Pontificating piffle on climate

UPDATE – see below

Dr Jarrod Gilbert, a sociologist at the University of Canterbury, advises us to trample on the right to free speech by making it a crime to “deny climate change”, wants climate sceptics to stop “ignoring best evidence” and “turning against experts” and gives us all the juvenile middle finger by saying amusingly “the term climate sceptic is now interchangeable with the term mindless fool.”

He says those who ask questions about climate change want only to secure some advantage for themselves and he compares climate scepticism with denial of the harm caused by smoking, tarring both with the same malodorous brush. For all that he professes to be an academic, his sole argument is an appeal to authority, his only evidence a vague reference to comprehensively debunked “meta studies”.

The reference to “97% of climate scientists agree…” is not backed by evidence. Paul Homewood records that the infamous Cook et al. (2013) paper studied 12,000 papers on climate change and found 4,011 papers that expressed a position on man-made climate change of which only 65 supported the supposed consensus—hardly 97%; actually 1.6%. It’s one of the worst pieces of scientific chicanery ever published yet climate deniers from President Obama to Dr Jarrod Gilbert grasp it eagerly to bolster their claims of climate catastrophe.

Jarrod, please listen for a moment. I don’t know anyone who denies that climate changes—that’s a risible straw man argument. Climate sceptics don’t ignore the evidence—in fact they work hard around the world to hold climate scientists to high standards, constantly checking data and adjustments. Time and again sceptics have discovered mistakes and deceptions, and brought them to public notice.

Right here in New Zealand, the examination of New Zealand temperature data and queries to NIWA by scientists and studious amateurs with the NZ Climate Science Coalition resulted eventually in NIWA deciding to reconstruct the national temperature record, because the adjustments made to the data years before had been lost and NIWA could no longer say what they were. This marked a victory for climate scepticism, and our temperature record is consequently of a much higher standard than it was. NZCSC scientists published a paper only in 2014 establishing a new national temperature record that is still unanswered by NIWA. So it leads the field and shows very little warming in New Zealand over the previous 100 years—about 0.30 °C.

I understand through a personal communication that Dr Gilbert did not choose the headline Why climate denial should be a criminal offence. It was written by the Herald and HE DOES NOT STAND BY IT. He describes it as “a nonsense from which I distance myself. Never in a million years would I criminalise speech, even that which I strongly disagree with. The content of the column I completely stand by, though.”

So the good news is he doesn’t advocate that climate denial be a criminal offence; the bad news is that he makes five separate statements in the article that mean the same thing: does he also disavow these statements? If not, who does he think he’s kidding? Here they are:

* There is no greater crime being perpetuated on future generations than that committed by those who deny climate change.
* The scientific consensus is so overwhelming that to argue against it is to perpetuate a dangerous fraud.
* It ought be seen as a crime.
* One way in which everyday crime can be discouraged is to ensure that “capable guardians” are around to deter criminal activity.
* There may be differing opinions on what policies to pursue, but those who deny that climate change exists ought [to] be shouted down like the charlatans … they are.
Perhaps he’s seen more opposition to his opinion piece than he expected.

Sceptics have valid questions which don’t go away just because Dr Gilbert offers obfuscation and abuse. For example:

* Constantly rising atmospheric levels of CO2, according to the IPCC, cause the global mean surface temperature (GMST) to rise, yet it has failed significantly to rise for about 20 years, while CO2 has increased by about 10%.
* Climate models predict temperatures far higher than the observed GMST.
* The IPCC predict ever-increasing warming from increasing levels of CO2 but refuse to acknowledge that the amount of warming from each increment of CO2 decreases logarithmically.
Any one of these facts invalidates the hypothesis of dangerous anthropogenic global warming. Be in no doubt that this is still an hypothesis, not a theory!

It’s demeaning to be accused of climate denial, Dr Gilbert, when our questions are perfectly valid. Please answer them!

We’re not, as you allege, sitting on the fence, wondering if it’s true. We’re asking you why it is true. You’re the ones making predictions, we’re just asking questions about them. Why don’t you answer? What are you afraid of?


UPDATE 31 July 2016 1700 NZST

The Herald has changed the inflammatory headline on Jarrod Gilbert’s piece attacking free speech from Why climate denial should be a criminal offence to Climate change deniers dangerously wrong. Gilbert had not written the headline, describing it in a personal communication as “a nonsense from which I distance myself. Never in a million years would I criminalise speech, even that which I strongly disagree with.”

One cannot but feel some sympathy for a chap so egregiously misrepresented. However, he presents us with a nasty wee riddle by then insisting: “The content of the column I completely stand by, though.”

As I explain above, there are five obnoxious statements in his article that would make illegal all questions or doubts about the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis or reported climatic observations. He would lay a criminal charge only against those who “deny climate change”. So I’ll be all right, and most of you should be safe too. The rest of you, the true climate deniers — and you know who you are — won’t have a leg to stand on.

Serve them right, too. Can’t have people going around questioning what we tell ’em.

But seriously, I hope Gilbert recants as well on those five poisonous assertions. Not because I don’t like them or even because they potentially apply to me, but because of the harm they will do to science and the search for truth. I hope he’s even half a scientist, and I hope he looks at his students and wants more than anything that they can pursue their studies free from interference by people steeped in ignorance.

It’s not rocket science. Stifling questions will establish ignorance; allowing questions will banish ignorance.

Views: 236

87 Thoughts on “Pontificating piffle on climate

  1. Richard C (NZ) on 26/07/2016 at 10:31 pm said:

    >”So the good news is he doesn’t advocate that climate denial be a criminal offence; the bad news is that he makes five separate statements in the article that mean the same thing: does he also disavow these statements? If not, who does he think he’s kidding?”

    Sociologist Gilbert is a Johnny-come-lately to this. Andy recounts an anecdote of a female Christchurch schoolteacher telling her students “all climate deniers should be hanged”, or words to that effect.

    Notables who have gone before:

    Professor Richard Parncutt, Musicologist at Graz University in Austria:

    [Title] – “Death penalty for global warming deniers? An objective argument…a conservative conclusion”

    “Please note that I am not directly suggesting that the threat of execution be carried out. I am simply presenting a logical argument”

    “At the end of that process, some global warming deniers would never admit their mistake and as a result they would be executed. Perhaps that would be the only way to stop the rest of them. The death penalty would have been justified in terms of the enormous numbers of saved future lives.”

    “People will be saying that Parncutt has finally lost it” – but in the year 2050 “perhaps the Pope would even turn me into a saint”.

    After several people listed by desmogblog cited the text in their blogs, and some of them threatened to take legal action against Parncutt and the university administration, Parncutt replaced the text by a shorter explanation and then by an unconditional retraction and apology.

    University officials ordered the removal of all political texts and issued a statement saying:

    The University of Graz is shocked and appalled by the article and rejects its arguments entirely. The University places considerable importance on respecting all human rights and does not accept inhuman statements. Furthermore, the University of Graz points out clearly that a personal and individual opinion which is not related to scientific work cannot be tolerated on websites of the University.

    Subsequently, a disciplinary process against him was initiated by the university.

    Grist’s Dave Roberts:

    “When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg.”

    James Hansen when at NASA GISS: In 2008 interviews with ABC News, The Guardian, and in a separate op-ed, Hansen has called for putting fossil fuel company executives, including the CEOs of ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal, on trial for:

    “high crimes against humanity and nature”

    Talking Points Memo website (TPM):

    At what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers

    June 2, 2009, 9:42PM

    What is so frustrating about these fools is that they are the politicians and greedy bastards who don’t want a cut in their profits who use bogus science or the lowest scientists in the gene pool who will distort data for a few bucks. The vast majority of the scientific minds in the World agree and understand it’s a very serious problem that can do an untold amount of damage to life on Earth.

    So when the right wing [obscenity omitted here] have caused it to be too late to fix the problem, and we start seeing the devastating consequences and we start seeing end of the World type events – how will we punish those responsible. It will be too late. So shouldn’t we start punishing them now?

    TPM has removed the article from their website. But the url with a portion of the chilling message lingers as evidence: in the “not found” message – “at-what-point-do-we-jail-or-ex…”

  2. Richard C (NZ) on 26/07/2016 at 11:32 pm said:

    Dr Jarrod Gilbert:

    Why climate denial should be a criminal offence

    “”Since the 1960s, it has been known that heat-trapping gasses were increasing in the earth’s atmosphere, but no one knew to what effect. In 1979, a study found “no reason to doubt that climate changes will result and no reason to believe that these changes will be negligible”. Since then scientists have been seeking to prove it, and the results are in. Meta studies show that 97 per cent of published climate scientists agree that global warming is occurring and that it is caused by human activities.”

    “Heat-trapping gasses”. From a Sociologist no less. Expert in radiative thermodynamics too apparently.

    Except greenhouse gasses are heat TRANSFER gasses – not heat “trapping” gasses. The latest El Nino has just proved that GHGs don’t “trap” heat. The heat dissipates to space without entrapment i.e. transferred not trapped.

    Sociologist Gilbert doesn’t know what he is talking about.

    Refuted “Meta studies” remain valid proof of the man-made climate change conjecture? I don’t think so. Even if the meta studies were valid they certainly are not proof of the man-made climate change conjecture.

    And scientific truth is determined by vote now?

    By that “consensus” vote reasoning the earth was flat. And the earth was the centre of the solar system, but that “consensus” was subsequently banished by the Copernican system and Geocentrism was subjugated by Heliocentrism – the new proven scientific truth.

    Science progresses by the Scientific Method and by breaking established “consensus” thought through new proven scientific truth Mr Gilbert, not by vote.

  3. Richard C (NZ) on 26/07/2016 at 11:41 pm said:

    >”Even if the meta studies were valid they certainly are not proof of the man-made climate change conjecture.”

    The IPCC provides the criteria for proof or falsification – and then ignores it:

    IPCC Ignores IPCC Climate Change Criteria – Incompetence or Coverup?
    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52688456/IPCCIgnoresIPCCClimateChangeCriteria.pdf

    The MMCC conjecture is falsified by the IPCC’s own cited observations (see article). But the IPCC doesn’t address this all important issue.

  4. Richard C (NZ) on 27/07/2016 at 9:36 am said:

    Gilbert’s got international prominence now – complete with photo:

    Ugly: “Why climate denial should be a criminal offence”
    Anthony Watts / 12 hours ago July 26, 2016
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/07/26/ugly-why-climate-denial-should-be-a-criminal-offence/

    I wonder if he knew the (in)famous ranks he was joining? Mark Morano’s Climate Depot has chronicled most of them and Gilbert’s made front page there today:

    Warmist Social Scientist: ‘Why climate denial should be a criminal offence’

    New Zealand Social Scientist Dr Jarrod Gilbert is calling for the Crime of Climate Change Denial to be adopted. – ‘There is no greater crime being perpetuated on future generations than that committed by those who deny climate change.’

    http://www.climatedepot.com/

    Makes you proud to be a New Zealander don’t it?

    Maybe not.

  5. Simon on 27/07/2016 at 10:17 am said:

    Silly old NZ Herald, the headline was completely at odds with the article.
    But in terms of the consensus, the proportion of climate scientists supporting the AGW hypothesis is well in excess of 90%. Maybe you could infer doubt from a few published papers, but there have been too many meta-studies that confirm this. There is also a strong positive correlation between expertise and support.
    If you want an example of charlatan behaviour, look no further than the refusal of NZ CSET to pay it’s legal costs.
    Yet another example, all three of your bullet-points are incorrect statements:
    ◾Constantly rising atmospheric levels of CO2, according to the IPCC, cause the global mean surface temperature (GMST) to rise, yet it has failed significantly to rise for about 20 years, while CO2 has increased by about 10%.
    ◾Climate models predict temperatures far higher than the observed GMST.
    ◾The IPCC predict ever-increasing warming from increasing levels of CO2 but refuse to acknowledge that the amount of warming from each increment of CO2 decreases logarithmically.

  6. Andy on 27/07/2016 at 10:25 am said:

    Silly old NZ Herald, the headline was completely at odds with the article.

    Simon should read the bullet points in this blog post

    If you want an example of charlatan behaviour, look no further than the refusal of NZ CSET to pay it’s legal costs.

    Do you feel the same concern over the $165,500 of ratepayers money burnt on the completely useless Tonkin and Taylor peer review, that mentions RCP8.5 29 times, yet fails to mention actual sea level data even once?

  7. Andy on 27/07/2016 at 10:38 am said:

    But in terms of the consensus, the proportion of climate scientists supporting the AGW hypothesis is well in excess of 90%.

