UPDATE1
So shut up, you lot!
NIWA, in its memorandum to Justice Venning about the costs of our court case, says some curious things. I’ve pulled out a few of the ripostes that the NZCSET’s lawyers have just delivered to the judge and which I’m delighted to share with you. (Bear in mind that the APPLICANT is the Coalition. The DEFENDANT is NIWA.) This one’s a pearler:
29. The defendant alleges in paragraph 17 that the proceeding did not concern climate change…
This is breathtaking. It will surprise their long-suffering supporters – having endured NIWA’s hogwash about the 7SS not being “official” or even a “national” temperature record (“oh, it’s only for study”), and that this organisation of top scientists has no obligation WHATSOEVER to strive for excellence, they now have to stand cringing as their favourite publicly-paid climate scientists argue that the court case had nothing to do with climate change.
Really? What rot. I’d like to shake these men up and make them see sense. They have quickly forgotten that the Coalition gave detailed evidence about the important consequences of the 7SS trend to national climate change policy.
But the case had nothing to do with climate change.
Some pretty fundamental central and local government policy decisions are based on the trend in our temperature history, and it is an important component of NIWA’s projections of future temperatures, which will have a profound effect on us all. The most prominent of the policies relying on the course of the climate is the ETS, but every day we pay heavily for academic courses and programmes in a diverse range of sectors at all levels to ward off climate change.
But the case had nothing to do with climate change.
NIWA are now contradicting some mighty powerful allies. Remember what the NZ Herald editorially opined –
If the coalition had managed to discredit Niwa’s methods, it would also have discredited the evidence for climate change, and the part played by human activities.
So NIWA now says to their willing and most visible journalistic supporters that they didn’t know what they were talking about. Oops.
You know that NIWA are asking for money from named members of the Coalition, don’t you? Their reasoning is curious, for it implies that, had the Coalition won, NIWA’s scientists should have personally contributed to our costs. Which seems to follow the same idea of liability that convicted those Italian geologists of manslaughter for their failed earthquake prediction.
It’s hard to believe that NIWA thinks that would be fair and just, which means they don’t really think our members should be personally liable for costs either.
Sorry, have to rush, but there’s more to say on this business of costs.
UPDATE1 27 Oct 2012 17:43 NZDT
While I was distracted by work, first, Tallbloke’s Talkshop picked up the story, then WUWT repeated it. This is wonderful. Now we have John Christy looking at the details.
This is much more about Bob D than me, but I’ll try to keep up, with Richard Cumming’s help.
I’m catching up with Tall Bloke and WUWT.
Views: 882
What fundamental central and local government policy decisions have been based exclusively on the 7SS? New Zealand signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1998 based on global evidence and scientific advice. The original purpose of the ETS was to reduce our future Kyoto liabilities.
If If NIWA and its legal team were confident that the CSET would pay its bills, there would be no need to name the individuals behind it.
The reason CSET, Watt et. al. challenge surface air temperature records is that it is an easy target, they are relatively short time spans and prone to measurement change. Climate proxies such as ice core and tree ring samples go back thousands of years and provide an estimate of temperature and atmospheric CO2. The relationship is much more evident in these datasets.
Tree ring proxies are better than temperature records, unless they don’t match when we can use “tricks” to “hide the decline”.
Oh, and we can take southern hemisphere proxy reconstructions and cite them in AR5 draft 1 even though the paper has been retracted.
NIWA is right, it has nothing to do with “climate change”. It is all about maintaining their rights to foist any old piece of junk science on us and just to remind us that we have to pay for it,
Speaking of the great Mann himself, he has now filed against Steyn and National Review
Tempting fate coming up to the anniversary of Climategate, I would say.
Still regurgitated old tired memes. Growth in some northern boreal forests slowed about 50 years ago. Reasons could include acid rain, the aerosol effect, or melting of permafrost. The years in those series were discarded and replaced with the surface temperature record. That sounds perfectly reasonable, it was not done to bias the results, unless you believe in a giant world-wide scientific conspiracy?
There are some pretty good southern hemisphere proxy reconstructions now, there was a paper recently on North Island kauri.
Do you mean ones that haven’t been retracted? Why don’t we use them in the Draft 1 of AR5 then?
Hmm! I suppose they are right in a way. “Climate change” is defined as AGW and the IPCC say that really only started in about 1960. Yet NIWA’s temp record says most of New Zealand’s warming took place in the the 1940s and 1950s.
