A case of the blind leading the climatologists

the blind leading the climatologist

There has been no significant global surface warming this century, yet experts say that temperatures rose during the first decade, becoming seriously hot. Hotter than ever before, in fact. For example:

January 21, 2010:

Past Decade Warmest on Record, NASA Data Shows

The decade ending in 2009 was the warmest on record, new surface temperature figures released Thursday by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration show.

The agency also found that 2009 was the second warmest year since 1880, when modern temperature measurement began. The warmest year was 2005. The other hottest recorded years have all occurred since 1998, NASA said.

James E. Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said that global temperatures varied because of changes in ocean heating and cooling cycles. “When we average temperature over 5 or 10 years to minimize that variability,” said Dr. Hansen, one of the world’s leading climatologists, “we find global warming is continuing unabated.”

But the only thing continuing “unabated” is the linear trend line — it’s still going up, and its slope hasn’t changed. “It’s all right. Only the data show a decline.”

July 28, 2010:

NOAA: Past Decade Warmest on Record According to Scientists in 48 Countries

The 2009 State of the Climate report released today draws on data for 10 key climate indicators that all point to the same finding: the scientific evidence that our world is warming is unmistakable. More than 300 scientists from 160 research groups in 48 countries contributed to the report, which confirms that the past decade was the warmest on record and that the Earth has been growing warmer over the last 50 years.

These guys avoid claiming an actual rising trend, but are duplicitously content to leave the impression of warming.

Nov 29, 2011:

Past Decade Ties for World’s Hottest

Thirteen of the warmest years recorded have occurred within the last decade and a half, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization said on Tuesday.

The year 2011 caps a decade that ties the record as the hottest ever measured, the WMO said in a provisional report on climate trends and extreme weather events, unveiled at UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa.

“Our science is solid and it proves unequivocally that the world is warming and that this warming is due to human activities,” WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement, adding that policy makers should take note of the findings.

“Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached new highs and are very rapidly approaching levels consistent with a 2 to 2.4 Celsius rise in average global temperatures.”

Note they don’t actually blame the (future) temperature rise on the greenhouse gases. After all — that might force them to take a position.

Leading scientists and international climate bodies have been telling us the last decade became warmer than ever before. Read the above statements carefully and you’ll see they clearly make the point that temperatures were rising because they were high. Nitwits. Did they imagine we wouldn’t notice?

The Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organisation, Michel Jarraud, should lose his job and be charged with fraud. Because it’s manifestly incorrect that temperatures rise because they are high. His pointless assurance that “our science is solid” strikes me as the apprehensive barking of a dog with a make-believe bite.

Think of the grandchildren

So are the climatologists stupid or are they blind? The temperatures were relatively high, but they weren’t going up, they were going down. Perhaps they simply forgot to mention it, but I think their false claim of warming indicates something more serious than forgetfulness.

It indicates climate blindness, which has already affected many climatologists. This is a serious condition that leads to bad dreams and frequent distracted mumblings of “we’re all doomed” and “think of the grandchildren” and “we’ll lose all the cuddly-wuddly polar bears”.

Climate blindness renders graphs of inauthentic climatic effects meaningless. Inauthentic for them has the specific meaning of “does not exist in a publication authored by the IPCC.” That is why the graphs below don’t enter their conscious thinking and why they can believe in warming when every other dataset in the world shows no warming.

James Hansen, the so-called “father of global warming” deserves that title, even if it’s as fictitious as the global warming he allegedly fathered. I’ve heard of a phantom pregnancy, but a phantom fathering? The mind boggles. But he’s still away with the fairies and these graphs prove it.

Along with the odd title, Hansen also deserves reproach, for he as well as anyone could see that temperatures this century have declined. Of course, to do so he would have to acknowledge the existence of global temperature datasets other than his own at GISS, not to mention the existence of satellites, but how hard is that, really? He works for NASA. They launch the things.

C3 Headlines has a collection of wonderful climate graphs. It’s really the place to go, and it offers topical, illuminating comment on climate matters. Clarence, in comments here, drew my attention to this graph showing the lack of a clear trend in recent temperatures together with the undoubted strong rise in the atmospheric level of CO2 (that’s the big arrow pointing to the top right). (Click to enlarge.)

In 15 years CO2 rose by about 30 ppmv, or 8.26%, which is a significant increase in a gas that’s claimed to dominate global temperature. Yet the global temperature didn’t notice and didn’t develop a rising trend. It went up and down willy-nilly. Perhaps it was distracted by all the wild weather. Which wasn’t caused by global warming ‘cos there was none.

That’s half the accepted period of 30 years, over which scientists look for climatic trends, that no warming trend occurred. Sure, it’s not 30 years, but it’s a huge stretch of time. There are only 15 years left for a trend to appear. It’ll have to get a hurry on and it’s certainly going to be a small one.

The models are wrong

Here’s a question: Do you think mankind caused both the rise in CO2 and the cessation of rise in temperature, or did we cause just one of them, or neither?

For CO2 to have no effect on temperature for such a long period means the theory of dangerous AGW is wrong, the models are wrong (because they didn’t foresee this significant period of no warming) and the alarming predictions of doom for the biosphere are wrong. It also, by the way, means every child under 15 years of age has no experience of global warming.