    What is the AGW hypothesis, and what do the others think?

    I have asked this question before, of course.

  8. Richard C (NZ) on 27/07/2016 at 10:52 am said:

    >”But in terms of the consensus, the proportion of climate scientists supporting the AGW hypothesis is well in excess of 90%”

    Same tripe, different day.

    Previously shredded in ‘Renwick, Naish invoke malignant ‘consensus’, cite scandalous papers’ but here’s some of those “climate scientists supporting the AGW hypothesis” again:

    Gonzalez, G. A. An eco-Marxist analysis of oil depletion via urban sprawl. Environ. Polit. 2006, 15, 515−531.

    Entman, R. M. Improving Newspapers’ Economic Prospects by Augmenting Their Contributions to Democracy. Int. J. Press- Polit. 2010, 15, 104−125.

    Harribey, J. M. The unsustainable heaviness of the capitalist way of development. Pensee 2002, 31 − +.

    Delmelle, E. C.; Thill, J.-C. Urban Bicyclists Spatial Analysis of Adult and Youth Traffic Hazard Intensity. Transp. Res. Record 2008, 31−39.

    Howard, C.; Parsons, E. C. M. Attitudes of Scottish city inhabitants to cetacean conservation. Biodivers. Conserv. 2006, 15, 4335−4356.

    McCright, A. M.; Dunlap, R. E. Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States. Glob. Environ. Change-Human Policy Dimens. 2011, 21, 1163−1172.

    Psychologist José Duarte writes:

    “The Cook et al. (2013) 97% paper included a bunch of psychology studies, marketing papers, and surveys of the general public as scientific endorsement of anthropogenic climate change.”

  9. Richard Treadgold on 27/07/2016 at 10:55 am said:

    Simon,

    Silly old NZ Herald, the headline was completely at odds with the article.

    But it wasn’t. Unless Jarrod disavows those five statements he made about climate crime. Never mind just the headline. Count them: five.

    But in terms of the consensus, the proportion of climate scientists supporting the AGW hypothesis is well in excess of 90%.

    Listen carefully. The consensus does not exist; that’s what it means when I say: “The reference to “97% of climate scientists agree…” is not backed by evidence.” The consensus has been cooked up by studies whose data do not support their conclusions. Which you would know by now if you had read the studies. They have been monumentally trashed. The real consensus in Cook et al. was only 1.6%. True! But never mind that; simply cite studies that support what you say, because it’s easy to say anything you want, isn’t it?

    Maybe you could infer doubt from a few published papers, but there have been too many meta-studies that confirm this.

    See my previous point. References, please!

    There is also a strong positive correlation between expertise and support.

    If you mean between climate expertise and support for the theory that mankind is destroying the earth through global warming, you’re wrong. References, please!

    If you want an example of charlatan behaviour, look no further than the refusal of NZ CSET to pay it’s legal costs.

    We couldn’t pay, nor did anyone consider it likely that we might need to. We deceived nobody in this; unlike the writers of “consensus” papers we made no false statements. But a partisan judge granted enormous costs, for the first time ever, in a case of whistle-blowers against a powerful state agency. It was unprecedented. Charlatan behaviour — NIWA earnestly promised the Parliament they would publish their reconstruction of the NZ temp record and neither delivered nor apologised. But never mind, we’ve published ours.

    Yet another example, all three of your bullet-points are incorrect statements.

    Prove it.

  10. Richard C (NZ) on 27/07/2016 at 11:30 am said:

    >”If you want an example of charlatan behaviour, look no further than the refusal of NZ CSET to pay it’s legal costs.”

    Same accusation, different day.

    How do you you know they were liable Simon? The fact that there was no legal enforcement should tell you something. Did NIWA asking for an order securing costs? Without that order, what if the trustees assets are in turn trusts? It would take a trust-breaking exercise to extract the costs.

    We looked at all that in this thread:

    January 14, 2014
    https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2013/12/nonsense-from-niwa-hyperbole-from-hot-topic/comment-page-1/#comment-472958

    UK Guide:

    ‘Guide to Protecting Trustees Against Liability for Legal Costs, Beddoe Orders & the Role of the Charity Commission’

    When can a trustee pay for legal expenses out of trust funds?

    The general rule is that a trustee, whether a trustee of a charitable or non-charitable trust, is entitled to
    be indemnified in respect of all his costs and expenses properly incurred in the execution of the
    trust. This includes legal costs incurred in connection with the proper bringing or defending of
    legal proceedings.

    When will a trustee not be entitled to an indemnity out of trust funds?

    In the case of Re Beddoe the Court stated that

    “a trustee who, without the sanction of the Court, commences an action or defends an action
    unsuccessfully, does so at his own risk as regards the costs, even if he acts on Counsel’s opinion…”

    This means that any trustee involved in legal proceedings should consider whether they can avoid
    the risk of incurring personal liability for legal costs by seeking the Court’s prior approval of the proposed
    course of action in question. If there is any doubt in the trustee’s mind he should apply to the Court for
    guidance, or what is known as a “Beddoe Order”.

    http://www.bwbllp.com/file/guide-to-protecting-trustees-06-pdf

    Sanctions (law)

    Within the civil law context, sanctions are usually monetary fines, levied against a party to a lawsuit or his/her attorney, for violating rules of procedure, or for abusing the judicial process. The most severe sanction in a civil lawsuit is the involuntary dismissal, with prejudice, of a complaining party’s cause of action, or of the responding party’s answer. This has the effect of deciding the entire action against the sanctioned party without recourse, except to the degree that an appeal or trial de novo may be allowed because of reversible error.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_%28law%29

    I don’t know if a “Beddoe Order” is applicable in NZ (I would think it is) but the NZCSET trustees commenced their action “without the sanction of the Court”.

    If the trustees had Beddoe Order type indemnity then they had no liability for costs.

    If the trustees had no Beddoe Order type indemnity then they were liable for costs.

    Simple as that IMV. If it’s the latter (they weren’t indemnified) then that’s their decision, their incaution, their liability, their cost, If it’s the former (they were indemnified – doubtful IMV) it’s the court’s lack of due diligence and sanction for the inability of the trust to pay costs.

    Thing is: there was no legal enforcement. If they were liable, why was there no legal enforcement?

  11. Richard C (NZ) on 27/07/2016 at 11:32 am said:

    >”>”If you want an example of charlatan behaviour, look no further than the refusal of NZ CSET to pay it’s legal costs.”

    Except, the law was an ass.

    NZCSC has since been vindicated in the scientific literature.

    Get over it Simon.

  12. Andy on 27/07/2016 at 12:08 pm said:

    I note that eminent physicist Freeman Dyson, who was one of the developers of Quantum Field Theory, describes himself as a “climate sceptic”

    Not so much a “mindless fool”, one imagines

  13. Richard C (NZ) on 27/07/2016 at 12:25 pm said:

    In a vaguely similar, but amusing vein:

    ‘Presenting “Putin’s Useful Idiot”: Anyone Who Disagrees With The Establishment’

    by Tyler Durden, Jul 24, 2016

    This weekend we once again got confirmation that any time the generic narrative spectacularly falls apart, and the “establishment” is caught with its pants down (or, in the case of the DNC, engaging in borderline election fraud leading to what the FT just described as “Democrats in turmoil”) what does it do? Why blame Putin of course, and more specifically his “useful idiots”, and hope the whole thing blows over quickly.

    Not convinced? Here is the proof. >>>>>>

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-24/presenting-putins-useful-idiot-anyone-who-disagrees-establishment

    # # #

    Includes Trump, Corbyn, Juncker, among others. Last but not least – We’re all Putin’s ‘useful idiots’.

    Meanwhile, there’s a class action against the DNC:

    ‘DNC Seeks Dismissal of Lawsuit Alleging Donor Deception’ – WSJ
    http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2016/07/25/dnc-seeks-dismissal-of-lawsuit-alleging-donor-deception/

    They’ll blame Putin when the man-made climate change narrative falls apart.

  14. Richard C (NZ) on 27/07/2016 at 12:42 pm said:

    >”Be in no doubt that this is still an hypothesis, not a theory!”

    More just a conjecture, there’s no formal hypothesis. And a theory can be overturned:

    ‘Superseded scientific theories’

    A superseded, or obsolete, scientific theory is a scientific theory that was once widely accepted within the mainstream scientific community but is no longer considered to be an adequate or complete description of reality, or is considered to be simply false. This label does not cover protoscientific or fringe science theories with limited support in the scientific community. Also, it does not mean theories that were never widely accepted. Some theories that were only supported under specific political authorities, such as Lysenkoism, may also be described as obsolete or superseded.

    In some cases a theory or idea is found baseless and is simply discarded. For example, the phlogiston theory was entirely replaced by the quite different concept of energy and related laws. In other cases an existing theory is replaced by a new theory that retains significant elements of the earlier theory; in these cases, the older theory is often still useful for many purposes, and may be more easily understood than the complete theory and lead to simpler calculations. An example of this is the use of Newtonian physics, which differs from the currently accepted relativistic physics by a factor that is negligibly small at velocities much lower than that of light. All of Newtonian physics is so satisfactory for most purposes that it is more widely used except at velocities that are a significant fraction of the speed of light, and simpler Newtonian but not relativistic mechanics is usually taught in schools. Another case is the theory that the earth is approximately flat; while it has for centuries been known to be wrong for long distances, considering part of the earth’s surface as flat is usually sufficient for many maps covering areas that are not extremely large, and surveying.

    Superseded theories
    1.1 Biology
    1.2 Chemistry
    1.3 Physics
    1.4 Astronomy and cosmology
    1.5 Geography and climate
    1.6 Geology
    1.7 Psychology
    1.8 Medicine

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_scientific_theories

    # # #

    >”Another case is the theory that the earth is approximately flat; while it has for centuries been known to be wrong for long distances, considering part of the earth’s surface as flat is usually sufficient for many maps covering areas that are not extremely large, and surveying.”

    This is the difference between cadastral (flat) and geodetic (curved) land surveying.

    >”Some theories that were only supported under specific political authorities, such as Lysenkoism, may also be described as obsolete or superseded.”

    The UN FCCC/IPCC is a “political authority”.

  15. Richard C (NZ) on 27/07/2016 at 1:00 pm said:

    ‘Top Ten Scientific Flaws In The Big Bang Theory’

    6 Dark Matter and Dark Energy

    Why it’s a problem Dark Matter and Dark Energy have never been proven, or observed in any way whatsoever, yet the Big Bang theory depends on the existence of such potentially mythological substances. Not only that, but in order for the Big Bang theory to even be valid, dark matter and dark energy would have to be the most abundant things in the universe.

    The “dark” in “dark matter” and “dark energy” doesn’t mean color. It means, “unknown”. In other words, the proponents of the Big Bang theory couldn’t figure out how it could possibly happen so they said, let’s make up some fictional matter and energy that “made it happen”.

    It’s kind of like me saying I am the most powerful person in the universe. My power is everywhere and can do everything! You just can’t see my power but it’s there! And then someone with common sense saying, pfft whatever man, yeah right.

    http://thetechreader.com/top-ten/top-ten-scientific-flaws-in-the-big-bang-theory/

  16. Richard C (NZ) on 27/07/2016 at 1:28 pm said:

    ‘Problems with the Big Bang Expanding Universe Theory’

    The response of most cosmologists to this growing body of evidence has, unfortunately, not been to decide the Big Bang theory has been falsified, but to add new “parameters” and hypotheses, like dark energy. The theory is now far more complex and speculative than the Ptolemaic epicycles that were destroyed by the Scientific Revolution. Each contradiction with observation is taken as a mere “anomaly” that does not undermine the theory as a whole. Strong peer pressure is applied against many of those who question the theory.

    “It’s as if researchers are saying ‘I can see the Emperor’s elbow through his New Clothes’, ‘I can see the Emperor’s knee though his New Clothes’ and so on, “ says Lerner. “It is time to say: ‘The Emperor is not wearing any clothes’. This theory has no correct predictions.”

    http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/05/problems-with-big-bang-expanding.html

    “Dark energy”. Sound familiar?

    Climate science has 4 times more energy retained in the earth’s system than is actually observed (2.33 W.m-2 vs 0.6 W.m-2 – IPCC).

  17. Richard C (NZ) on 27/07/2016 at 1:32 pm said:

    Cosmology:

    “Strong peer pressure is applied against many of those who question the [Big Bang Expanding Universe] theory”

    Sound familiar?