But it seems self-defeating to me for NIWA to say that it spends its research efforts on things unrelated to climate change.
Does anybody know whether there has been any significant warming in this country during the past 16 years?
>”Does anybody know whether there has been any significant warming in this country during the past 16 years?”
I don’t know about statistical significance for a linear trend for that period but a polynomial is a better representation of the entire dataset. There’s 2 years to be added to this 7SS anomaly plot (absolute 13.1, 12.8) but I think it is clear the warming has topped out as for HadCRUT4 global:-
http://i54.tinypic.com/27xjm0k.png
With hearings now taking place with regard costs I assume this means there is to be no appeal. Was this because of lack of grounds for appeal or because of funding issues?
There are no hearings regarding costs, just memoranda for Justice Venning. We have lodged an appeal, though. It’s low-key so far, I don’t have much information about it, and we still have funding problems.
RT I’m relaying this comment from Tallbloke. I’ve replied but you may wish to do so:-
tallbloke says:
October 25, 2012 at 9:21 am
Richard, did the three put their names to their reviews validating the affidavit, or were they ‘anonymous peer reviewers’?
If the latter, even though I agree with you about their expertise, and that the judge was unnecessarily obtuse, I think NZCSET needs to move *very quickly* to get a named person well published in the climate science and temperature measurement fields to validate the study. That would help form grounds for an appeal I think.
If payment for their time is needed, we would help with that.
I would have thought that John Christy is the man for this job. developed Remote sensing of surface and tropospheric Temperature, has published many papers on surface temperature. He has done studies of surface gathered data in Africa and elsewhere. He has given senate testimony on several occasions, was an IPCC Author, and is an all round good guy.
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/atmos/christy2011/index.html
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/how-niwa-added-lots-of-warming-in-new-zealand-and-got-away-with-it-so-far/#comment-33696
The 7SS is (obviously) only 7 stations with reliable data only back to 1908 covering a climatology diverse and variable country. It is an interesting dataset but hardly conclusive. Was it really worth going to the High Court over?
>”The 7SS is (obviously) only 7 stations with reliable data only back to 1908 covering a climatology diverse and variable country”
And yet BEST would have us believe that Hobart represents ALL of NZ in the 1840s.
* Site name: HOBART BOTANICAL GARDENS
* Site number: 094030
* Latitude: 42.87 °S Longitude: 147.33 °E
* Elevation: 27 m
* Commenced: 1841 Status: Open
* Latest available data: 31 Jul 2012
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_094030.shtml
Set ‘Period’ to “1841-1870″, view ‘Annual’. For 1841 – 1854 (14 years):-
Mean maximum temperature (°C): 17.0
Mean minimum temperature (°C): 7.8
Average mean temperature (°C): 12.4 (calc)
Compare to BEST NZ output graph:-
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/auto/Regional/TAVG/Figures/new-zealand-TAVG-Trend.png
In the order of 10.5 C, Diff (12.4 – 10.5) is -1.9 C.
Summarizing means for the period 1841 – 1854:-
12.4 BEST NZ input from BOM Hobart Botanical Gardens (assumed)
10.5 BEST NZ output (Diff -1.9)
Hobart Botanical Gardens, Latitude: 42.87 °S
Kaikoura South Island NZ, Latitude: 42.41 °S
This type of scientific bogosity Simon (non-rigourous adjustment), is why NZCSET sought legal recourse. They didn’t get justice but that doesn’t mean an end to the dispute.
But there is no alternative Richard, there were no weather stations in NZ in 1840. The problem is granuality; while it might be possible to estimate an average global temperature for 1840 with a high standard error, it won’t tell you the average temperature for Ekatahuna in 1840. BEST works on a square grid and kriegs the interpolation, which in 1840 was only one station, Hobart. You shouldn’t treat the early temperature records as definitive, climate scientists don’t.
>”But there is no alternative”
No alternative to adjusting Hobart DOWN -1.9 C to represent ALL of NZ – what are you smoking?
Worse, BEST then goes on to adjust the two NZ on-shore stations DOWN for 1853 – 1863:-
13.88 BEST NZ input from GHCN Dunedin/Auckland composite 1853 – 1863
10.50 BEST NZ output 1853 – 1863 (Diff -3.38)
11.93 NIWA 7SS 1913 -1922
What possible and valid reason is there to adjust Hobart down -1.9 C and the GHCN Dunedin/Auckland composite down -3.38 C in a bungy-like stretch of credibility?