This other graph from C3 is masterful. As well as using the reliable UAH satellite dataset, it adds temperatures from the warmists’ own HadCrut dataset to prove their own models wrong. (Click to enlarge.)

It’s clear that for some time global temperatures have been diverging from the predictions of the climate models used by the IPCC.

It’s becoming impossible

Even if temperatures start seriously to rise right now, they will have to rise at a truly stupendous, unprecedented rate to develop into the dangerous warming the experts have been warning us about.

But it’s becoming more and more unlikely. There’s no sign of them rising now, and every month that passes makes that predicted slope just a little bit more impossibly steep. They’ll never reach the predicted levels. That’s because carbon dioxide doesn’t dominate the temperature of the climate.

The bright green line shows the UAH satellite record and the two blue lines are from HadCRUT. Above them are temperature forecasts from three IPCC scenarios of CO2 emissions. The orange ‘commitment’ line shows what the IPCC thought might happen if CO2 emissions were stabilised in 2000 (fat chance). The darker red, green and blue lines represent different “business as usual” scenarios of CO2 emissions.

Get a real job

Global temperatures have now dropped below even the stabilized CO2 emissions (orange line). As C3 says, this is a “spectacular failure”, as it proves that CO2 levels are not raising temperatures and we now know climate models have no skill in predicting the climate.

Fifteen years so far without warming. How long do we wait for it? How long before we kick the members of the IPCC out of the make-believe world of the climate control business and tell them to get real jobs? Like building fishing dugouts in Bangladesh. Make a difference. Help someone.

Finally, to confirm that it’s not a lack of carbon dioxide that’s keeping temperatures down, the next chart shows global CO2 emissions still rising. Even while CO2 growth continues at the pace of the widely-feared IPCC “business as usual” scenarios, temperatures are not rising.

(These are emissions, not atmospheric levels — they are worlds apart.)

MSM: Hear that? Temperatures are not rising.

Question: Are we responsible for both the rising carbon dioxide and the static temperatures, or just one of them?

Is the rising carbon dioxide responsible for the static temperatures? If not, what has caused the static temperatures, and what is the carbon dioxide up to?

So many questions — so few sighted climatologists.

Views: 1090

53 Thoughts on “A case of the blind leading the climatologists

  1. Australis on 08/01/2012 at 12:56 am said:

    “There are only 15 years left for a trend to appear.”

    That’s a bit conservative. Virtually all the warming of the late 20th century occurred in three bursts: 1977-9, 1987-9 and 1997-9. The first (and smallest) has now dropped out of the 30-year horizon. In eight years time, the second burst will drop out and the slope of the trend line will plunge.

    The trend only needs to fall a little to disappear amongst the noise. Phil Jones once said that a forcing signal couldn’t be found (in a 30-year period) unless temps are trending above 0.11°C/decade.

    Perhaps Richard C, or another math-inclined reader, could calculate what the 30-year trend will be in 2019, assuming temps remain flat during 2011-19?

    • I can’t find what you’re describing. What temperature record are you looking at?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 08/01/2012 at 8:42 am said:

      The current RSS 30 yr trend is 0.015 C/yr to Nov 2011.

      Absolute rise from Nov 1988 – Nov 2009 (20 yrs): 0.3 C

      Absolute rise at Nov 2019 if temps remain flat: 0.3 C

      Linear trend Nov 1988 – Nov 2019 (30 yrs): 0.1 C/decade

      The linear trend is hogwash though because all of that 0.3 C rise occurred in ONE year (1998 El Nino) as you say, so that was more of an abrupt climate shift as I look at it.

      As Richard T says, there will have to be a similar abrupt shift soon to get the warmist show back on the road (as Gareth R hopes for this year), but we are in the middle of an unprecedented (?) double-dip La Nina – so what are the chances?

  2. Huub Bakker on 08/01/2012 at 4:45 am said:

    “Question: Are we responsible for both the rising carbon dioxide and the static temperatures, or just one of them?”

    I presume you mean that we are responsible for at least the rising CO2 but that’s not true either. We are responsible for only a fraction, about 4%, the rest coming from natural emissions. That is, assuming that you don’t believe that CO2 has a half life in the atmosphere more than the 5-10 years that virtually all studies show. (And yes, you guessed it, AR4 chooses the one that shows the half life well over 100 years,)

    • Yes, that’s basically what I’m saying, with the idea of challenging people’s thinking. If we’re “doing” all this global warming, aren’t we also “doing” the slow-down? But no, when you stop and think about it, there must be natural factors involved too. Now you fine-tune the picture by mentioning a 4% contribution.

      I notice people talking about CO2 staying in the atmosphere for 1000 years, even permanently. As though that makes its effects worse, which I’ve never understood. If it’s part of a carbon cycle, it doesn’t matter how often a molecule is replaced, if there’s always one there, the effect will be continuous and not increasing. What matters is the rate of increase and the warming effect is determined only by the instantaneous amount of CO2.

      We’re challenged enough in calculating the warming effect, because we don’t know much about it, without having to factor in some lifetime considerations as well. I think the lifetime thing is introduced just to confuse us.