  18. Richard Treadgold on 27/07/2016 at 2:33 pm said:

    Very interesting, and the post does mention theory and hypothesis, but not, I believe, cosmology. Please restrain your keen inquiring mind, RC.

  19. Richard C (NZ) on 27/07/2016 at 2:34 pm said:

    ‘Big Bang blunder bursts the multiverse bubble’

    By Paul Steinhardt. Jun 7, 2014

    When a team of cosmologists announced at a press conference in March that they had detected gravitational waves generated in the first instants after the Big Bang, the origins of the Universe were once again major news. The reported discovery created a worldwide sensation in the scientific community, the media and the public at large (see Nature 507, 281–283; 2014).

    According to the team at the BICEP2 South Pole telescope, the detection is at the 5–7 sigma level, so there is less than one chance in two million of it being a random occurrence. The results were hailed as proof of the Big Bang inflationary theory and its progeny, the multiverse. Nobel prizes were predicted and scores of theoretical models spawned. The announcement also influenced decisions about academic appointments and the rejections of papers and grants. It even had a role in governmental planning of large-scale projects.

    The BICEP2 team identified a twisty (B-mode) pattern in its maps of polarization of the cosmic microwave background, concluding that this was a detection of primordial gravitational waves. Now, serious flaws in the analysis have been revealed that transform the sure detection into no detection. The search for gravitational waves must begin anew. The problem is that other effects, including light scattering from dust and the synchrotron radiation generated by electrons moving around galactic magnetic fields within our own Galaxy, can also produce these twists.

    […]

    The sudden reversal should make the scientific community contemplate the implications for the future of cosmology experimentation and theory. The search for gravitational waves is not stymied. At least eight experiments, including BICEP3, the Keck Array and Planck, are already aiming at the same goal.

    https://richarddawkins.net/2014/06/big-bang-blunder-bursts-the-multiverse-bubble/
    *********************************************************************************
    ‘Have cosmologists lost their minds in the multiverse?’

    May 13, 2014 by Luke Barnes

    The multiverse theory is that our universe is but one of a vast, variegated ensemble of other universes. We don’t know how many pieces there are to the multiverse but estimates suggest there many be squillions of them.

    […]

    Revenge of the Boltzmann Brains

    Quantum mechanics, the same physics that predicts the inflationary fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background, seen by BICEP2, also predicts that there is an extremely tiny probability of a fully-formed brain spontaneously popping out of “empty” space. Given enough time and space this vanishingly improbable event will occur.

    While such freak observers, known as Boltzmann Brains, would be massively outnumbered by biological observers in our universe, they could be common in the almost unending time and space of the entire multiverse.

    http://phys.org/news/2014-05-cosmologists-lost-minds-multiverse.html

    # # #

    >”Quantum mechanics, the same physics that predicts the inflationary fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background, seen by BICEP2,”

    Actually, NOT seen by BICEP2, as the top article reports.

    Cosmology and Climatology have much in common.

  20. Richard C (NZ) on 27/07/2016 at 3:11 pm said:

    >”Very interesting, and the post does mention theory and hypothesis, but not, I believe, cosmology”

    Parallels RT.

    Demonstrating that “consensus” theories get overturned more than we think. We are seeing that with the Big Bang Expanding Universe Theory which is light years ahead (heh) of climate change in terms of theory documentation. This is a theory that has taken root and is getting zanier and zanier – see multiverse theory above (and Boltzmann Brains).

    But the whole edifice is falling apart despite all the “consensus” and predictions and calculations to a degree that climate science is not even close.

    Cosmology’s notion of “dark energy” has a parallel with Climatology’s “dark energy” – it’s there but has never been proven, or observed in any way.

    Again,

    Climatology has 4 times more energy retained in the earth’s system than is actually observed (2.33 W.m-2 vs 0.6 W.m-2 – IPCC).

    Cosmology has 20 times more matter and energy in the universe than has been observed.

    From NASA:

    “……roughly 68% of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest – everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter – adds up to less than 5% of the Universe.”

    http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/

    It takes time for these theories to be overturned because there is so much vested in them by the respective proponents and huge implications if they are overturned. But in the end, as plasma physicist Eric Lerner puts it, “It is time to say: ‘The Emperor is not wearing any clothes’

  21. Richard C (NZ) on 27/07/2016 at 4:15 pm said:

    >”But the whole edifice is falling apart despite all the “consensus” and predictions and calculations to a degree that climate science is not even close.”

    NASA:

    “Another explanation for how space acquires energy comes from the quantum theory of matter. In this theory, “empty space” is actually full of temporary (“virtual”) particles that continually form and then disappear. But when physicists tried to calculate how much energy this would give empty space, the answer came out wrong – wrong by a lot. The number came out 10^120 times too big. That’s a 1 with 120 zeros after it. It’s hard to get an answer that bad. So the mystery continues.

    # # #

    If you take Climatology’s excess energy than what is observed (currently 2.33 – 0.6 = 1.73 W.m-2) and calculate the global total from every square metre of the surface of the top of atmosphere, and from that the amount of excess Joules (W = Joules/second) per year, then calculate the excess Joules for each year back to 1950 i.e. the total amount of excess Joules that Climatology theory claims has accumulated in the earth’s system since 1950, you will get an answer that is very bad too.

    But not as bad as Cosmology’s answer.

  22. Richard C (NZ) on 27/07/2016 at 5:40 pm said:

    For perspective (author unknown):

    The 2007 IPCC Statement for Policymakers has a significant error that I have yet to see discussed.

    The SPM reports on a “Total Net Anthropogenic” global average radiative forcing for 2005 of +1.6 [0.6 to 2.4] Watts per meter squared. When one converts the units, this means that the Earth’s climate system should be accumulating Joules at a rate of 2.61*10**22 Joules per year [0.98*10**22 Joules to 3.91*10*22 Joules per year] in 2005.

    The data, however, show quite a different accumulation of Joules in recent years, and in 2005 in particular.

    […using measured ocean heat storage…….]

    Lyman, J. M., J. K. Willis, and G. C. Johnson (2006), Recent cooling of the upper ocean,
    Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L18604, doi:10.1029/2006GL027033.

    “We observe a net loss of 3.2 (±1.1) × 10**22 J of heat from the upper ocean between 2003 and 2005. Using a broad array of in situ ocean measurements, we present annual estimates of global upper-ocean heat content anomaly from 1993 through 2005. Including the recent downturn, the average warming rate for the entire 13-year period is 0.33 ± 0.23 W/m2 (of the Earth’s total surface area)….”

    https://sites.google.com/site/globalwarmingquestions/ar4trf

    # # #

    Cosmology is out by 10^120 too much energy in the universe (even if “dark energy” is actually real).

    Climatology was out by 4.2 x 10^22 J too much energy in the earth’s energy system in 2005 (roughly).

    In other words, Climatology had 4.2 x 10^22 Joules of “dark energy” in the earth’s energy system just in 2005 alone (roughly).

  23. Richard C (NZ) on 27/07/2016 at 7:12 pm said:

    <"If you take Climatology’s excess energy than what is observed (currently 2.33 – 0.6 = 1.73 W.m-2) and calculate the global total from every square metre of the surface of the top of atmosphere, and from that the amount of excess Joules (W = Joules/second) per year, then calculate the excess Joules for each year back to 1950 i.e. the total amount of excess Joules that Climatology theory claims has accumulated in the earth’s system since 1950, you will get an answer that is very bad too."

    Cumulative energy budget – Skeptical Science, by John Cook

    Possibly the most interesting section of the paper [An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950 (Murphy 2009)] (at least to me [John Cook]) is analysing the various contributors to the energy imbalance and where the energy is going. Figure 2 shows the sum of positive, long-term climate forcings.

    Figure 2: Cumulative energy budget for the Earth since 1950, showing mostly positive and mostly long-lived forcing agents from 1950 through 2004.
    http://static.skepticalscience.com/images/cumulative_forcing.gif

    [Note: Cumulative theoretical energy forcing total 1950 – 2004 is 1700 x 10^21 Joules]

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/Measuring-Earths-energy-imbalance.html

    # # #

    BIG PROBLEM

    ‘Global energy accumulation and net heat emission’ [1880–2000 ]
    Bo Nordell and Bruno Gervet (2009)
    http://www.ltu.se/cms_fs/1.5035!/nordell-gervet%20ijgw.pdf

    “The global heat accumulation in the air, ground and water during 1880–2000 is thus 75.8.1014 kWh (27.3.10^21 J). This heat is distributed in the air (6.6%), ground (31.5%), water (28.5%) and melting of land and sea ice (33.3%) according to Figure 3.

    It is noticeable that the heat content in air only corresponds to 6.6% of global warming.

    1700 x 10^21 Joules theoretical cumulative energy forcing total 1950 – 2004
    27.3 x 10^21 Joules estimated actual energy accumulation total 1880–2000 [say 30 at 2004]

    That’s 1630 x 10^21 Joules of “dark energy” that Climatology’s Man-Made Climate Change Theory (a.k.a. AGW) has to have in the earth’s energy system just since 1950 compared to actual estimate from 1880.

    Surely, nobody in their right mind would subscribe to this theory as valid instead of demanding the theory join the list of failed scientific theories?

    Would they?

  24. Richard C (NZ) on 27/07/2016 at 7:22 pm said:

    Should be:

    “That’s [1670] x 10^21 Joules of “dark energy” that Climatology’s Man-Made Climate Change Theory (a.k.a. AGW) has to have in the earth’s energy system just since 1950 compared to actual estimate from 1880.”

  25. Richard C (NZ) on 27/07/2016 at 9:55 pm said:

    Hilarious! John Cook’s ‘Cumulative energy budget’ article features this paper:

    An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950
    D. M. Murphy, S. Solomon, R. W. Portmann, K. H. Rosenlof, P. M. Forster, T. Wong (2009)
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009JD012105/full

    There’s obviously a massive discrepancy between theoretical forcing and actual earth heating. Murphy et al describe the discrepancy as “striking”:

    [38] A striking result of the Earth energy budget analysis presented here [Figure 6] is the small fraction of greenhouse gas forcing that has gone into heating the Earth. Since 1950, only about 10 ± 7% of the forcing by greenhouse gases and solar radiation has gone into heating the Earth, primarily the oceans.

    Figure 6
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1029/2009JD012105/asset/image_n/jgrd15636-fig-0006.png?v=1&s=1d48ee59aed4b059a12eea9575028e88a7b134ce

    OK, total cumulative theoretical forcing is 1700 x 10^21 Joules 1950 – 2004 of which 10% is 170 x 10^21 Joules.

    In Figure 6, solar is already 100 x 10^21 Joules leaving a residual of 70 x 10^21 Joules. Nordell and Gervet (2009) estimate only 27.3 x 10^21 Joules (say 30 at 2004) estimated actual energy accumulation total over the entire extended period 1880–2004.

    So Murphy et al’s 1950 – 2004 earth heating is still 140 x 10^21 Joules MORE than Nordell and Gervet’s estimate for earth heating over the entire period 1880-2004 (170 vs 30 x 10^21 Joules) even after throwing out all GhG forcing and a bit of solar forcing.

    It gets worse.

    [39] …………Small changes in heat transfer into the ocean, cloudiness, or other terms can create significant changes in surface temperature………..

    Murphy et al (2009) effectively falsify the Man-Made Climate Change Theory.

    Thanks John Cook.

  26. Andy on 28/07/2016 at 9:41 am said:

    A reply from Chris de Freitas in the Herald

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11682506

    No doubt this will be rebutted, or head butted, elsewhere

  27. Richard Treadgold on 28/07/2016 at 9:49 am said:

    It’s always enlightening to listen to Chris.

  28. Andy on 28/07/2016 at 11:55 am said:

    Apparently CdF has been receiving hate emails from his fan base.

    It would be nice to publish some of them here (names redacted of course)

  29. Andy on 28/07/2016 at 12:20 pm said:

    This piece from Seven Sharp that ran last year in which Jarrod Gilbert complains about his free speech being impeded by the Police because of his links to NZ gangs such as the Mongrel Mob (which he has via his legitimate research)

    http://tvnz.co.nz/seven-sharp/i-m-being-prevented-studying-crime-gang-researcher-blacklisted-cops-video-6428584

    Free speech, by its very definition, cuts both ways

  30. Mike Jowsey on 28/07/2016 at 5:09 pm said:

    RC: ‘Superseded scientific theories’…. so we can finally label the warmists ‘SST deniers’.

  31. Richard Treadgold on 28/07/2016 at 5:19 pm said:

    Heh!