>”You shouldn’t treat the early temperature records as definitive”
I don’t. Neither do I treat the most recent globally averaged (and conflicting) OHC records as definitive. Same for DLR. But I do expect early temperature records to bear some resemblance to what was measured.
>”…climate scientists don’t”
But they do Simon. Then they decree that the great unwashed do to. And that they should pay for being such bad people as to cause it all.
RC,
And why do people like Simon put up with that? It must synchronise with their internal view of the world. Surely there can be no other reason.
Speaking of paying for things, Kyoto is expiring at the end of December, the NZ carbon price is less than $2.50, and no mention at all of climate change was mentioned in the US presidental debates
We now have the regulatory overhang of an ETS bureaucracy that serves no one.
>”We now have the regulatory overhang of an ETS….”
We sure do, embedded in electricity costs, transport costs, production costs, forest plantations, govt budget and what have you. It will take some unwinding, moreso in Australia now their govt has got a taste of AU$23/tonne tax revenues.
At least our guys only get to pay that NZ$2.50 or less to offset now.
and on paying for things, Godfrey Bloom MEP nails it in this 2 min video clip from the European Parliament
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB2Ft3t7ceg&feature=related
>”We now have the regulatory overhang of an ETS bureaucracy that serves no one.”
and is hammering those who were encouraged to “invest”.
“Carbon credit price crash could force sales”
“… a quarter of people who invested in the scheme may have to sell their land. … landowners were encouraged into the permanent forest sink initiative only to see it gutted by the Government along with the Emissions Trading Scheme.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10842724
From Ron’s article
Idiots
12.45 HOBART (ELLERSLIE ROAD) 1901 – 1930
11.93 NIWA 7SS 1913 -1922
10.80 BEST NZ 1913 -1922
13.05 HOBART (ELLERSLIE ROAD) 1981 – 2010
12.69 NIWA 7SS 2001 – 2011
11.40 BEST NZ 2001 – 2011
12.35 HOBART (ELLERSLIE ROAD) 1881 – 1910
12.40 HOBART (BOTANICAL GARDENS) 1841 – 1854
13.88 GHCN Dunedin/Auckland composite 1853 – 1863
10.50 BEST NZ 1853 – 1863
Hobart Ellerslie Rd and Botanical Gardens data from BOM’s Climate Data Online here:-
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/index.shtml
It could be argued that Hobart 1840s should be adjusted 0.4 – 0.5 C down (but NOT 1.9 C down) to represent NZ except that given the NZCSET analysis, the NIWA 7SS is on the low side in the early years by 0.5 C so Hobart is on a par with NZ at that time:-
http://i54.tinypic.com/27xjm0k.png
But it makes perfect sense that the 1840s Dunedin/Auckland composite level of 13.88 C is valid because the NZCSET 7SS trend trajectory is coming down from that level and not from present day levels and even the NIWA trend is coming down from a higher level.
Either way, BEST is junk.
“1840s Dunedin/Auckland composite level of 13.88 C”
Should be:-
[1850s] Dunedin/Auckland composite level of 13.88 C
I need a proof reader.
Yep, you need FastProof! – RT 🙂
Some appreciative testimonials. I see you’ve penetrated a niche market:-
Not mocking – probably fluent in more than one Mandarin dialect and possibly Mongolian going by the name.
BTW, good photo RT.
I’m glad you’re not mocking. It’s actually far from easy to mind-read what these students mean.
I’m sure their English is WAY better than my Mandarin.
However, in Afrikaans I’m heeltemal tweetalig. And Ah speak Sah Thafrican Inglish too.
This is probably a pragmatic position (face saving) on the part of NIWA in view of the lack of recent warming and the fact that 7SS warming was given natural attribution by their scientists anyway (Salinger and Mullen). They wouldn’t want to be taken to task (or held liable) over these following predictions now that they’re looking improbable for all but the lowest estimate (no disclaimer on the page note):-
They’re not? Someone donated in using the name Adolf Hitler, from Berlin Germany. If that’s not foreign…
Where’s Brandoch?
Down the Kaponga RSA with his mates preparing to defend his uniquely pastoral and manure-filled world view, I suspect.