  3. Andy on 08/01/2012 at 9:22 am said:

    Matt Briggs wrote a piece on the issue of “the warmest year on record” a while back:

    http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=45

    So the prediction that “2008 will be in the 10 ten warmest years” has an overwhelming probability of being true regardless whether man-made global warming is significant or not, and regardless whether an increasing or cyclic climate holds. That is, no matter what, this prediction is probably true, and it is useless as its intent was to give indirect evidence that the increasing climate scenario holds and that the man-made component of global warming is significant. It does neither such thing. Presenting this prediction as news is a clever debating tactic, but it is misleading, because the alternatives are not presented, even though the forecast is just as much evidence for them.

  4. Richard C (NZ) on 08/01/2012 at 9:27 am said:

    Attenborough’s Frozen Planet is due for screening in NZ this year so brace for “alarming predictions of doom for the [cryosphere]” in the last episode.

    Glaciers and polar ice are about the last real scary-story attention-grabbers the warmists can make mileage with now and needless to say, Hansen has been very busy colouring in the Arctic with his red crayon.

    So it must be disappointing after all that effort (and splendid artwork) that the Current Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area looks like it might close the gap on the 1979-2008 mean this NH winter:-

    http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png

    From: The Cryosphere Today http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

  5. Richard C (NZ) on 08/01/2012 at 10:06 am said:

    Turns out Dappledwater at HT (Prat Watch #2) is Rob Painting #35 in comments under Bryan Leyland’s Dom Post article.

    Dappledwater January 8, 2012 at 7:52 am

    I commented earlier on the thread at the DomPost (Dumpost?) and every single denier ignored it because they ‘don’t got’ no answer. We know originality isn’t their thing. I wrote:

    “More ‘Flat- Earth’ nonsense from Leyland. His piece is riddled with the typical fake-skeptic talking points that have been debunked a thousand times before.

    The Earth continues to warm, and at a rapid pace. Sad but true. Around 70% of Earth’s surface is ocean and over 90% of global warming goes into heating the oceans. When we measure the oceans down to 2000 metre depth we find they have warmed substantially since the 1960′s and there is no let up in the last decade. See:http://www.skepticalscience.com/big-picture-global-warming.html

    And of course sea level at Tuvalu over the last 60 years has risen at a rate almost 3 times the global average. See: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Tuvalu-sea-level-rise.htm“

    I’ve slightly reworded the issue of ocean heat content and addressed it to Leyland. Be interesting to see if he even attempts to answer it.

    He’ll have something to chew on next update:-

    Rob Painting #35, You say “over 90% of global warming goes into heating the oceans”

    By what mechanism? And, “90%”?

    FYI, bulk ocean heating is by solar insolation (THE global warming) – not posited CO2 warming (GHG backradiation cannot penetrate beyond 100 microns)

    Haven’t bothered to point out recent Tuvalu and OHC developments because I’ve taken that up with others

    stephen #76 will have a bit more to address, in short:-

    Provide us with the documented AGW hypothesis (we’ve only got hearsay to go on).

    Provide proofs of the hypothesis (other than a link to scepticalscience.com)

    7 key climate metrics that falsify the hypothesis by observation.

    And BTW, the IPCC climate models now have competition from Scafetta’s astronomical model

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/business/6220264/Global-warming-a-modern-day-myth

    • Richard C (NZ) on 11/01/2012 at 3:57 pm said:

      Rob Painting’s “ocean heating has everything to do with greenhouse gases” and Gareth Renowden’s apparent agreement (along with dismissal of cloudiness) is the most telling revelation to come out the Leyland article comments from my perspective.

      They will never be able to see the problem of AR4 models not modeling low cloud being the root of the spectacular OHC failure.

      Might have to chase down if GISS ModelE transfers any energy from GHG backradiation to the ocean at the atmosphere-ocean interface when I get the time and inclination.

      That might be even more telling.

    • I don’t know if they will “never” be able to see it. What do they reply to the notion that downwelling LWR penetrates (what?) 50 microns into the water? That by itself precludes oceanic warming. Well, over less than 10 million years (I guess).

    • Andy on 12/01/2012 at 8:56 am said:

      Rob Painting has announced (on Hot Topic) that he has written an article on SkS “debunking” your ocean heating claims.

      Big ups Richard C! An SkS article just for you!

    • Richard C (NZ) on 12/01/2012 at 9:42 am said:

      I’ve found what Rob Painting was on about and where he is coming from:-

      Revisiting the Earth’s sea-level and energy budgets from 1961 to 2008

      Church et al 2011

      Ocean warming (90% of the total of the Earth’s energy increase) continues through to the end of the record, in agreement with continued greenhouse gas forcing. The aerosol forcing, inferred as a residual in the atmospheric energy balance, is estimated as −0.8 ± 0.4 W m−2 for the 1980s and early 1990s. It increases in the late 1990s, as is required for consistency with little surface warming over the last decade. This increase is likely at least partially related to substantial increases in aerosol emissions from developing nations and moderate volcanic activity.

      ftp://ftp-sdt.univ-brest.fr/delacour/SeminaireM2/Church_GRL_2011_SeaLevelBudget.pdf

      The impression given is that the entire 90% of total warming apportioned to the ocean has anthropogenic origins specifically “greenhouse gas forcing”. I very much doubt that Church et al could elucidate that mechanism.