  32. Richard C (NZ) on 28/07/2016 at 6:49 pm said:

    Mike. I argue that the Man-Made Climate Change Theory is redundant and always was. There is no need to supersede a redundant theory.

    Murphy et al upthread discard 90% of their theoretical forcing in order to reconcile with actual earth’s heating. But they still have way more heating than Nordell and Gervet so they have to discard about another 8% which means ALL of their GhG forcing is discarded and even some of their solar forcing.

    All they have left then is solar forcing so their theoretical anthropogenic forcing factors are superfluous.

    Therefore, the Man-Made Climate Change Theory is redundant. It is not necessary to invoke it to explain earth’s heating from 1880 to 2004.

  33. Richard C (NZ) on 28/07/2016 at 7:18 pm said:

    As in much of climate science and IPCC Assessment Reports, it’s not what Murphy et al says that is important, it’s what they don’t say that is most important. I say this in respect to their Figure 6(a) graph because a picture tells a thousand words. See graph:

    Murphy et al (2009) Figure 6(a)
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1029/2009JD012105/asset/image_n/jgrd15636-fig-0006.png?v=1&s=1d48ee59aed4b059a12eea9575028e88a7b134ce

    My question is this: why didn’t they graph their actual earth’s heating against their theoretical forcings?

    Here’s my (cynical) reason why I think they didn’t do that. Their actual heating (which is far in excess of Nordell and Gervet’s) on that graph is a line just above solar (red) from 0 to 170. That would make the rest of their theory from 170 to 1700 look very silly.

    They would have been thrown out of the “consensus” – excommunicated, persona non grata (literally meaning “person not appreciated”).

  34. Simon on 28/07/2016 at 8:02 pm said:

    Let’s unpack the lies:
    Constantly rising atmospheric levels of CO2, according to the IPCC, cause the global mean surface temperature (GMST) to rise, yet it has failed significantly to rise for about 20 years, while CO2 has increased by about 10%.
    False
    Every measure of surface temperature shows a warming trend since 1996, e.g.:
    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1996/trend/plot/uah-land/from:1996/trend
    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1996/trend/plot/rss-land/from:1996/trend

  35. Simon on 28/07/2016 at 8:11 pm said:

    ◾Climate models predict temperatures far higher than the observed GMST.
    Although some papers suggest this might be true, the current thinking is that there is significant sampling bias:
    http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~kdc3/papers/reconciled2016/background.html
    ◾The IPCC predict ever-increasing warming from increasing levels of CO2 but refuse to acknowledge that the amount of warming from each increment of CO2 decreases logarithmically.
    This is just rubbish. Please read the chapter on Radiative Forcing.
    http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/pdf/tar-06.pdf
    Whenever you state something controversial or misleading, the onus is on yourself to provide references and evidence.

  36. Richard C (NZ) on 28/07/2016 at 10:19 pm said:

    Simon

    >”Please read the chapter on Radiative Forcing.” [in respect to decreasing logarithmic effect on “warming”, presumably surface temperature]

    Radiative forcing theory e.g. simplified, dF = 5.35 ln(C/Co), is applicable to the earth’s energy balance measured at top of atmosphere – not temperature or surface “warming”. IPCC AR5 Chapter 10 states anthropogenic effective radiative forcing (ERF) was 2.33 W.m-2 at the time of the report. This is increasing obviously. The same report cites 2 papers in Chapter 2 (Stephens et al 2012 and Loeb et al 2012) that the actual earth’s energy balance was 0.6 W.m-2 2000 – 2010 and trendless. Theory is 4 times actual.

    Thus the IPCC’s radiative forcing theory is falsified but the IPCC omitted to address the issue in Chapter 10.

    This is all upthread already of course but you don’t follow CCG threads do you Simon?

  37. Dennis N Horne on 28/07/2016 at 10:42 pm said:

    There is no scientific debate.

    The science is clear and incontrovertible, according to nearly all informed scientists, their institutions and societies on the planet.

    If a bloke thought he knew more about any other topic he would be considered mad.

  38. Richard C (NZ) on 28/07/2016 at 10:57 pm said:

    Simon

    The IPCC does acknowledge that [theoretically] the amount of warming [in respect to temperature] from each increment of CO2 decreases logarithmically but they do not state that specifically. The word “logarithmic” does not occur in IPCC TAR Chapter 6 that you link to Simon.

    It’s hidden away in the citations. Read about that here:

    ‘The diminishing influence of increasing Carbon Dioxide on temperature’
    by Ed Hoskins
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/10/the-diminishing-influence-of-increasing-carbon-dioxide-on-temperature/

    I assume that is where you came up with your TAR reference Simon, because Ed Hoskins refers to TAR. I would have thought AR5 Chapter 8 Radiative Forcing was now the relevant reference.

  39. Richard C (NZ) on 29/07/2016 at 12:21 am said:

    Simon

    [RT] >”Constantly rising atmospheric levels of CO2, according to the IPCC, cause the global mean surface temperature (GMST) to rise, yet it has failed significantly to rise for about 20 years, while CO2 has increased by about 10%.”

    [You] >”False. Every measure of surface temperature shows a warming trend since 1996, e.g.:”

    You can’t include the latest El Nino spike Simon without also including the following (inevitable) La Nina dip and return to neutral i.e. the entire ENSO process back to neutral. That wont be until about the end of 2018. Alternatively end your graphs at 2014 to see where they were headed without the recent El Nino spike then compare to graphs ending 2016 but with mean samples 60 to smooth out as much ENSO noise as you can to date and you get this comparison in your graphs (HadCRUT lags 1 month behind the others BTW)

    To 2014
    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1996/to:2014/trend/plot/uah-land/from:1996/to:2014/trend
    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1996/to:2014/trend/plot/rss-land/from:1996/to:2014/trend

    Minimal per decade trends in GISTEMP and RSS.

    To 2016, 60 month smoothing
    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1996/to:2016/mean:60/trend/plot/uah-land/from:1996/to:2016/mean:60/trend
    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1996/to:2016/mean:60/trend/plot/rss-land/from:1996/to:2016/mean:60/trend

    RSS is dead flat. Minimal per decade trend in the others except HadCRUT4 which lags 1 month.

    And you missed the word “significantly” Simon. The IPCC does not address the 20 year timeframe but they do address the post 1998 15 year time frame with respect to the pre 1998 15 year time frame i.e. 30 years in total.. This is what the IPCC say about that:

    Box 9.2 | Climate Models and the Hiatus in Global Mean Surface Warming of the Past 15 Years

    The observed global mean surface temperature (GMST) has shown a much smaller increasing linear trend over the past 15 years than over the past 30 to 60 years (Section 2.4.3, Figure 2.20, Table 2.7; Figure 9.8; Box 9.2 Figure 1a, c). Depending on the observational data set, the GMST trend over 1998–2012 is estimated to be around one-third to one-half of the trend over 1951–2012 (Section 2.4.3, Table 2.7; Box 9.2 Figure 1a, c). For example, in HadCRUT4 the trend is 0.04ºC per decade over 1998–2012, compared to 0.11ºC per decade over 1951–2012.

    […]

    ……….an analysis of the full suite of CMIP5 historical simulations (augmented for the period 2006–2012 by RCP4.5 simulations, Section 9.3.2) reveals that 111 out of 114 realizations show a GMST trend over 1998–2012 that is higher than the entire HadCRUT4 trend ensemble (Box 9.2 Figure 1a; CMIP5 ensemble mean trend is 0.21ºC per decade).

    http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter09_FINAL.pdf

    HadCRUT4 trend 0.04ºC per decade 1998–2012
    CMIP5 mean trend 0.21ºC per decade 1998–2012

    This is the issue Simon. GMST has not risen “significantly” I.e. commensurate with the highest GHG emissions in the industrial era and with the CO2-forced models.

  40. Richard C (NZ) on 29/07/2016 at 12:37 am said:

    Simon

    >[RT]”Climate models predict temperatures far higher than the observed GMST.”

    [You] >’Although some papers suggest this might be true, the current thinking is that there is significant sampling bias: [link]”

    You link to an undated article, not a paper, lead author Mark Richardson. We’ve just looked at commentary on the Richardson et al (2016) paper (paywalled) in the ‘Gavin Schmidt confirms model excursions’ thread here:

    https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2016/07/gavin-schmidt-confirms-model-excursions/#comment-1501595

    My comment:

    What “largely agree” means remains to be seen (paywalled). The “Fifth of Global Warming” the observations “miss” (apparently), is Arctic warming only the models produce and some other minor warming that MUST have been there because the observations need to be adjusted to “account” for it.

    Here’s the kicker:

    The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of Earth, but there are fewer historic temperature readings from there than from lower latitudes because it is so inaccessible. A data set with fewer Arctic temperature measurements naturally shows less warming than a climate model that fully represents the Arctic.

    Because it isn’t possible to add more measurements from the past, the researchers instead set up the climate models to mimic the limited coverage in the historical records.

    The new study also accounted for two other issues. First, the historical data mix air and water temperatures, whereas model results refer to air temperatures only. This quirk also skews the historical record toward the cool side, because water warms less than air. The final issue is that there was considerably more Arctic sea ice when temperature records began in the 1860s, and early observers recorded air temperatures over nearby land areas for the sea-ice-covered regions. As the ice melted, later observers switched to water temperatures instead. That also pushed down the reported temperature change.

    Scientists have known about these quirks for some time, but this is the first study to calculate their impact. “They’re quite small on their own, but they add up in the same direction,” Richardson said. “We were surprised that they added up to such a big effect.”

    These quirks hide around 19 percent of global air-temperature warming since the 1860s. That’s enough that calculations generated from historical records alone were cooler than about 90 percent of the results from the climate models that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uses for its authoritative assessment reports. In the apples-to-apples comparison, the historical temperature calculation was close to the middle of the range of calculations from the IPCC’s suite of models.

    The assumption, by circular reasoning, is this : The warming was there all along (we now “know” from our models – all the extra 19% of it) but it is only mainly in the Arctic, and we have to “tweak” the observations a bit too. If we neglect the Arctic and the Arctic warming in the models and “tweak” the observations, the models and observations will reconcile.

    Question is though, what difference was there between the “limited coverage” models and the CMIP5 models? Again, this remains to be seen (paywalled)

    Still problematic because the satellites have the coverage that surface measurements don’t including much of the Arctic region e.g. the Schmidt and Christy graphs in the post. The surface disparity that JPL’s Richardson et al is addressing began way back in the 1860s (apparently), but the major disparity between temperature derived from NASA’s own satellites and the models only began in the mid 1990s. Same at the surface although the divergence began after about 1985.

    The CMIP5 models are spot on surface observations up until 1955. And still good at 1985 i.e. there was no reason to “adjust” either models or observations prior to 1985. If Richardson et al have “adjusted” both models and observations prior to 1985 then they have turned a very satisfactory situation into a problematic situation.

    NASA’s JPL are digging themselves into a very big hole.

  41. Richard C (NZ) on 29/07/2016 at 12:59 am said:

    Simon

    >”Please read the chapter on Radiative Forcing.”

    That’s TAR you’ve linked to Simon, I’ve read AR5 Chapter 8 Radiative Forcing.

    In respect to the IPCC’s radiative forcing theory in AR5 Chapter 8, Observations in Chapter 2, and Detection and Attribution in Chapter 10, please read this Simon:

    IPCC Ignores IPCC Climate Change Criteria – Incompetence or Coverup?
    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52688456/IPCCIgnoresIPCCClimateChangeCriteria.pdf

    The IPCC’s radiative forcing theory is falsified by their own primary, and critical, climate change criteria and their theory and observations applied to it.

    And in respect to surface heating by the IPCC’s theoretical anthropogenic radiative forcing components, please read the following:
    ***************************************************************************************
    Two papers that together falsify the Man-Made Climate Change Theory.

    1) ‘An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950’
    D. M. Murphy, S. Solomon, R. W. Portmann, K. H. Rosenlof, P. M. Forster, T. Wong (2009)
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009JD012105/full

    There is obviously a massive discrepancy between theoretical forcing and actual earth heating. Murphy et al describe the discrepancy as “striking”:

    [38] A striking result of the Earth energy budget analysis presented here [Figure 6 below] is the small fraction of greenhouse gas forcing that has gone into heating the Earth. Since 1950, only about 10 ± 7% of the forcing by greenhouse gases and solar radiation has gone into heating the Earth, primarily the oceans.