At a family function In deepest ‘Naki around 30 years ago, I was alerted (by a cousin of a cousin, no actual relation of mine, thankfully) to the threat of imminent Japanese invasion and how ready the local collectors of WWII vehicles and armaments were for this event!
How our government unwinds the ridiculous ETS will be interesting, if not entertaining, but not an exercise during which one should hold one’s breath.
Spring’s a busy time for us cockies, Andy, but my mate Bruce Bayliss thought I should share this link with you, on the theme that climate change is a war by the wealthiest, against the rest of us;
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/29/climate_change_war_on_the_poor
Richard C (NZ) says:
October 24, 2012 at 7:19 am
…Like the IPCC, we are unable to indicate whether any one emission scenario is more likely than another, but do provide the average across all models and all emission scenarios. The extreme ends of the ranges may be slightly less likely than the central values …
All this work and observations are unable to determine which way temperatures are going? Is this not saying that the CO2 forcing is as yet undetermined by experiment or history? If the extreme ends are not much different in probability than the center, does this not say that we cannot use current observation and history to differentiate a feedback power of 2X (a 2C rise from 1Cf) forcings of 5X (a 5C rise)?
Wherein is the science settled and the outcome, certain when NIWA hedges like this? Of what value is their department wrt climate change legislation, accommodation or plain paper-writing?
It gets better Doug (or worse – not sure). NIWA says this:-
Right now, “the one climate model” giving the “most extreme projection” is the only one to actually mimic temperature this century (INMCM4.0, Russian Academy of Sciences). But NIWA says:-
What NIWA will have to do now is retain the one outlier that’s performing and eliminate the rest – one of which is the UKMO Unified Model from which NIWA’s regional model is derived.
Tallbloke discusses the case
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/how-niwa-added-lots-of-warming-in-new-zealand-and-got-away-with-it-so-far/
and WUWT pick up the story too
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/25/battle-of-the-credible-experts-in-new-zealand/
Great typo from Dr Wratt’s statement spotted by Omnologos over at TB’s
(..”which together, compromise a record of New Zealand’s temperature..” )
I took a screen grab here:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/48940782/compromise.pdf
Copied from the original court pdf.
Hi Richard T and everyone. I have contacted John Christy for advice about this situation, and to see if he would be able to audit Bob D’s study and hopefully validate it in writing. He is asking if Tmax and Tmin data is available for the 7 stations. Can someone please visit my thread on this and advise.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/how-niwa-added-lots-of-warming-in-new-zealand-and-got-away-with-it-so-far/
Thanks
Rog TB
It’s great to hear from you, Roger, and your offer of support is very welcome. I apologise for the delay in my reply, but I’ve been otherwise engaged. Now I’m poring over your thread to catch up…
Richard, no problem, I’m really happy I have managed to engage John Christy’s interest. Hopefully, Bob D is now in direct contact and will be able to supply the data John needs to replicate/validate Bob’s work.
The thing I don’t understand here is why Judge Venning allowed the case to proceed if he had already decided Bob’s work was inadmissible as evidence. I seems to me that Judge Venning is responsible for the amount of Time NIWA spent responding, and so you should simply pass the outrageous $118,000 dollar bill to him.
I bet he’d then find some reasons why it was an unreasonably large figure pretty quickly.
I intend to write a letter to a relevant member of the NZ government to advise them that the eyes of the world are now on what we had been led to believe was a country with a well organized and fair judicial system.
In our country politicians are not supposed to interfere in the judicial process.
Simon, if I were to write with a request that she interfere in a particular case, I’m sure I’d get exactly that response. However, the case can be offered as an example of something the justice minister should be concerned about.
NIWA is claiming that their temperature series is not ‘legally binding’ on them, but at the same time, the NZ govt. is relying on it in policy formation. There is a strong public interest case here and no-one should be faced with large penalties for questioning an agency which fails to back up their data with methodology which can be subjected to public scrutiny.
It’s the justice ministers job to help guide changes to the way the system operates going forward. The justice ombudsman is probably someone NZCSET should be getting onto about the unusual singling out of individuals in the costs debacle too.
Roger,
Yes, our greatest hope is to engage the attention of renowned climate scientists. Thank you!
Things changed at literally the last minute, so maybe it seemed reasonable at the time. But I tend to think that the judge’s decisions weren’t all made on the evidence.
It’s a great idea, but nah!
As Simon says, politicians here stay remote from the judicial process, still, they are not automatons, and such a letter as you describe might have an effect beyond your imagination. Please write and send it. Cheers.