      No mention either of any other reasons for “little surface warming over the last decade” except for aerosol emissions and volcanic activity. They could for example explore cloudiness levels and ENSO activity for a start.

      The origin of Rob’s reasoning is this post at skepticalscience.com (See: Moderator Response: [Rob P] in comments):-

      A Big Picture Look at Global Warming

      Posted on 5 January 2012 by dana1981

      Let’s take a step back and have a look at what the data say about the warming of the Earth’s climate.

      Rising Heat Content

      The most relevant figure when talking about global warming is the Earth’s total heat content. Data from Church et al. (2011) recently updated this picture, showing that total global heat content continues its steady climb upwards. As Figure 1 shows, most of this heat (about 90%) has gone into the oceans, and the continuing rise of both global and ocean heat content is probably the best indicator that global warming hasn’t even slowed down

      Figure 1: Total global heat content. Data from Church et al. (2011).

      http://www.skepticalscience.com/big-picture-global-warming.html

      Figure 1 is “updated” from a figure in this Climate Change Science Digest (CCSD) blog post:-

      Carbon Dioxide – How much is human activity adding to the atmosphere ?

      http://climatechangesciencedigest.blogspot.com/2010/04/carbon-dioxide-how-much-is-human.html

      Note that Fig 1 is at odds with NODC 0-700 OHC instead using 0-2000 that has the obvious ARGO deploynent issue 2003/04.

      According to CCSD the ocean heating mechanism is:-

      “Warmer air warms the surface, melting ice and causing thermal expansion of water molecules in the Oceans”

      I.e. atmospheric air warms the ocean by conduction (or something) – this has to be one of the more bogus notions adopted by the warmist fraternity.

      The source data for the original CCSD Fig (“updated” to Fig 1) is:-

      An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950

      Murphy et al 2009

      http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/43307/2/JGR_2009JD012105%5B1%5D.pdf

      And,

      Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise

      Domingues et al 2008

      ftp://130.111.192.3/users/xdy/BUS/pdffile

      /nature07080.pdf

      I’ll have a look at these 2 papers to see just where the Fig 1 data comes from and what it actually is over the next few days (I don’t think it’s a copy from either of the papers).

      Meantime Rob at HT says this (Prat Watch #2):-

      Dappledwater January 11, 2012 at 11:08 pm

      I posted a number of comments on that Leyland article that never made it through moderation. Kinda hacks me off, as it gives a false impression, and it’s why I generally don’t comment on the rags.

      Anyway, I have incorporated a debunking of the goofy cosmic rays and ocean heating myth into a two-part blog post at SkS. So feel free to use it to bludgeon that silly myth should it pop up again. Probably get published next week sometime.

    • Andy on 12/01/2012 at 9:51 am said:

      Painters comments have made it through moderation now (I think the mods are a bit slow)

      Anyway, I am off to make a cup of tea using the CO2 forcing outside.

    • Good work, Richard.
      What exactly is the “ocean heating myth” Rob refers to at the end?

    • Andy on 12/01/2012 at 10:01 am said:

      I.e. atmospheric air warms the ocean by conduction (or something) – this has to be one of the more bogus notions adopted by the warmist fraternity.

      Why don’t we try it? Take a bathtub of water. Increase the room temperature by 0.5 deg C.for x number of hours. (Maybe this could be a “thought experiment” along the lines of Einstein’s weighing a box after one photon had left it)

      Measure the change of temperature of the bathtub. Extrapolate to the global ocean/atmosphere.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 12/01/2012 at 10:15 am said:

      The Dom has now cleared Rob’s “skin layer” ocean heating explanation (picked up at a Real Climate post – there’s no supporting scientific papers).

      Should be fun.

      The “myth” RT, as far as I can gather, is any mechanism other than GHG warming.

    • “any mechanism other than GHG warming”
      How can we rebut that? It’s hardly precise.
      Though it is typical.

    • Andy on 12/01/2012 at 10:48 am said:

      Rob Painting’s recent post on ocean heating on SkS is here

      http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-Heat-Content-And-The-Importance-Of-The-Deep-Ocean.html

    • Andy on 12/01/2012 at 11:10 am said:

      As far as I can see, the only theoretical justification for this “deep-ocean heat” is that there exist mechanisms such as the thermohaline circulation that can distribute heat from the surface to the deep.

      I, however, remain deeply unconvinced on the arguments. So they found heat in the deep. Maybe there are also areas of the ocean that are colder? Its a very big place, 4300m deep on average as stated in the article, and it takes a heck of a lot of energy to heat that much water

    • Richard C (NZ) on 12/01/2012 at 11:42 am said:

      There’s also geofusion heat-sourced superheated water at the sea floor – where does that heat go?

    • Andy, you’re kinder than you need to be, methinks, towards this SkS post. It contains sheer rubbish, including “The study found that there are mechanisms operating in the climate models”, “heat is somehow finding a way down to the deep ocean” and especially “So only measuring down to 700 metres doesn’t give an accurate indication of the total amount of heat being absorbed by the oceans.”

      I’m surprised to hear the study came to conclusions regarding the contents of the climate models. I rather would have expected model information to be described as part of their method. It beggars belief that scientists should conclude that heat is reaching below 700 metres without warming those 700 metres on the way.