    Murphy et al (2009) Figure 6
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1029/2009JD012105/asset/image_n/jgrd15636-fig-0006.png?v=1&s=1d48ee59aed4b059a12eea9575028e88a7b134ce

    Total cumulative theoretical forcing is 1700 x 10^21 Joules 1950 – 2004 of which 10% is 170 x 10^21 Joules.

    In Figure 6, solar forcing is already 100 x 10^21 Joules leaving a residual of 70 x 10^21 Joules. Nordell and Gervet (2009) below estimate only 27.3 x 10^21 Joules (say 30 at 2004) actual energy accumulation total over the entire extended period 1880–2000 (say 2004):

    2) ‘Global energy accumulation and net heat emission’ [1880–2000 ]
    Bo Nordell and Bruno Gervet (2009)
    http://www.ltu.se/cms_fs/1.5035!/nordell-gervet%20ijgw.pdf

    “The global heat accumulation in the air, ground and water during 1880–2000 is thus 75.8.1014 kWh (27.3.10^21 J). This heat is distributed in the air (6.6%), ground (31.5%), water (28.5%) and melting of land and sea ice (33.3%) according to Figure 3.

    It is noticeable that the heat content in air only corresponds to 6.6% of global warming.

    So Murphy et al’s 1950 – 2004 earth heating is still 140 x 10^21 Joules MORE than Nordell and Gervet’s estimate for earth heating over the entire period 1880-2004 (170 vs 30 x 10^21 Joules) even after Murphy et al throw out almost all GhG forcing and a bit of solar forcing (90% total discard).

    In other words, Murphy et al would have to discard ALL GhG forcing (and a bit more solar forcing) to reconcile with Nordell and Gervet.

    It gets worse for the Man-Made Theory after the GhG discard:

    [39] “…………Small changes in heat transfer into the ocean, cloudiness, or other terms can create significant changes in surface temperature………..”

    Not specified but obviously Surface Solar Radiation (SSR) i.e. solar radiation reaching the surface through clouds, aerosols, etc, would drive “small changes in heat transfer into the ocean” along with windiness or changes in wind patterns.

    All Murphy et al have left heating the earth is solar forcing.

    Murphy et al (2009) together with Nordell and Gervet (2009) effectively falsify the Man-Made Climate Change Theory.

  42. Richard C (NZ) on 29/07/2016 at 1:20 am said:

    >”Still problematic because the satellites have the coverage that surface measurements don’t including much of the Arctic region e.g. the Schmidt and Christy graphs in the post.”

    Not quite right here. Only the Christy graph is “Global”. Schmidt’s is only Tropics.

  43. Richard C (NZ) on 29/07/2016 at 9:42 am said:

    Simon

    [Me] >”Radiative forcing theory e.g. simplified, dF = 5.35 ln(C/Co), is applicable to the earth’s energy balance measured at top of atmosphere – not temperature or surface “warming”.”

    Murphy et al (2008) linked upthread estimate “the small fraction of greenhouse gas forcing that has gone into heating the Earth”:

    Murphy et al (2009)Figure 6.
    Cumulative energy budget for the Earth since 1950. (a) Mostly positive and mostly long-lived forcing agents from 1950 through 2004. (b) The positive forcings have been balanced by stratospheric aerosols, direct and indirect aerosol forcing, increased outgoing radiation from a warming Earth and the amount remaining to heat the Earth. The aerosol direct and indirect effects portion is a residual after computing all other terms.
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1029/2009JD012105/asset/image_n/jgrd15636-fig-0006.png?v=1&s=1d48ee59aed4b059a12eea9575028e88a7b134ce

    Problem #1:

    [38] A striking result of the Earth energy budget analysis presented here is the small fraction of greenhouse gas forcing that has gone into heating the Earth. Since 1950, only about 10 ± 7% of the forcing by greenhouse gases and solar radiation has gone into heating the Earth, primarily the oceans.

    Of their 1700 x 10^21 Joules of theoretical TOA forcing, only 10% (170 x 10^21 Joules) heats the earth’s surface i.e. 90% is ineffective as a surface heating agents. 100 of that 170 10% residual is solar forcing.

    Problem #2

    Murphy et al’s surface heating estimate 1950 – 2004 is wildly more than Nordell and Gervet’s estimate for the entire period 1880 – 2004 when their estimate is extended from 2000.

    To reconcile, Murphy et al would have to neglect ALL of their GhG forcing AND some of their solar forcing.

    Problem #3

    When reconciled (or thereabouts) with Nordell and Gervet (2009), The only TOA forcing Murphy et al (2009) has left to heat the earth’s surface is solar forcing (see Figure 6).

    ALL of Murphy et al’s theoretical anthropogenic GhG forcings are redundant to earth surface heating.

  44. Richard C (NZ) on 29/07/2016 at 11:03 am said:

    >”To 2016, 60 month smoothing [links to graphs omitted] RSS is dead flat. Minimal per decade trend in the others except HadCRUT4 which lags 1 month.”

    Wrong here. Even though HadCRUT4 lags 1 month behind the others, it has about half the trend of the others excluding RSS which is dead flat.

    Only about 0.07 C.decade. That will disappear very quickly when La Nina data is added to HadCRUT4 i.e. HadCRUT4 will be flat in a month or two along with RSS.

  45. Andy on 29/07/2016 at 11:43 am said:

    I’ getting a bit lost in detail here. Simon accused someone of lying, then dumped a massive document on radiative forcing, and gave no explanation.

    If one is being accused of lying, can one please explain who is lying about and what?

    Naturally, I know that when one hangs out with bottom feeders like Ian Forrester and slime like Rob Taylor at Hot Topic, accusing all and sundry of lying is standard practice

    Thanks in advance for your kind consideration

  46. Richard C (NZ) on 29/07/2016 at 11:59 am said:

    >”Radiative forcing theory e.g. simplified, dF = 5.35 ln(C/Co), is applicable to the earth’s energy balance measured at top of atmosphere – not temperature or surface “warming”.”

    TOA forcing must have a translation to be applied to surface temperature. Even then it is inadequate in terms of heat.From TAR:

    6.2 Forcing-Response Relationship
    6.2.1 Characteristics
    As discussed in the SAR, the change in the net irradiance at the tropopause, as defined in Section 6.1.1, is, to a first order, a good indicator of the equilibrium global mean (understood to be globally and annually averaged) surface temperature change. The climate sensitivity parameter (global mean surface temperature
    response ΔTs to the radiative forcing ΔF) is defined as:

    ΔTs / ΔF = λ (6.1)

    (Dickinson, 1982; WMO, 1986; Cess et al., 1993). Equation (6.1) is defined for the transition of the surface-troposphere system from one equilibrium state to another in response to an externally imposed radiative perturbation. In the one-dimensional radiativeconvective models, wherein the concept was first initiated, λ is a nearly invariant parameter (typically, about 0.5 K/(Wm−2); Ramanathan et al., 1985) for a variety of radiative forcings, thus introducing the notion of a possible universality of the relationship between forcing and response. It is this feature which has enabled the radiative forcing to be perceived as a useful tool for obtaining first-order estimates of the relative climate impacts of different imposed radiative perturbations. Although the value of the parameter “λ” can vary from one model to another, within each model it is found to be remarkably constant for a wide range of radiative perturbations (WMO, 1986). The invariance of λ has
    made the radiative forcing concept appealing as a convenient measure to estimate the global, annual mean surface temperature response, without taking the recourse to actually run and analyse, say, a three-dimensional atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) simulation.

    http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/pdf/tar-06.pdf

    Except this is not heat content or surface heating. Murphy el al (2009) and Nordell & Gervet (2009) demonstrate (inadvertently) that theoretical GhG forcing is an ineffective surface heating agent e.g. ocean, land, ice, and also an ineffective tropospheric heating agent including near-surface air.

    Only solar forcing is the effective surface and tropospheric heating agent.

  47. Richard C (NZ) on 29/07/2016 at 12:30 pm said:

    Simon

    [Simon] >”Let’s unpack the lies:” [Note plural]

    [Andy] >”Simon accused someone of lying, then dumped a massive document on radiative forcing, and gave no explanation. If one is being accused of lying, can one please explain who is lying about and what?”

    I’m with Andy on this. I’ve looked at all 3 of your “lies” accusations Simon and I only find 1 of RT’s statements that might be questionable, but hardly a “lie”.

    That statement by RT is this:

    “The IPCC predict ever-increasing warming from increasing levels of CO2 but refuse to acknowledge that the amount of warming from each increment of CO2 decreases logarithmically.”

    You then “dump” the TAR Chapter 6 on Radiative Forcing on us but with no quote or explanation as RT’s alleged “lie” that supports your accusation.

    Where in IPCC TAR Chapter 6 is there a statement to the effect that:

    “the amount of warming from each increment of CO2 decreases logarithmically”

    Please quote a similar statement from Chapter 6 that supports your allegation that the above by RT is a “lie” i.e. untrue. If you can’t produce you will have to retract your allegation Simon.

    BtW. The word “logarithmic” does not occur in TAR Chapter 6 (do a pdf search).

  48. Richard C (NZ) on 29/07/2016 at 1:13 pm said:

    Slander – the action or crime of making a false spoken [i.e. oral] statement damaging to a person’s reputation. Slander is contrasted with libel, which is the act of making a false written statement about someone

    Like a written false “lies” allegation.

  49. Rodney Hide on 29/07/2016 at 4:00 pm said:

    Don’t forget “denial is treason” from Chris Trotter:

    “If, therefore, the battle against climate change has to become the moral equivalent of war, with all the sacrifice that war entails, then climate change denial must become the moral equivalent of treason.”

    http://i.stuff.co.nz/blogs/opinion/3151322/In-the-war-for-nature-the-deniers-are-traitors

    Rodney Hide

  50. Andy on 29/07/2016 at 4:28 pm said:

    I see that Rodney’s reference was back in the heady days of 2009, Copenhagen and Climategate

    It’s amazing that the rhetoric has managed to keep going since then, given all that has happened in the meantime

  51. Mike Jowsey on 29/07/2016 at 4:34 pm said:

    [RC] “Please quote a similar statement from Chapter 6 that supports your allegation that the above by RT is a “lie” i.e. untrue. If you can’t produce you will have to retract your allegation Simon.”

    A lie is more than just untrue RC. A lie is this: knowing the truth, one nevertheless tells an untruth. So the libel is more than just saying that RT got something wrong (i.e. untrue), and that requires a debate for sure. Yet Simon, by the use of the word “lies”, asserts that RT knows that his words are untrue and yet promulgates them.

    So yes, Simon, ante up with your definitive proof that 1) RT got something wrong, and 2) RT knew that it was wrong but lied to us all. Otherwise, man up and apologise.

  52. Mike Jowsey on 29/07/2016 at 4:46 pm said:

    It’s enough to rankle one in an irksome manner.

  53. Dennis N Horne on 29/07/2016 at 6:05 pm said:

    Is it all a vast conspiracy involving the Royal Society, US National Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Physical Society, American Chemical Society … ?

    Or have scientists and journal editors all taken leave of their senses?

    I wonder. Is it possible there is another explanation?
    http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Denialism

  54. Maggy Wassilieff on 29/07/2016 at 6:30 pm said:

    In New Zealand libel and slander are considered to be defamation.

    http://www.defamationupdate.co.nz/guide-to-defamation-law

  55. Richard Treadgold on 29/07/2016 at 6:58 pm said:

    Simon,
    I’ve asked for references from you to validate your allegation of lies, and thanks for what you have provided, but you’re still in deficit, with more allegations than proof, I think.

    When you say:

    Let’s unpack the lies

    Gee, that’s offensive.

    Constantly rising atmospheric levels of CO2, according to the IPCC, cause the global mean surface temperature (GMST) to rise, yet it has failed significantly to rise for about 20 years, while CO2 has increased by about 10%.
    False
    Every measure of surface temperature shows a warming trend since 1996, e.g.:
    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1996/trend/plot/uah-land/from:1996/trend
    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1996/trend/plot/rss-land/from:1996/trend

    You claim four datasets comprise “every measure of surface temperature.” But two of them are not even global records, they’re land only — did you know that? Anyway, the RSS global lower troposphere shows slight (but insignificant) cooling for almost 20 years. So my claim that GMST has failed significantly to rise for about 20 years while CO2 rises significantly is not false.