Which “renowned climate scientists” did you have in mind, Mr. Treadgold?
Real climatologists such as Jim Hansen, Gavin Schmidt, Kevin Trenberth?
Or the fake-sceptic “climatologists” paid by the fossil fool lobby?
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/29/bill_mckibben_does_the_sandy_math/
I found Gareth’s references to Hague trials and “climate gestapo” a little disturbing, given the total lack of irony
http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/media/LastClimateDenierInNZ_GarethRenowden_100.pdf
>”Real climatologists such as Jim Hansen……Kevin Trenberth”
Those two can’t agree on radiative imbalance. Ignoring his whackier statements, I’m inclined to think Hansen has a better handle on the state of climate than Trenberth, just that when he goes searching for explanations of the present hiatus he stretches credibility a little with “delayed” rebound effect from Mount Pinatubo aerosols…..” (the rebound was soon after 1991).
However, Hansen continues by acknowledging the solar climate driver “….and a deep prolonged solar minimum”. It’s only a matter of time before real climatologists finally throw out the CO2 “control knob” idea when they face the reality that real solar power is the predominant driver over unreal CO2 power, especially when what Hansen thinks is a “deep prolonged” minimum actually does turn into a deep prolonged grand minimum.
Pro-AGW:
Jim Hansen: Astronomer/Physicist
Gavin Schmidt: Applied Mathematician
Kevin Trenberth: Mathematician/Meteorologist
Sceptical:
Richard Lindzen: Atmospheric Physicist
Roy Spencer: Atmospheric Physicist/Meteorologist
John Christy: Atmospheric Scientist
Seems pretty even to me. Science not settled, debate not over.
I would add that cloud cover forcing is the other biggy, modulating solar input at the surface. The solar/cloud combination explaining more than CO2 ever will especially over the last 20 years.
Speaking of “climate change”, the pictures from NYC look pretty incredible
Expect the wailing to start any minute
>”I found Gareth’s references….”
I found Gareth’s imagination rampantly vivid – but a little unhinged from actual circumstance.
I would expect that Christy will be able to identify the error(s) in Bob’s analysis that have led him to a figure only 1/3 rd of that found by NIWA and BEST.
I predict we will hear nothing more from this quarter, as embarrassment reigns.
Christy, however, have his own history of repeated errors – strangely, these have always been in the same direction, that of “invalidating AGW”, so he and Bob will have that in common.
http://www.desmogblog.com/john-christy
Mike Mann goes into Christy’s error-riddled history in interesting detail in his latest book. Enjoy.
Oh, the irony! 🙂
You’re a funny little demon, Lord Daha, you really are.
You’re welcome, bob.
Has Christy found your error yet? I’d check the powers of 10 first…Hilarity all round.
>”I would expect that Christy will be able to identify the error(s) in Bob’s analysis”
You never did expound on what that(those) “error(s)” is(are) Brando – it would be helpful if you did so.
On the other hand, if you can’t come up with anything you’re just making up stuff and slinging mud in the hope it sticks aren’t you?
I’m not expecting anything enlightening forthcoming because the latter alternative seems to be your preferred MO. Neither am I expecting John Christy to identify anything untoward in Bob’s analysis, but NIWA’s analysis? Now that’s a different story.
Apart from the AGW-skewing, I have to say that Rob Painting produces some good posts at SkS. His latest (not using the skew title) ‘Summarizing Global Dimming in the 21st Century’ is a good one I think (apart from the skew).
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Global-Dimming-in-the-Hottest-Decade.html
Does tend to radically dilute the AGW message and play into the hands of solar proponents and cosmoclimatology though. He only managed this at the end:-
“This short-term global dimming should have counteracted a larger fraction of the long-term warming effect of the greenhouse gas forcing during this interval.”
Not sure how he worked that out because the 2001-2007 dimming equates to -2,7 W/m2 globally but the all-CO2 (let alone aCO2) “warming effect” will only be in the order of +0.17 W/m2 over that period if the IPCC forcing expression is to be believed.
The whole AGW blandishment falls apart when you actually quantify the CO2 “warming” in W/m2 (even using the IPCC’s dodgy expression) and slip it in among the other forcings operating as above. The CO2 dominated GHG component (exclusive of WV) always fades into insignificance.
Also becoming increasingly obvious is that “global” anything (e.g dimming, SAT, OHC, DLR, SST, SLR etc) is not global by generally skewed by some regional phenomenon.