      Finally, measuring those 700 metres is the only way to discover whether heat is getting further down. In other words, contrary to their statement, such measurements will give the most accurate indication possible.

      This misleading nonsense is some of the worst I’ve come across. They want us to believe heat energy somehow “sneaks” into the abyssal depths undetectably? Someone needs to shorten their chain. I believe it will be us. The CCG team.

      If I’m wrong, please tell me fast.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 12/01/2012 at 11:56 am said:

      Hydrothermal vent

      A hydrothermal vent is a fissure in a planet’s surface from which geothermally heated water issues. Hydrothermal vents are commonly found near volcanically active places, areas where tectonic plates are moving apart, ocean basins, and hotspots

      In contrast to the approximately 2 °C ambient water temperature at these depths, water emerges from these vents at temperatures ranging from 60 °C up to as high as 464 °C.[2][3] Due to the high hydrostatic pressure at these depths, water may exist in either its liquid form or as a supercritical fluid at such temperatures. At a pressure of 218 atmospheres, the critical point of (pure) water is 375 °C. At a depth of 3,000 meters, the hydrostatic pressure of sea water is more than 300 atmospheres (as salt water is denser than fresh water). At this depth and pressure, seawater becomes supercritical at a temperature of 407 °C (see image). However the increase in salinity at this depth pushes the water closer to its critical point. Thus, water emerging from the hottest parts of some hydrothermal vents can be a supercritical fluid, possessing physical properties between those of a gas and those of a liquid.[2][3] Besides being superheated, the water is also extremely acidic, often having a pH value as low as 2.8 — approximately that of vinegar.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent

    • Richard C (NZ) on 12/01/2012 at 12:22 pm said:

      Andy they “found” heat 0-2000 after the Argo deployment (not instantaneous) but measurement prior to that was sparse at best. Even the SkS Moderator acknowledges that (sort of) quoting AR4 “However, due to the lack of data with increasing depth…..” http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-Heat-Content-And-The-Importance-Of-The-Deep-Ocean.html#63702

    • Richard C (NZ) on 12/01/2012 at 12:41 pm said:

      Paul Magnus (#21 SKS) asks:-

      “What exactly is the mechanism of how the heat is transfered from the atmosphere to the ocean surface waters? Re-Radiation, convection or conduction?”

      http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-Heat-Content-And-The-Importance-Of-The-Deep-Ocean.html#63719

      Rob answers:-

      “Heat (as in longwave radiation) doesn’t warm the upper ocean. The surface ocean is warmed by solar radiation, which loses heat to the cooler atmosphere above, thus making surface atmospheric temperatures warmer. Increased greenhouse gases change the relationship by warming the top of the ocean ‘cool skin’ layer. This lowers the temperature gradient in the skin layer resulting in less heat escaping to the atmosphere, and causing the ocean to steadily accumulate heat.

      I’ve written a post on this topic, which should be published soon after the post on Meehl (2011).”

      http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-Heat-Content-And-The-Importance-Of-The-Deep-Ocean.html#63750

      So he acknowledges the solar heating mechanism (noted for Dom discussions) but offers no supporting paper (just as in his Dom explanation) for the “skin-layer” GHG insulation effect (Real Climate origin, no science) that he’s touting.

      I’ve called him on the latter (with supporting paper) at Dom in response to his comments #157 #158 #159 and knowing that he acknowledges the solar heating is helpful for the future.

      Paul Magnus had it right if he reversed the direction and substituted latent heat of evaporation for convection (occurs after conduction).

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/01/2012 at 1:16 pm said:

      FYI for anyone following the Rob Painter – Nonentity exchange in comments up to #165 under the Dominion Post article ‘Global warming a modern-day myth’ by Bryan Leyland (comments closed now I think). This would be a follow-up, i.e. I still had cards up my sleeve (extra links added here for convenience):-
      ********************************************************************************************************
      @Rob Painter

      The ocean penetration (track-length) limitations of downwelling LWIR from GHGs+clouds were obviously known by Fairall et al in 1996: ‘Cool-skin and warm-layer effects on sea surface temperature’ ftp://ftp.etl.noaa.gov/users/cfairall/wcrp_wgsf/computer_programs/cor3_0/95JC03190.pdf (cited at #165).

      Fairall et all say, at the bottom of page 2, in 2.1 Cool-Skin Background: “the longwave penetration depth is about 10 [microns]” (0.01mm). This is a nominal EFFECTIVE track-length at the surface of the ocean. I have said that (stating a nominal limit),.GHG LWIR does not penetrate BEYOND 100 microns (0.1mm).

      Clearly, a 0.01mm GHG insulation effect at the (turbulent) ocean surface that inhibits conductive energy escape is stupendously bogus. And for GHGs to have any effect on the net upwelling/downwelling longwave radiation sum you will have to prove that downwelling LWIR radiation is increasing – good luck with that BTW [not happening, citation available]. And don’t forget ocean energy escape by latent heat of evaporation.