  56. Simon on 29/07/2016 at 8:40 pm said:

    You specifically claimed there had been no increase in Global Mean Surface Temperature.
    The lower troposphere extends to 10 km above the earth’s surface. This is mysteriously never mentioned when ‘look no warming’ charts are shown.
    Interesting, UAH TLT shows warming for the same period. If you start the RSS series at any other time than mid 1997/98, you will get a positive trend. This indicates cynical cherry-picking. You are also conveniently ignoring the shift of trend-line, i.e. the Skeptical Science escalator.
    This isn’t evidence of an enquiring mind or skepticism. It is the exact opposite; your world view is pre-determined and cognitive dissonance means that any contradictory evidence fails to register.

  57. Andy on 30/07/2016 at 8:42 am said:

    I’m pretty sure you can get warming or cooling trends from Wood for Trees depending on start and end points, and all the error bounds are an order of magnitude greater than the trends for the last decade and a half

  58. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 10:25 am said:

    Simon

    >”You [Richard Treadgold] specifically claimed there had been no increase in Global Mean Surface Temperature.”

    WRONG. As usual for a Lefty Warmist you make up stuff Simon. You “defame” as Maggy points out. Contrary to your latest claim above Simon, Richard Treadgold’s “specific” statement (that you quote upthread Simon) was actually this:

    [RT] >”Constantly rising atmospheric levels of CO2, according to the IPCC, cause the global mean surface temperature (GMST) to rise, yet it has failed significantly to rise for about 20 years, while CO2 has increased by about 10%.”

    Note the use of the word “significant” Simon, you CANNOT omit that word. Paraphrasing RT: GMST has failed to rise SIGNIFICANTLY. That is NOT the same as saying “there had been no increase in Global Mean Surface Temperature” that you now claim is what Richard Treadgold says Simon. He doesn’t of course. You are in error Simon.

    The IPCC 2013 report concurs with Richard Treadgold in respect to the 15 years to 2012 at least:

    Box 9.2 | Climate Models and the Hiatus in Global Mean Surface Warming of the Past 15 Years

    The observed global mean surface temperature (GMST) has shown a much smaller increasing linear trend over the past 15 years than over the past 30 to 60 years (Section 2.4.3, Figure 2.20, Table 2.7; Figure 9.8; Box 9.2 Figure 1a, c). Depending on the observational data set, the GMST trend over 1998–2012 is estimated to be around one-third to one-half of the trend over 1951–2012 (Section 2.4.3, Table 2.7; Box 9.2 Figure 1a, c). For example, in HadCRUT4 the trend is 0.04ºC per decade over 1998–2012, compared to 0.11ºC per decade over 1951–2012.

    http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter09_FINAL.pdf

    0.04ºC per decade rise over 1998–2012 is NOT “significant” Simon. Since then there has been an El Nino which is effectively data “npise” that has to be smoothed to ascertain the data trajectory (see below).

    >”The lower troposphere extends to 10 km above the earth’s surface. This is mysteriously never mentioned when ‘look no warming’ charts are shown.”

    Huh? Never mentioned? Well not by you Simon because you presented RSS land-only. RSS lower troposphere certainly IS mentioned when ‘look no warming’ charts are shown. Here it is here with El Nino smoothing:

    RSS Lower Troposphere Global Mean last 20 years to 2016, 60 month smoothing
    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1996/to:2016/mean:60/trend

    Despite the radical falling appearance of that graph, it is actually a perfect example of a DEAD FLAT ‘look no warming’ chart. Again, you are in error Simon.

    >”If you start the RSS series at any other time than mid 1997/98, you will get a positive trend.”

    Look just above and you will see RSS beginning at 1996 with El Nino smoothing and a NEGATIVE trend. Again (again), you are in error Simon.

    >”This indicates cynical cherry-picking.”

    No Simon, this is the “20 years” in question for which you presented 4 graphs all without “significant” rise and when El Nino noise is removed RSS Global exhibits a flat trend. Besides, is the IPCC above indulging in ” cynical cherry-picking” too?

    >”You are also conveniently ignoring the shift of trend-line, i.e. the Skeptical Science escalator. This isn’t evidence of an enquiring mind or skepticism. It is the exact opposite; your world view is pre-determined and cognitive dissonance means that any contradictory evidence fails to register.”

    Now you are really losing it Simon. The period in question is “about 20 years” immediately past. So what “shift of trend-line” are you referring to. Are you referring to the 15 year trend that the IPCC states above is less than the previous 15 years i.e. a “shift” DOWN?

    And what “trend line” is this? You are implying by the word “line” that a linear trend is the best statistical description of the fluctuating data over a period longer than 20 years. It certainly is not Simon. A linear trend line is only statistically valid when the data essentially resembles a line i.e. linear in nature. GMST is certainly NOT linear in nature.

    I would point out that Richard Treadgold’s statement makes no mention whatsoever of the word “trend”. His statement is NOT about “trend”. He is referring to change in absolute temperature. If you look at ENSO-neutral GMST absolute (not “trend”), there has been no “significant” change in the last 20 years. Certainly not what the CO2-forced models indicate there SHOULD be.

    You are in gross error Simon.

  59. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 11:20 am said:

    Simon

    >”The lower troposphere extends to 10 km above the earth’s surface.”

    Lets be clear about this.

    “Lower” troposphere, in terms of satellite series (TLT), is as explained by Bob Tisdale:

    UAH LOWER TROPOSPHERE TEMPERATURE ANOMALY COMPOSITE (UAH TLT)
    Special sensors (microwave sounding units) aboard satellites have orbited the Earth since the late 1970s, allowing scientists to calculate the temperatures of the atmosphere at various heights above sea level (lower troposphere, mid troposphere, tropopause and lower stratosphere). The atmospheric temperature values are calculated from a series of satellites with overlapping operation periods, not from a single satellite. Because the atmospheric temperature products rely on numerous satellites, they are known as composites. The level nearest to the surface of the Earth is the lower troposphere. The lower troposphere temperature composite include the altitudes of zero to about 12,500 meters, but are most heavily weighted to the altitudes of less than 3000 meters. See the left-hand cell of the illustration here.
    https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/tlt-tmt-tls-weighting.png

    TLT is most heavily weighted to the altitudes of less than 3 km.

  60. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 12:06 pm said:

    Simon

    >”Interesting, UAH TLT shows warming for the same period”

    Also interesting is that woodfortrees UAH is Version 5.6

    UAH Global Temperature Update for June 2016: +0.34 deg. C
    July 1st, 2016 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
    NOTE: This is the fifteenth monthly update with our new Version 6.0 dataset. Differences versus the old Version 5.6 dataset are discussed here [hotlink]. Note we are now at “beta5” for Version 6, and the paper describing the methodology is still in peer review.
    http://www.drroyspencer.com/2016/07/uah-global-temperature-update-for-june-2016-0-34-deg-c/

    2016.42 +0.467 Version 5.6
    2016.42 +0.34 Version 6.0
    Diff 0.127 deg. C

  61. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 12:36 pm said:

    Temperature, whether GMST or TLT in deg. C, is not the IPCC’s primary, and critical, climate change criteria.

    That accolade goes to the earth’s energy balance measured at top of atmosphere (TOA) in W.m-2. Man-Made Climate Change theory fails by that criteria so surface of tropospheric temperature is immaterial because TOA imbalance “controls” temperature according to the IPCC criteria.

    Surely it’s time now for everyone to stop barking up the wrong tree.

  62. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 12:40 pm said:

    >”……the IPCC’s primary, and critical, climate change criteria. That accolade goes to the earth’s energy balance measured at top of atmosphere (TOA) in W.m-2″

    Trendless according to the IPCC. “Highly unlikely” there is a “significant” trend.

  63. Richard Treadgold on 30/07/2016 at 1:37 pm said:

    Maggy,

    In New Zealand libel and slander are considered to be defamation.

    That’s interesting, Mags (if I might call you Mags?). Makes me wonder why our forefathers drew them differently. Seems an example of antipodean pragmatism: since writing is in essence speech, why not treat both forms of defamation as one? Though writing is often executed with more precision than speech, and certainly with greater formality, given extra time for consideration, it’s not at all true that speech cannot be both precise and well considered. But still, a libel perhaps held more blameworthiness for the extra consideration required over an impetuous slander? Or a simple matter of the relative sizes of the potential audience? But if the law once held slander to differ fundamentally from libel, I wonder what has changed. Fascinating.

  64. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 1:39 pm said:

    The scientific fraud being perpetuated and disseminated is outrageous. Latest from Chris Huntingford & Lina M. Mercado:

    Press release 2016/03 – Issued by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology,
    ‘High chance that current atmospheric greenhouse concentrations commit to warmings greater than 1.5 °C over land’
    http://www.ceh.ac.uk/press/high-chance-current-atmospheric-greenhouse-concentrations-commit-warmings-greater-15-°c-over

    Paper
    ‘High chance that current atmospheric greenhouse concentrations commit to warmings greater than 1.5 °C over land’
    Chris Huntingford & Lina M. Mercado (2016)
    http://www.nature.com/articles/srep30294

    JoNova
    Trite Science Prize: New science paper tells us air over land “heats more than water”
    http://joannenova.com.au/2016/07/is-that-news-new-science-paper-tells-us-air-over-land-heats-more-than-water/

    My comment at #30:

    Press Release:

    “At present, the climate is out of equilibrium, with the oceans drawing down very large amounts of heat from the atmosphere.”

    Heh. Yes Jo, was it ever “in” equilibrium?

    The TOA imbalance was only 0.6 W.m-2 in the last IPCC AR5 report, and trendless. Meanwhile total theoretical effective radiative forcing (ERF) was reported to be 2.33 W.m-2. Theory is 4 times actual.

    And “the oceans drawing down very large amounts of heat from the atmosphere” is mere speculation. It is also attribution-by-speculation in IPCC AR5 Chapter 10 Detection and Attribution.

    In Chapter 3 Observations: Ocean they found no evidence of this.

    Their earth’s energy budget in Chapter 2 Observations: Atmosphere which was Stephens et al (2012) has no net energy flux DOWN except solar. Net longwave infrared is a COOLING flux from the surface (-52.4 W.m-2) i.e. heat from the ocean transferred UP.

  65. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 2:23 pm said:

    [Huntingford & Mercado] >”…..the oceans drawing down very large amounts of heat from the atmosphere.”

    This is totally bogus.

    Upthread Murphy et al (2009) together with Nordell and Gervet (2009) show that oceanic heat accumulation is solar sourced when read in conjunction with the earth’s energy budget (see bottom of comment).

    Nordell and Gervet:

    “The global heat accumulation in the air, ground and water during 1880–2000 is thus 75.8.1014 kWh (27.3.10^21 J). This heat is distributed in the air (6.6%), ground (31.5%), water (28.5%) and melting of land and sea ice (33.3%) according to Figure 3.

    So only about 7.8 x 10^21 Joules of oceanic heat accumulation 1880 to 2000. NODC graph about 200 x 10^21 Joules 1950 2000 for 0-2000m OHC. Murphy et al come up with 170 x 10^21 for air+ground+water+melting 1950 – 2004, 100 of that solar-sourced after discarding 1530 from GhG theory.

    Estimates are all over the shop. But it is clear that the Huntingford & Mercado statement is attributing to “the atmosphere” what should be attributed to solar heating. The IPCC make the same scientifically fraudulent error in AR5 WG1 Chapter 10 Detection and Attribution..

    The earth’s energy budget at surface (cited by IPCC AR5 WG1 Chapter 2) clearly shows that it is impossible to attribute ocean heating to anything other than solar forcing – Period.

    Earth’s Energy Budget – Stephens et al (2012) Figure 1
    http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/images/ngeo1580-f1.jpg

  66. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 3:08 pm said:

    RT

    >”Anyway, the RSS global lower troposphere shows slight (but insignificant) cooling for almost 20 years. So my claim that GMST has failed significantly to rise for about 20 years while CO2 rises significantly is not false.”

    You will no doubt be accused of “cherry picking”. However………

    ‘The Pause Is Back, It Never Went Away’

    By Paul Homewood, July 22, 2016

    [See RSS graph]

    Despite temperatures peaking in February, just above the 1998 peak, satellite measurements show that temperature trends have only risen by a statistically insignificant 0.002C/year since 1998.

    Pause deniers always object to comparisons with 1998. However, as we are now comparing two massive El Nino years, that objection no longer carries any weight.

    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/07/22/the-pause-is-back-it-never-went-away/

    # # #

    I suggest 60 month El Nino smoothing (see upthread and below) is the better approach.