>”the all-CO2 (let alone aCO2) “warming effect” will only be in the order of +0.17 W/m2 over that period”
Should be (for 6 year period),
the all-CO2 (let alone aCO2) “warming effect” will only be in the order of [+0.14] W/m2 over that period
Wild et al (2012) show brightening continuing through to 2010 at Potsdam Germany on page 40 (see below).
http://www.gewex.org/BSRN/BSRN-12_presentations/Wild_FriM.pdf
Interesting too (well, to me anyway), that Wild et al came up with this in regard to solar SW:-
Observed changes at 23 BSRN sites since early 1990s: 23 longest BSRN records (totally 306 years) covering period 1993-2010 [18 years, page 47]:
20 stations with increase (11 significant)
3 stations with decrease (0 significant)
Change: +2.7 Wm-2/decade
Hatzianastassiou (2011) from Rob Painting’s post using the same BSRN network plus GEBA:-
Discarding stations with incomplete data over the 2001-2006 6 year period period, gave the authors 91 GEBA, and 14 BSRN, stations
Change: -2.7 Wm-2 or -4.5 W/m2/decade or -0.45 Wm-2y-1
What then, are we supposed to make of those 2 trends in SSR? More importantly, what will AR5 WGI make of it?
Looking through the Wild et al BSRN station plots pages 40 – 46 (+0.35 Wm-2y-1, +0.43 Wm-2y-1, +0.58 Wm-2y-1, +0.29 Wm-2y-1, +0.41 Wm-2y-1), it is difficult to believe there was -0.4 Wm-2y-1 dimming 2001 – 2006 as per Hatzianastassiou (2011).
The 23 BSRN sites composite on page 47 doesn’t indicate a negative trend 2001 – 2006 so it must have been the 91 GEBA stns and modeling that produced Hatzianastassiou’s dimming in their paper here:-
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asl.361/full
Concurs with Wild et al 2012 (see top of comment) “…there appears a post-2000 solar brightening in Europe that has succeeded a similar brightening during the 1990s (Wild et al., 2009)”
“In North America, there is a clear brightening pattern, which is especially strong in the Great Plains, whereas solar dimming is limited to the western part (Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains), in agreement with station measurements from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM), Surface Radiation (SURFRAD) and BSRN networks (Long et al., 2009; Wild et al., 2009)”
“Specifically, in 54 out of 91 GEBA stations, i.e. in 60%, the model reproduces the same tendencies of SSR with GEBA”
“The performed analysis (based on radiative transfer model computations) attributing the overall SSR changes to the various model input parameters which are relevant to solar radiation, revealed that primarily clouds, and secondarily aerosols, are responsible for the computed SSR tendencies. They clearly dominate the contributions of the rest of parameters, e.g. O3 and H2O, and thus only these two are discussed here”
“…the ISCCP data indicate an increase in cloud cover by 0.89 and 1.29% (absolute terms) in the NH and SH, resulting in a dimming of 1.22 and 2.98 W m−2, respectively”
“…in most of the world regions the tendencies of cloud cover and SSR are in line, from a physical point of view, i.e. increasing/decreasing cloud cover has produced a solar dimming/brightening over the globe. This is in line with detailed sensitivity studies (e.g. Hatzianastassiou et al., 2005) that have documented the strong dependence of SSR on cloud cover. In this study, the general solar brightening observed over Europe (Figure 1) is accompanied by a decrease in cloud cover there, by up to 5–10% in absolute terms. This is also the case in other world regions; for example, the dimming observed over India and northern Indian Ocean in Figure 1 is in line with an increase of cloud cover there. The computed correlation coefficient between the globally distributed changes of total cloud cover and SSR over the study period is equal to − 0.45, indicating an anti-correlation between the two parameters.”
“…the regional patterns have a remarkably patchy spatial structure, with opposite SSR tendencies in neighbouring areas, even within the same continents, as for example in Europe, USA, South America, Africa and Asia.”
“Clouds appear to have been primarily responsible for GDB beyond 2000, with aerosols playing a secondary role on a hemispherical/global basis.”
# # #
I don’t know what to make of the 21st century 2001 – 2006 SSR situation. BSRN stations show brightening, GEBA stations show dimming, and a GEBA-skewed GEBA/BSRN composite shows global dimming, with “opposite SSR tendencies in neighbouring areas” at a regional level.
