out of an IPCC report is not illegal. But is it harmful? The 2007 IPCC-report would certainly have been less comprehensive without reference to these papers. Affecting the quality of an IPCC report can be considered a harmful action. So, this ‘secret plan made by two or more people’ can be considered a conspiracy.

Redefining what peer-review literature is, is not illegal either, although it is against the rules of scientific publication. And, moreover, it was impossible for Jones, Mann and Trenberth to redefine peer-review literature. This phrase can be considered boasting. It is no conspiracy.

Nevertheless, this example shows, that there was at least one event that can be considered a conspiracy. This conspiracy was unseccesful. The papers by MM and DLM were mentioned in the final version of AR4. But Jones was successful in omitting the papers from the first and second draft. It was only after repeated comments by Steve McIntyre, that Jones was forced to add a paragraph.

Conspiracy or not? Fact is, that the members of the Climategate e-mail club sometimes call themselves ‘the gang’ (11 times in the e-mails). Maybe that is another sort of boasting. My Longman’s dictionary says about a gang: (1) a group of young people who spend time together and often cause trouble and fight against other groups (2) a group of criminals who work together (3) humorous: a group of friends, especially young people (4) a group of workers or prisoners, doing physical work together. Which of the 4 definitions is appropriate is up to the readers. It’s their word, not mine!

The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'

The Skeptical Chymist at 03:38 AM on 21 November, 2010

Ken @114

Since you obviously value the knowledge and opinion of Dr Trenberth I find it somewhat curious that you don't seem to have taken the time to learn what he is talking about.

As discussed on this very site (and in his linked paper) Dr Trenberth's concern is that while satellite measurements show the earth is continuously accumulating heat, our ability to measure that heat and track where is it going is limited. The temperature record doesn't rise monotonously every year, even though the earth as a whole now contains more heat, it is this inability to "account for the lack of warming" that Trenberth refers to.

So nothing to do with climate models either.

And as to Trenberths current opinion, well in the same paper he says "global warming is unequivocally happening" so I think it likely he would agree with what John wrote.

Given the esteem in which you obviously hold Dr Trenberth I am hopeful you will read his paper and the one linked by Daniel (@119) and desist from putting forth arguments that misrepresent his views.

The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'

Ken Lambert at 00:13 AM on 21 November, 2010

John's Original Post and Marco:

"The evidence for human caused global warming is as solid as ever."

Why don't we ask Dr Trenberth a lead author and recognized expert on the forcings and energy balances:

This excerpt from the NP and Climategate emails:

Quote:

The 2001 Synthesis Report looked authoritative in its carbon and temperature outlooks. But one of the “lead authors” was Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.

Eight years later, Mr. Trenberth shows up in the emails. On Oct. 14, 2009, he wrote to Tom Wigley: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.”

In other words, one of the lead authors of the 100-year climate forecasting exercise says there’s something wrong with the models —or the data.

End Quote

Ref: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/12/18/terence-corcoran-a-2-000-page-epic-of-science-and-skepticism-part-1.aspx#ixzz15pLvdnlg

Before you all scream 'out of context' - please consider in what context such an opinion of a leading expert in this field and lead IPCC author would support the proposition that "The evidence for human caused global warming is as solid as ever."

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