    RSS Lower Troposphere Global Mean last 20 years to 2016, 60 month smoothing
    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1996/to:2016/mean:60/trend

  67. Maggy Wassilieff on 30/07/2016 at 3:24 pm said:

    @R.T.
    We’ve treated libel and slander as defamation since 1954.
    I don’t know why NZ legislators opted for this.
    (some history here:http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/1966/libel-law-of)

    Today, we are covered by the Defamation Act 1992
    http://www.legislation.co.nz/act/public/1992/0105/latest/DLM280692.html

  68. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 3:45 pm said:

    >”I suggest 60 month El Nino smoothing (see upthread and below) is the better approach.”

    Gavin Schmidt’s post on this only had graphs of 2015 data – not 2016. There is no difference (essentially) between unsmoothed and smoothed data trends in his graphs:

    ‘Comparing models to the satellite datasets’ – Gavin Schmidt
    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/05/comparing-models-to-the-satellite-datasets/

    I’m not sure that would hold with data to June 2016 though.

    Anyway, Gavin Schmidt helpfully provides graphs of both unsmoothed and smoothed data:

    Schmidt – “I find that model spread is usefully shown using a mean and 95% envelope, smoothing should be consistent (though my preference is not to smooth the data beyond the annual mean so that padding issues don’t arise),”
    http://www.realclimate.org/images/christy_new.png

    Schmidt: “If the 5-year (padded) smoothing is really wanted, the first graphs would change as follows (note the trend plots don’t change):”
    http://www.realclimate.org/images/christy_new_5yr.png

    But the smoothed graph at end of series 2015 is very different to the unsmoothed graph. New data will exacerbate the difference in his graph.

    Schmidt seems to agree:

    Schmidt – “but the last two years will change as new data comes in” [in respect to smoothed graph]

    2014 and 2015 smoothed data certainly will change. With 2016 and 2017 La Nina cooling, the smoothed data trajectory will be flat and outside the model envelope.

    Remember, Gavin Schmidt claimed all but 0.07 C of the 2015 mean for AGW.

  69. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 5:14 pm said:

    When looking at the NCEP data by hemisphere, the southern hemisphere temperature anomaly is already below the zero anomaly line (1981-2010):

    NCEP Global 2-metre Temperature Anomaly – by Dr Ryan Maue
    https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/ncep-2m-global-temp-hemispheres.jpg

    From:

    Global temperatures are heading downward, and fast
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/06/21/global-temperatures-are-heading-downward-and-fast/

    Still not the IPCC’s primary, and critical, climate change criteria though. That’s not temperature.

  70. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 6:52 pm said:

    NCEP CFSR is effectively a Climate Model of Observations (i.e. no CO2 forcing).

    Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR)

    The CFSR is a third generation reanalysis product. It is a global, high resolution, coupled atmosphere-ocean-land surface-sea ice system designed to provide the best estimate of the state of these coupled domains over this period. The CFSR includes (1) coupling of atmosphere and ocean during the generation of the 6 hour guess field, (2) an interactive sea-ice model, and (3) assimilation of satellite radiances. The CFSR global atmosphere resolution is ~38 km (T382) with 64 levels. The global ocean is 0.25° at the equator, extending to a global 0.5° beyond the tropics, with 40 levels. The global land surface model has 4 soil levels and the global sea ice model has 3 levels. The CFSR atmospheric model contains observed variations in carbon dioxide (CO2), together with changes in aerosols and other trace gases and solar variations. With these variable parameters, the analyzed state will include estimates of changes in the Earth system climate due to these factors. The current CFSR will be extended as an operational, real time product into the future. -from RDA abstract on CFSR

    https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/climate-forecast-system-reanalysis-cfsr

    The NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis – AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY

    The Observations. Surface observations.
    The U.S. NWS operational archive of ON124 surface synoptic observations is used beginning in 1976 to supply land surface data for CFSR. Prior to 1976, a number of military and national archives were combined to provide the land surface pressure data for the CFSR. All of the observed marine data from 1948 through 1997 have been supplied by the COADS datasets. Starting in May 1997 all surface observations are taken from the NCEP operational archives. METAR automated reports also start in 1997.
    Very high-density MESONET data are included in the CFSR database starting in 2002, although these
    observations are not assimilated.

    http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2010BAMS3001.1

  71. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 8:47 pm said:

    >”And what “trend line” is this? You [Simon] are implying by the word “line” that a linear trend is the best statistical description of the fluctuating data over a period longer than 20 years. It certainly is not Simon. A linear trend line is only statistically valid when the data essentially resembles a line i.e. linear in nature. GMST is certainly NOT linear in nature.”

    AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY seems to agree:

    Fig. 19. The annual global mean 2-m temperature over land in R1 (green), CFSR (red), and GH CN CAMS (blue) over the period of 1979–2009. Units: K. Least squares linear fits of the three time series against time (thin lines). The linear trends are 0.66, 1.02, and 0.94 K (31 yr) –1 for R1, CFSR , and GH CN CAMS, respectively.

    (Keep in mind that straight lines may not be perfectly portraying climate change trends).

    http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2010BAMS3001.1

    This is a direct comparison of absolute temperature in Kelvin i.e. an anomaly above 0 Kelvin. The CFSR line (red) over 1981-2010 is the anomaly baseline data for the Global 2-metre Temperature Anomaly graph just upthread. Baseline centre is approximately 282 K at 1994.5 therefore.

    Global CFSR month to date (MTD, July) anomaly is 0.383 K so absolute is 282.383 K.

    NCEP Global 2-metre Temperature Anomaly – by Dr Ryan Maue
    [To 29 July – note update from June in previous graph]
    http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/cdas_v2_hemisphere_2016.png

    From WeatherBELL: http://models.weatherbell.com/temperature.php

  72. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 8:49 pm said:

    Following from previous comment re NCEP CFSR.

    282.000 K 1994.5 Climatology baseline average (estimated in lieu of actual – but see below)
    282.383 K 2016.6 July 29 MTD Anomaly 22 years later.

    Note that since mid June to end of July the SH anomaly has changed radically – from SH below zero anomaly to SH above NH and well above zero baseline. This is interesting in respect to the annual temperature cycles NH vs SH:

    Annual Temperature Cycle – Northern Hemisphere vs Southern Hemisphere (2mT)
    http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/cfsr_nhsh_climo.png

    End of July is exactly the bottom of the SH cycle and top of NH cycle.

    CFSR Climatology for one year is actually a detrended cycle (i.e. 30 cycles 1981-2010) varying 4 K peak to trough shown here:

    4-times daily climatological 2-meter temperature from the NCEP CFSR reanalysis. Here the period of averaging is 1981-2010. The appearance of different time-series results from the fact that 00z and 12z temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, for example, are considerably different during all seasons due to the proponderance of land vs. water as compared to the Southern Hemisphere — and the diurnal effects of solar insolation. Africa at 12z is bathed in sunlight.
    http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/cfsr_global_climo.png

    Thus the difference between a CFSR anomaly graph of temperature and absolute temperatures for the same period in CFSR. An anomaly graph of NCEP CFSR (as above) is missing 30 cycles varying 4 K peak to trough.

    This explains why the CFSR anomaly graph looks very different (flat) compared to say GISTEMP.

  73. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 9:15 pm said:

    NCEP CFSR Global 2-metre Temperature Anomaly – by Dr Ryan Maue

    1979 – 1987 http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/cfsr_t2m_1979.png

    1988 – 2004 http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/cfsr_t2m_1988.png

    2005 – 2016 http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/cfsr_t2m_2005.png

    El Niño and La Niña Years and Intensities: http://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm

    In the respective graphs 1981 1990 and 2013 are ENSO-neutral. All 3 years are on the zero anomaly baseline.

    In other words, there has been no change at all in ENSO-neutral temperature 1981 1990 and 2013.

  74. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 10:30 pm said:

    >”In other words, there has been no change at all in ENSO-neutral temperature 1981 1990 and 2013.”

    This is in respect to the CFSR anomaly baseline. Except upthread the anomaly baseline has a trend:
    1.02 K (31 yr) –1 or 0.329 K/decade or 0.0329/year 1979 – 2009 (roughly equiv to 1981 – 2010 baseline)

    1981 is ENSO-neutral but 2009/10 was a moderately strong El Nino year i.e. the baseline is skewed warm at the 2009 end.

    So 1990 was 0.296 K warmer than 1981 (9 year span) but this is distorted high by the 2009 El Nino at the end of the anomaly baseline.

    And 2013 cannot be differenced from 1990 or 1981 by that trend because 2013 is outside the baseline and therefore outside the linear trend and the trend cannot be projected especially because the baseline ends in an El Nino year (2009). The 2009 anomaly is also considerably higher than the 2013 anomaly.

    It is impossible therefore to determine the relative difference in absolute ENSO-neutral temperature 1981 1990 2013 by CFSR anomaly. Long-term CFSR anomaly trends are totally misleading but I’ve seen a lot of them.

    I have no idea how to access up to date CFSR temperature in absolute terms. It is all in anomalies except for the out of date Figure 19 graph upthread.

    My thermodynamics was all in terms of Kelvin, Joules, and Watts (Joules/sec) – no anomalies. But hey, this is climate.

  75. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 10:36 pm said:

    >”1981 is ENSO-neutral but 2009/10 was a moderately strong El Nino year i.e. the baseline is skewed warm at the 2009 end”

    Maybe not too much, 1979/80 was a weak El Nino.

  76. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2016 at 11:36 pm said:

    The NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (2010)

    “Both R1 and CFSR display upward trends over the oceans (not shown) of about 0.3 K over 1979–2009. This is much less than over land, a puzzle that is yet to be fully understood.”

    http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2010BAMS3001.1

    # # #

    About 0.1 K/decade over oceans. 0.329 K/decade over land.

    I wonder if the difference is understood now

  77. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2016 at 8:01 am said:

    >”An anomaly graph of NCEP CFSR (as above) is missing 30 cycles varying 4 K peak to trough”

    Incorrect. Should be:

    “An anomaly graph of NCEP CFSR (as above) is missing [30 x 365 = 10,950] cycles varying 4 K peak to trough”

  78. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2016 at 8:16 am said:

    >”…….there has been no change at all in ENSO-neutral temperature 1981 1990 and 2013 ……[in CFSR].”

    This is still valid now that I think of it. The slope of the anomaly baseline data is irrelevant even though it is significant. It would be good to have the absolute data (Kelvin) to prove this (or not) though.

    Anomalies are Climatology’s rules so I suppose we have to play by them. Surprising when you do with CFSR at least. The 3 anomalies, 1981 1990 2013, are in the 3 graphs from upthread repeated here:

    NCEP CFSR Global 2-metre Temperature Anomaly – by Dr Ryan Maue

    1979 – 1987 http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/cfsr_t2m_1979.png

    1988 – 2004 http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/cfsr_t2m_1988.png

    2005 – 2016 http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/cfsr_t2m_2005.png

    El Niño and La Niña Years and Intensities: http://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm

    In the respective graphs 1981 1990 and 2013 are ENSO-neutral. All 3 years are on the zero anomaly baseline.

    No ENSO-neutral change in temperature 1981 1990 and 2013.

  79. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2016 at 8:32 am said:

    So now we have this from the 3 CFSR times series anomaly graphs:

    282.000 K 1981 ENSO-neutral
    282.000 K 1990 ENSO-neutral
    282.000 K 1994.5 Climatology baseline average (estimated in lieu of actual) for CFSR
    282.000 K 2013 ENSO-Neutral
    282.383 K 2016.6 July 29 month to date (MTD), nearing end of El Nino
    282.000 K ????? ENSO-neutral

    1981 1990 and 2013 are rough estimates but the departure from 282.000 K will be minor in each.

  80. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2016 at 9:06 am said:

    282 Kelvin = 8.85 degrees Celsius (°C), CFSR global mean surface temperature 1981 – 2010 (est)

    ‘On the Elusive Absolute Global Mean Surface Temperature’

    Bob Tisdale, November 9, 2014

    NASA GISS: ” In 99.9% of the cases you’ll find that anomalies are exactly what you need, not absolute temperatures. In the remaining cases, you have to pick one of the available climatologies and add the anomalies (with respect to the proper base period) to it. For the global mean, the most trusted models produce a value of roughly 14°C, i.e. 57.2°F, but it may easily be anywhere between 56 and 58°F and regionally, let alone locally, the situation is even worse.”

    In other words, GISS is basing their understanding of global surface temperatures on climate models, specifically “the most trusted models”. And they are saying, based on those “most trusted” climate models, the average global mean surface temperature during their base period of 1951 to 1980 (their climatology) is roughly 14 deg C +/- 0.6 deg C.

    NCDC: “….the 20th century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F).”