      The relevant plot from Hale and Querry 1973 (cited #154) is here (note log scale and copyright) http://omlc.ogi.edu/spectra/water/gif/hale73.gif

      Conventionally, the LWIR from GHGs+clouds (it’s not just GHGs Rob) is 4 – 16 microns. There will be some flux below 4 microns but the intensity is negligible in observations. Recent climate model cool-skin parameterization papers (to which you allude but lightweight) do not acknowledge the GHG LWIR track-length limitation and attempts by certain AGCC proponents (e.g. Real Climate) to spin the cool-skin physics into a GHG effect, don’t either.

      Rob, sadly you’ve fallen hook-line-and-sinker for a concocted story.
      *******************************************************************************************************
      Rob Painting #166, you say “Does is not worry you that not one skeptic, not one, has put forth an alternative hypothesis that explains all the observations like mainstream climate science does?”

      [I submitted a response that didn’t get posted, went like this]

      Rubbish. Scroll down to #40 #97 and you will find: ‘Testing an astronomically based decadal-scale empirical harmonic climate model versus the IPCC (2007) general circulation models’, Nicola Scafetta, 2012.

      http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/Scafetta_models_comparison_ATP.pdf

      The IPCC models using CO2 “forced” RF methodology cannot model climate but Scafetta’s model not only can but does.

      Quoting:-

      “….the proposed harmonic model (which herein uses cycles with 9.1, 10–10.5, 20–21, 60–62 year periods) is found to well reconstruct the observed climate oscillations from 1850 to 2011, and it is shown to be able to forecast the climate oscillations from 1950 to 2011 using the data covering the period 1850–1950, and vice versa”

      Can’t do that with an IPCC CO2 forced RF model.

      [Note for here at CCG that Scafetta advocates incorporation of natural cycles in IPCC models]

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/01/2012 at 4:14 pm said:

      “The Oceans will begin to boil…”

      – Dr. James Hansen of NASA GISS, unhinged

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/12/quote-of-the-week-dr-james-hansen-of-nasa-giss-unhinged/

    • Richard C (NZ) on 15/01/2012 at 2:49 pm said:

      Optical Absorption of Water

      by Scott Prahl, Oregon Medical Laser Center [OMLC]

      As I was reviewing the data and papers gathered together for the optical properties of water [link below], I discovered that the people who have reported the optical absorption of water fall into two groups: those who actually do measurements and those who compile all the currently available data and choose a reasonable set. In general, the former group are compelled to do their measurements because they are disappointed by the current status of compiled data. The discussion section of these papers always makes it clear that their data is in agreement with published work and yet slightly better. Of course, the group that compiles existing data are then compelled to create yet another compilation so that there will be a nice accepted water spectrum.

      http://omlc.ogi.edu/spectra/water/index.html

      Optical Absorption of Water Compendium

      This particular page is a summary of information found on on

      * Warren Wiscombe also maintains a FTP site to get FORTRAN code for calculating the absorption coefficient of water.
      * PhytoLib by Piotr J. Flatau has a nice page on the optical properties of water.
      * Some information that I have assembled over the years
      * and a dissection of the data that used to be at the marine optics site compiled by Scott Pegau

      The only significant discrepancies in the data below are in the visible (300-600nm) where the absorption is so low. Recent work by Pope and Sogandares on the absorption coefficient of water in this regime indicates that it is significantly lower than that found by most previous investigators. Moreover, the minimum absorption wavelength is now at about 420nm instead of in the green. Practically, this makes very little difference in biomedical applications, since the water used by Fry’s group was extremely pure.

      The data is surprisingly consistent. Plot a couple for yourself, or you can just look at (Segelstein) or (Hale and Querry) or (Wieliczka).

      The Compendium

      http://omlc.ogi.edu/spectra/water/abs/index.html

      Segelstein

      http://omlc.ogi.edu/spectra/water/gif/segelstein81.gif

      Hale and Querry

      http://omlc.ogi.edu/spectra/water/gif/hale73.gif

      Wieliczka

      http://omlc.ogi.edu/spectra/water/gif/wieliczka89.gif

      Medical laser physics Rob: a realm where rigour and reproducibility rule.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 16/01/2012 at 7:44 am said:

      Absorption coefficient of water

      (radiation absorbed by pure water)

      Looking at Segelstein, Hale and Querry or Wieliczka, one would be inclined to think intuitively that the highest absorption is at the surface where the absorption coefficient (left scale) is highest – one would be wrong.

      Once again we must defer to medical science for the definition:-

      absorption coefficient,

      the factor by which the intensity of electromagnetic energy decreases as it interacts with a unit thickness of an absorbing material. It is usually expressed per unit thickness.

      Mosby’s Medical Dictionary, 8th edition. © 2009, Elsevier.

      http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/absorption+coefficient

      So using Hale and Querry, the absorption coefficient at 10mm depth and 1 micron wavelength (in the solar spectrum hare), is 1 – i.e. no decrease in EM energy.

      But at the effective GHG+clouds LWIR depth 10 microns and wavelength 4 – 16 microns, the EM intensity decreases by a factor of 1000.

  6. Richard C (NZ) on 11/01/2012 at 3:42 pm said:

    Bryan Walker has a commentary at HT on Hansen’s ‘Perceptions of Climate Change: The New Climate Dice’.headed ‘Hansen: extreme heat the new normal’.accompanied by Hansen’s very compelling plots.