I’m inclined to think Hatzianastassiou (2011) is a more comprehensive study than Wild et al (2012) but whether it’s definitive or not is another thing altogether, it just could be.
In any case, CO2 gets left out in the cold.
Mr. Cummings, you make the quite extraordinary statement that:
Given that the GHG forcing is far larger than the solar, and that H2O is a short-term feedback rather than a forcing, how can you possibly defend your position?
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-2-1.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-is-not-the-only-driver-of-climate-intermediate.htm
I suspect that you have, once again, failed to distinguish between data and noise, much of it internal.
Brandoch,
Richard C will make his own reply, but I really must ask you: are you serious in claiming that the small amount of solar energy re-radiated back to the earth by GHGs applies more energy than the sun?
No, Mr. Treadgold, you are putting up an absurd straw man that reveals much about yourself, and the level of science incomprehension on this site.
Are you seriously claiming to be unaware that a climate forcing is a CHANGE in energy? If the solar forcing was greater than the GHG forcing, the Earth’s oceans would boil!
Or perhaps you do live on a different planet from the rest of us? Someplace, say, where Wikipedia is not available?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing
Well, thanks for the polite clarification. So much was not evident in what you said and I’d thank you to mention definitions like that where they’re not universal. It was not a straw man I put up at all – it was a question about an oddity of your analysis of the greenhouse effect. And after Andy’s comment I should ask you what part of the solar “forcing” is evident at night and how does that relate to the solar “forcing” apparent during the day?
If you cannot speak politely, whoever you are, though you speak at times humorously, you won’t speak here at all. Your science doesn’t require a rancorous tone and is scarcely detectable through it.
OK, Mr. Treadgold, should I then restrict myself to contemporaneous examples of your own sedate tone, such as those at the top of this page?
Or is it a case of “do as I say, not do as I do”?
Please clarify, Sir.
BR,
Restrict yourself as you wish, but who mentioned sedate? Posts aim to gain attention and, from the traffic figures, are quite successful in doing so. Comments, on the other hand, as my own demonstrate, take a polite, if vigorous, conversational tone and usually address the topic of the post, attempting to disagree, persuade, dissuade, entertain, as anyone can see.
The “shut up” comment was aimed at inaccurate taunts from commenters here, trying to defend NIWA, that we had failed to win the court case on the science. I was pleased to exploit NIWA’s own denial of that.
That has nothing in common with your anonymous, abusive personal comments against named individuals. They become vexatious and disagreeable, which is why they are deleted. You know exactly what you’re doing yet you do have something to say. Hence our patience. Kindly stop being difficult, I have other things to do.
Oh, and I asked: what part of the solar “forcing” is evident at night and how does that relate to the solar “forcing” apparent during the day? Or is there (strangely) no solar forcing until it alters?
The world does not actually revolve around you Richard. When the sun is not shining on you it is actually shining somewhere else. Localised differences in temperature, pressure and moisture is called weather.
>”If the solar forcing was greater than the GHG forcing, the Earth’s oceans would boil!”
Ocean insolation and heating is by far the greatest in the tropics where the angle of incidence is near vertical but the oceans don’t boil. Moving away from the tropics, ocean heating drops off quickly. I could dig out the numbers but I think you will find that tropical insolation and ocean heating is much more than the (I assume) 3 W/m2 GHG forcing you are alluding to.
Hansen is of the opinion that “the oceans will begin to boil” due to our GHG emissions. Somehow I very much doubt that.
Global Patterns of Insolation Receipts
Figure 7g-1: Annual (1987) pattern of solar radiation absorbed at the Earth’s surface.
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7g.html
Equatorial solar radiation absorption is up around 300 – 380 W/m2 (300x GHG forcing since 1750) but no boiling that I’ve heard of.
Solar forcing is the change in the amount of radiation emitted by the sun due to normal periodic variation.
Like day and night, for example?
No, Mr. Andy, because the diurnal cycle is caused by the Earth’s rotation, not by changes in the energy emitted by the sun.
In general, a “forcing” refers to any perturbation of a system at or near equilibrium – at least, that’s what I learnt at Okato Primary… the term presumably has its origins in Newtonian mechanics.
I think the term “forcing” is only used in climate science and set theory
(in obviously two completely different contexts)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forcing
I don’t think scientists ever used “forcing” before the climatologists came along.