    And not too coincidentally, that 13.9 deg C (57.0 deg F) from NCDC (established from data as, you’ll soon see) agrees with the GISS value of 14.0 deg C (57.2 deg F), which might suggest that GISS’s “most trusted models” were tuned to the data-based value.

    BEST: “The global land average from 1900 to 2000 is 9.35 ± 1.45°C, broadly consistent with the estimate of 8.5°C provided by Peterson [29].”

    Summary of Absolute Global Mean Surface Temperatures (°C)
    8.5 Peterson 1900 to 2000
    8.85 NCEP CFSR 1981 – 2010 (est)
    9.35 BEST 1900 to 2000
    13.9 NCDC 1900 to 2000
    14.0 NASA GISS 1951 to 1980

    So to which one does the UN’s 2°C limit apply?

  81. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2016 at 10:03 am said:

    ‘On the Elusive Absolute Global Mean Surface Temperature’ – Bob Tisdale, November 9, 2014

    https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2014/11/09/on-the-elusive-absolute-global-mean-surface-temperature-a-model-data-comparison/

  82. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2016 at 11:01 am said:

    >“An anomaly graph of NCEP CFSR (as above) is missing [30 x 365 = 10,950] cycles varying 4 K peak to trough”

    Nope, incorrect. I was right first time. Should be:

    “An anomaly graph of NCEP CFSR (as above) is missing 30 cycles varying 4 K peak to trough”

  83. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2016 at 11:28 am said:

    >“An anomaly graph of NCEP CFSR (as above) is missing 30 cycles varying 4 K peak to trough”

    That’s annual Global Climatology here:

    [A Global] http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/cfsr_global_climo.png

    Except the Northern Hemisphere cycle varies 13 K peak to trough but the Southern Hemisphere only varies about 5.5 K peak to trough and out of phase with NH:

    [B NH v SH] http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/cfsr_nhsh_climo.png

    In other words, there are actually 2 radically different cyclic Climatology baselines in CFSR for each hemisphere [B] but neither are used independently for the Global 2mT anomaly baseline [A] which is the sum of the out of phase NH and SH cycles.

  84. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2016 at 12:11 pm said:

    >”282.383 K 2016.6 July 29 month to date (MTD), nearing end of El Nino”

    This is incorrect. The only 2 months corresponding to the 282 K average of the annual CFSR Climatology cycle are April and October.

    July is at the peak of the cycle. Therefore the absolute temperature for 2016.6 July 29 MTD is 282 + 2 + 0.393 = 284.393 K. So the corrected sequence is:

    282.000 K 1981 ENSO-neutral
    282.000 K 1990 ENSO-neutral
    282.000 K 1994.5 Climatology baseline average (estimated in lieu of actual) for CFSR
    282.000 K 2013 ENSO-Neutral
    284.383 K 2016.6 July 29 month to date (MTD), nearing end of El Nino
    282.000 K ????? ENSO-neutral

  85. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2016 at 1:54 pm said:

    Stratospheric and tropospheric SSU/MSU temperature trends and compared to reanalyses and IPCC CMIP5 simulations in 1979–2005
    A. M. Powell Jr, J. Xu, C.-Z. Zou, and L. Zhao (2013)
    http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/13/3957/2013/acpd-13-3957-2013-print.pdf

    5 Summary and discussion
    5.1 Summary

    Based on the satellite SSU and MSU temperature observations from 1979 through 2005, the trends and uncertainties in CMIP5 model simulations and the new generation reanalyses from the middle troposphere to the upper stratosphere (5–50 km) have been examined. The results are summarized as follows:

    The CMIP5 model simulations reproduced a common feature with cooling in stratosphere and warming in troposphere, but the trend exhibits a significant discrepancy among the selected seven models. The cooling rate is less than the SSU measurements changing from −0.6 to −1.0 Cdecade−1 at the upper stratosphere, while the warming rate is generally smaller than the MSU observations changing from 0.08 to 0.24 Cdecade−1 in the middle-upper troposphere.

    On the temporal variation of the global mean temperature, the CMIP5 model simulations significantly reproduced the volcanic signal and was highly correlated with the SSU measurements in the upper stratosphere during the study period. However, these models do not show the impacts from El Ni˜no/La Ni˜na events and have poor temporal correlation with observations in the middle-upper troposphere. The reanalyses from CFSR and MERRA (excluding ERA-I) exhibit an opposite result to the CMIP5 simulations.

    On the regional variation of the global temperature trends, the CMIP5 simulations displayed a different latitudinal-longitudinal pattern compared to the SSU/MSU measurements in all six layers from the middle troposphere to the upper stratosphere. Furthermore, the CMIP5 simulations show poor spatial correlations with the SSU/MSU observations. Three reanalyses showed consistent temperature patterns with the SSU/MSU observations except that they overestimated the cooling observed over both the southern and northern polar region in the upper troposphere (MSU3). The reanalyses generally show a good spatial correlation with satellite observations in all six layers with the exception of the ERA-I and MERRA reanalyses in the upper stratosphere (SSU3). Interestingly, the CFSR shows a good spatial correlation with the global temperature trends but a poor temporal correlation for the global mean temperature in the upper stratosphere. Also, the ERA-I model shows opposite temporal and spatial
    correlation features compared to the CFSR.

    Generally, the temperature trends and spread show marked changes with latitude, the largest cooling is found in the tropics in the upper stratosphere and largest warming appears in the Arctic in the middle troposphere. The CMIP5 simulations underestimated the stratospheric cooling in the tropics compared to the SSU observations and remarkably overestimated the cooling in the Antarctic from the middle troposphere to lower stratosphere (MSU2–4). The largest trend spread among the seven CMIP5 simulations is seen in both the south- and north-polar regions in the stratosphere and troposphere.
    Generally, the CMIP5 simulations retain similar spread values at all latitudes in both the troposphere and stratosphere. The tropospheric spread values are generally smaller than the stratospheric trend spread values.

  86. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2016 at 2:01 pm said:

    Stratospheric and tropospheric SSU/MSU temperature trends and compared to reanalyses and IPCC CMIP5 simulations in 1979–2005
    Powell, Xu, Zou, and Zhao (2013)
    http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/13/3957/2013/acpd-13-3957-2013-print.pdf

    5 Summary and discussion
    5.2 Discussion

    According to above analysis, there are two points worth noticing. (1) All seven of the 5 selected CMIP5 model simulations showed high correlation with SSU/MSU observations in the stratosphere compared to the global mean temperature in the troposphere (Fig. 3 and Table 3), but these models failed to reproduce the latitude-longitude pattern of the temperature trends (Figs. 5 and 6). Note, all the selected CMIP5 models are coupled with land and ocean models including many kinds of physical processes focusing on the lower atmosphere, which is theoretically beneficial for describing the tropospheric atmosphere. On the other hand, most of CMIP5 models do not have some of the needed physical and chemical processes. For example, six of the seven selected CMIP5 models do not include a chemistry model in the stratosphere; only the MIROESM CHEM includes chemistry and the chemistry model was recognized as a very important component to reproduce the true atmosphere (Meehl et al., 2009). Consequently, the climate model seems better overall in the stratosphere. Unfortunately, the above comparison shows that these CMIP5 model simulations provided a worse result in the troposphere for the global mean temperature. Given the differences noted, consider an important question: what is the key factor(s) affecting the performance of a climate model?

    (2) Compared to the CMIP5 model simulation, the NCEP new generation reanalysis CFSR provided a poor estimation of global mean temperature in the upper stratosphere (Fig. 3a–c). According to the description for the CFSR reanalysis system (Saha et al., 2010), many kinds of observational data including SSU and MSU products were assimilated into the CFSR. However, the reanalysis was executed with 6 separated streams. So stream related model biases appeared to dominate in the middle and upper stratospheres
    where in situ observations are rare to anchor the system. In addition, the CFSR reanalysis has a good spatial correlation with the upper SSU observations for the global temperature trend distribution although the temporal correlation is very poor for the global mean temperature – which is out of phase or opposes the result in the ERAI reanalysis (Table 3 and Fig. 6a). Although the reanalysis was recognized as one
    of the best data sets for understanding atmospheric dynamic processes by previous studies, one should consider how we can improve the reanalysis products to help us to understand climate change.

  87. Richard C (NZ) on 01/08/2016 at 10:23 am said:

    ‘Is Earth in energy deficit?’ [CFSR TOA Net Radiation]

    by Steve McGee, November 28, 2013
    Biosketch: Steve McGee has a bachelor of science degree in meteorology. His long career of software engineering includes the development of numerous defense related systems providing analysis and display weather and atmospheric effects.

    Unlike many fiscal budgets, earth’s energy budget is widely believed to be in surplus.

    With each year of increasing amounts of greenhouse gasses, earth is modeled to send less energy outward than it receives from the sun. This energy surplus, as understood, continues until the global average temperature rises sufficiently to restore balance by emitting more energy in accordance with the Stefan-Boltzmann Law. Indeed, the concept of ‘missing heat’ implies that a surplus of energy exists to be missed. And the NASA GISS Model E projects a trend of increasing energy surplus. The runs of Model E for “Dangerous Human-Made Interference” (from 2007) A1B scenario ( available at link) yield this projection for net radiance at the top of the atmosphere:

    NASA GISS Model E Net Radiation TOA
    Spacial vs time https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/giss_dangerous_lattime.png
    Time series https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/attachment-01.gif

    Notice the increasing trend of anomalous net radiance. [see Time series above]

    With this in mind, but on another matter I recently examined the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis. The CFSR is a newer reanalysis described by Saha, Suranjana, and Coauthors, in 2010: The NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 91, 1015.1057. doi: 10.1175/2010BAMS3001.1

    The CFSR monthly data sets are available at [link].

    The CFSR is the first reanalysis from NCEP to use radiance observations from the menagerie of past satellites. The CFSR also uses the AER RRTM radiative model to fill in the gaps of satellite data. The RRTM is the same radiative code used by many climate models. By subtracting the top of the atmosphere outgoing infrared from the net shortwave radiative flux, one arrives at the net radiative flux. And by dividing the outgoing shortwave radiative flux by the incoming shortwave radiative flux, one arrives at albedo. Examples for March of 1979 appear as:

    [See chart]

    Due to missing values, all data for the year 1994 are excluded. By calculating the spatially weighted global annual averages, the time series of various fields yield interesting results. The data for the top of the atmosphere net radiance appear as:

    NCEP CFSR Net Radiation TOA
    https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/annualcfs_nrad.png

    The CFSR Net Radiance data indicate radiative deficit following the El Chichon volcanic eruption in 1982, and again following the Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption in 1991. Also, the peak net radiative surplus appears during 1997 which coincides with the anomalously warm El Nino event. I was quite surprised, however, to note that the years 2001 through 2008 indicate net radiative deficit and that the overall trend was toward decreasing net radiance.

    Should I have been surprised? Perhaps not. Net radiation, particularly the shortwave component, is known to be quite difficult to measure because shortwave reflection varies greatly with respect to the angle of observation depending upon the composition, size, shape, and orientation of clouds and earth’s surface. Further, the very process of reanalysis can add spurious errors. That is why NCAR ( the National Center for Atmospheric Research ) warns that reanalysis should not be equated with “observations” or “reality.”

    Still, while not “observation” nor “reality”, the CFSR does represent a best assessment of the recent climate based on observations and the same radiative codes that lie within the prognostic climate model.

    So what does this imply?

    1) To the extent that the CFSR radiance is accurate, it implies that earth was in radiative deficit, not surplus, for the decade of the 2000s and that for this decade, there is no ‘missing heat’ to be found.

    2) The negative trend in CFSR net radiation implies a divergence from the NASA GISS model projections cited above.

    3) The CFSR net radiative deficit also implies that energy loss to space, rather than shifting of energy within the climate system may be responsible for the negative trend since 2001 in many of the global temperature data sets.

    https://judithcurry.com/2013/11/28/is-earth-in-energy-deficit/

    # # #

    >”NCAR ( the National Center for Atmospheric Research ) warns that reanalysis should not be equated with “observations” or “reality” ”

    Upthread I described NCEP CFSR as a “Climate Model of Observations” – my bad.

    >”peak net radiative surplus appears during 1997 which coincides with the anomalously warm El Nino event”

    Follows to expect peak net radiative surplus again from the 2015/16 super El Nino.

    >”the years 2001 through 2008 indicate net radiative deficit”

    This is exactly opposite to the 0.6 W.m-2 surplus cited by IPCC AR5 Chapter 2 Observations: Atmosphere. Papers were Stephens et al (2012) and Loeb et al (2012).

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