    Except for one thing, Hansen has selected 1951-1980 as a base period and that basically is the bottom of a cool phase – et voila! Figure 5 shows the marked increase in NH summers that are very hot or extremely hot over the last 60 years.

    Walker buys it of course.

    • Ooh, nasty science! You’ve given us an excellent summary.
      Tell you what, Richard, add five paragraphs of explanation and/or conclusion and I’ll post it.
      I dare you!

      Cheers.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 11/01/2012 at 5:04 pm said:

      Not sure that five extra paragraphs are needed,

      HadCrut3 100 year trend analysis http://climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT3%20100yearTrendAnalysis.gif

      Hansen’s defence of his base period is that “It is the earliest period with good global coverage of meteorological stations” according to Bryan but If you’ve been following the Katherine Hayhoe/Hansen saga in the US (in which Goddard has been merciless) there’s a similar situation of Hansen/Dessler/Hayhoe starting their data at 1970 for same effect as Hansen above but using the US record.

      2009 : Alabama State Climatologist Correctly Forecast Hansen/Dessler/Hayhoe Fraud

      http://www.real-science.com/2009-alabama-state-climatologist-correctly

      “If your intent is to promote the idea that the climate is warming you would focus on the period starting around 1970, the coldest of the last 115 years, and ignore the rest”

    • Richard C (NZ) on 11/01/2012 at 6:43 pm said:

      A favourite of mine from Goddard:-

      “shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods”

      http://www.real-science.com/shipwrecked-laughter-gods

      See plot: ‘ENSO 5 Year Running Mean’

      Nature has played a mean joke on James Hansen. The PDO shift in 1977-1978 was exactly coincident with the launch of satellites monitoring temperatures and sea ice. The rising temperatures since the 1970s fooled Hansen into believing that his CO2 theory was correct.

      Sadly though for the CO2 team, ENSO and PDO went south this decade and warming has stopped. Hansen blathers on mindlessly about volcanoes from 20 years ago affecting current temperature. There is really no place left for him to hide. Hansen should admit that he was wrong – and retire.

      “Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”

      Albert Einstein

    • Ok, good. But I can’t use that yet. I would ask you (only if you’re interested!) to:

      1. Describe the HadCrut3 100-year trend analysis.
      2. State Bryan’s last name (Walker?).
      3. Describe the Hayhoe/Hansen “saga” with a reference, describing how Goddard has been merciless.
      4. Name the author of the last-quoted statement.

      You obviously have a thorough understanding of the issues and in one sense you’ve given us a lot of information, however you’ve stated it briefly — one might even say cryptically — and left out background and explanatory material. People coming to the story without your intimate acquaintance need all that for understanding.

      To make the story useful you need to slow down and carefully state every step, or the chain of comprehension breaks.

      If you want to add a bit more along the lines of my suggestions, please do. Or I’ll try to revisit it myself in a few days and tease it into a story.

      Thanks.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 12/01/2012 at 1:39 pm said:

      Don’t think I’ll be able to put this together, I’ve already blown my time budget on the Dom articles.

      Plus I think the issue of GHGs slowing ocean cooling (as Painting paints it) is more important to expose especially as it’s taking place on neutral ground and in the NZ public arena so my minds on that and some work build-up to be honest.

  7. RC – “There’s also geofusion heat-sourced superheated water at the sea floor – where does that heat go?”

    I’ve been told the amount of geothermal heat passing into the ocean is trivial, but also that there are many thousands of underwater volcanoes. So the picture is paradoxical. Do you have information about magnitude?

  8. I don’t understand Painting’s Figure 1. I have doubts about it. How can the models be believed when we don’t know how the heat is descending? That is, the models that simply represent our understanding cannot describe something we don’t understand. He cannot conclude that, just because a line approaches what the models claim, it represents reality.

    • Andy on 12/01/2012 at 1:08 pm said:

      I’d like a bit more info on what data was collected to come to this conclusion. If a circulation exists that can force heat to lower depths, then it is reasonable to assume that there is no linear relationship of temperature, depth and lat/long.

      Ideally, we need a high-resolution 3-D model of the ocean temperature, much as we collect 3-D seismic surveys for oil exploration.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 12/01/2012 at 1:46 pm said:

      The data has been sourced from the two papers (Murphy and Dominguez) here:-

      https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2012/01/a-case-of-the-blind-leading-the-climatologists/#comment-77008

      But as I said, its a matter of tying the data down as to what it actually is remembering that Figure 1 has been cobbled together by a blogger (I think).

    • Richard C (NZ) on 13/01/2012 at 1:58 pm said:

      Total OHC change 1961-2003 (43 yrs) using trends:-

      16E22 J 0-700 from Domiguez et al 2008 pg 1

      43E22 J 700-3000 from Church et al 2011 2.2 pg 4 (1E21 J/yr)

      43E22 J Below 3000 from Church et al 2011 2.2 pg 4 (1E21 J/yr)

      1.0E24 J

      1.6E33 J approx as per skepticalscience.com Fig 1. (possibly SuperMandia origin)

      http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Total_Heat_Content_2011_med.jpg

      Unless someone corrects me, I pronounce Fig 1 bogus.

      3.8E24 J my rough-as-guts estimate of hydrothermal heat PER YEAR.

  9. RC – that’s good information about the vents. But how much heat in total gets released? It’s a very huge ocean and it’s at a low temperature.

    • Andy on 12/01/2012 at 12:21 pm said:

      As a slightly off-topic anecdote, but still related to underwater heating, I was chatting to someone over the holidays.
      He told a story of a friend who is a commercial diver that was working in Lyttelton Harbour, who had to get out because the water was literally too hot to bear.
      I guess this is an artifact of the earthquake activity we have been having (shakes wake me up every morning this week).

    • Richard C (NZ) on 12/01/2012 at 1:56 pm said:

      Could be Andy, just bending a material (e.g. metal pipe) generates heat.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 12/01/2012 at 1:52 pm said:

      I don’t know if anyone has quantified the amount (haven’t looked yet) but how they would go about it is beyond me so I doubt there’s reliable data.

      It must be substantial given the temperatures and seismic zones (Mid-Atlantic rise, Pacific rim of fire etc).

    • Richard C (NZ) on 12/01/2012 at 2:35 pm said:

      Submarine Geothermics;
      Hydrothermal Vents and Electricity Generation

      3. ESTIMATION OF THE POTENTIAL GEOTHERMAL POWER OF THE HYDROTHERMAL VENTS
      According to some studies, (Baker and German, 2004) there
      are 67 000 km of Ocean Ridges that are constantly
      recharging their thermal activity
      by the uprising of magma. They represent 30% of all heat released by the earth. So far 13 000 km have been studied representing 20% of the global ridges of the world. There have been reported 280 sites of hydrothermal vents along the ridges, most of them are at a depth of 2000 to 2 500 meters.

      Now, one can calculate that 13 000 km of explored ridges with a ph of 0.3 gives the equivalent of a long active ridge of 3 900 km long. Being quite speculative on the amount of heat that comes out of this equivalent vent, and based in some extend on Baker`s words that “ …on super fasts ridge sections, vent sources can be so extensive that plumes are continuous for upward of 100 km along axis” an average width of this equivalent vent as 10 cm and a flow out at a velocity of 1 m/s at 250 °C, one gets a heat flow of 400 TW thermal using as a sink temperature 30 °C.

      http://www.iingen.unam.mx/es-mx/SitiosWeb/Proyectos/Impulsa4/Publicaciones/Documents/Submarine%20Geothermics%20Hydrothermal%20Vents%20and%20Electricity%20Generation.pdf

      That’s power in Watts not heat (Q) in Joules unfortunately. 400 TW = 400 TJoules per second

      I’ll have another look sometime

    • Good work, RC. Some big numbers already, although we’ll wait to see what it might translate to in degrees C. Thanks.

  10. Andy on 12/01/2012 at 3:19 pm said:

    On the bigger picture, Nir Shaviv posts on the lack of warming and IPCC models

    http://www.sciencebits.com/IPCC_nowarming

    • Richard C (NZ) on 12/01/2012 at 6:12 pm said:

      Andy this Shaviv article is very useful because now along with a graphic in the post above of UAH and HadCrut3 vs IPCC predictions we now have a similar graphic using NCDC (land and ocean).

      Both very good graphics too.

    • Bloody good article – thanks Andy. Jo Nova has reproduced it on her site.

    • Andy on 13/01/2012 at 9:00 am said:

      Yes agreed Mike. We seemed to get sidetracked by this “lack of warming in the last 10 years” argument.

      The counter argument is that 10 years is too short a time frame, and that the data are too noisy to draw statistical conclusions. These arguments have merit.

      However, the longer we have “lack of warming”, the further the real world deviates from the IPCC projections, and the less validity the models have. The models have to be adjusted. This is how science works, or used to anyway.

      Of course, we could get an uptick in temperatures. Who knows?

  11. Richard C (NZ) on 13/01/2012 at 9:58 am said:

    Gleick’s spanking.

    Please, Global Warming Alarmists, Stop Denying Climate Change – And Science

    James Taylor, Senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2012/01/12/please-global-warming-alarmists-stop-denying-climate-change-and-science/

  12. Australis on 23/01/2012 at 12:25 am said:

    Now the C3 people have turned out another graph, showing that the last half-century saw less warming than the previous half-century:

    http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0162ffde21fa970d-pi

    Forget about decades, the last 50 years is “the coolest half-century since records began”.

    If we average the past 100 years, the graph suggests the warming rate has been only 0.47°C/century. Is that correct?

  13. Richard C (NZ) on 12/02/2012 at 11:24 am said:

    Real Climate : It Is Worse Than It Seems

    Posted on February 11, 2012 by Steven Goddard

    [See RC models vs obs plot]

    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=10475

    Gavin finally admits that models suck. But it is worse than it seems. Below is the same plot with HadCRUT monthly overlaid.Temperatures are currently below the lowest IPCC model, and almost a full degree below their highest.

    [See RC plot with overlay]

    http://www.real-science.com/real-climate-worse

    Actually, Gavin doesn’t “admit” anything, just says this:-

    Overall, given the latest set of data points, we can conclude (once again) that global warming continues.

    So what? There’s nothing to conclude that ANTHROPOGENIC global warming continues (if it actually ever started).

    The models mimic 0 – 2000 OHC spot on. Problem being that 0 – 2000 OHC is inconsistent with SST and SSL.

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