Extraordinary? Noise? I don’t think so, and neither do Krivova, Viera and Solanki 2010 (contradicts the IPCC’s long-term solar forcing), Wild et al (2012), Hatzianastassiou (2011), or any of the AO modelers that attempt to replicate weather, climate or ENSO using the short time increments and climatologies of GCMs and at finer resolution in regional models.
Remember too, that “climate” is conventionally considered over 30 year periods – the most recent being only “noise” as you would have it.
>”Given that the GHG forcing is far larger than the solar”
Baloney. Over 1993 – 2010 (Wild) and 2001 – 2006 (Hatzianastassiou), solar at surface forcing is 10x all-CO2 using concentration. Then you have lack of strong long-term temp/CO2 correlation and that DLR problem to contend with.
>”H2O is a short-term feedback rather than a forcing”
Feedback on what? H2O as in water vapour (gas) or H2O as in cloud (liquid)? Over what timeframe? What regional case study can you refer us to as confirmation? And what proportion of a WV trend (up or down) is attributable as an GHG/aGHG feedback?
My position is easily defensible as I said, simply by quantifying CO2 forcing assuming the IPCC’s forcing expression is valid (it isn’t) and slipping it “in among the other [observed] forcings operating ………the CO2 dominated GHG component (exclusive of WV) always fades into insignificance”. CO2/aCO2 forcing being almost indiscernible in among far greater forcings over the last two decades when a) a climate shift occurred ’97/’98, and b) climate failed to follow CO2-centric predictions.
Over those two decades, solar/cloud forcing completely dominates – 90s brightening and 00s dimming (if we believe Hatzianastassiou et al). From now on, the prediction is for a quiet sun (quieter than last decade) heading into a grand minimum. Given CO2 didn’t dominate over a decadal scale (90s/00s) but solar did, it (CO2) is hardly likely to dominate over the coming multi-decadal scale when the solar effect will be even greater if astrophysical predictions are to be believed.
Mr. Cummings, my comment referred to GHG forcing relative to solar forcing, i.e. long term changes in the solar constant at TOA.
You have, instead, seized upon discussions of regional surface dimming (aerosol + cloud) and the short term hydrological cycle for a Gish Gallop that quite unconvincing when one looks at your references, e.g. Hatzianastassiou et al (Atmos. Sci. Let. 13: 43–48 (2012))
>”You have, instead, seized upon discussions of regional surface dimming (aerosol + cloud)”
Err no. Hatzianastassiou et al (and Wild et al) have used global observed solar radiation at surface, clear sky and all sky (all sky modulated by cloud cover) from GEBA and/or BSRN networks.
Why don’t you quantify the GHG forcing Rob? Are you adverse to doing that (if you can) because by doing so you might discover how insignificant it is (about 0.2 W/m2/decade for all-CO2) compared to the other forcings operating e.g. solar?
Hatzianastassiou et al:-
“…the subsequent brightening in the 1990s led to accelerated global warming
Exactly, the solar forcing (sans cloud) was far in excess of CO2 forcing.
Wilde, Liepert (2010):-
“Since the 1980s, however, there are indications that downward solar radiation overall has recovered and contributed to the increase in the radiative imbalance at the surface…..”
Exactly again. Wild et al 2012 calculates +2.7 Wm-2/decade 1993 – 2010 (+4.86 total) from BSRN-only observations but Hatzianastassiou et al calculates -2.7 Wm-2 or -4.5 W/m2/decade or -0.45 Wm-2y-1 2001 – 2006 from GEBA + BSRN (Note the solar per year forcing is more than double than the all-GHG per decade forcing).
These solar numbers indicate the judicious application of Occam’s Razor to aGHG forcing don’t you think Rob?
>”….the continual increase in GHG concentrations is a fundamental forcing”
Assuming the IPCC’s forcing expression is valid (it isn’t), it is a forcing if concentration translates to a commensurate and dominant component of observed DLR (it doesn’t), but it is miniscule at best when considered by concentration only as evidenced by the above numbers.
>”…dwarfs any forcing due to solar physics”
Again, look at the above numbers – CO2 is the dwarf.
In his judgement Venning J. said:
[186] The defendant is entitled to costs. Given the time involved and the steps taken, costs on a category 2 time band C would seem appropriate. However, if the parties are unable to agree I will receive memoranda and deal with the issue of costs on the basis of such memoranda.
This is explained by Venning J. here:
http://www.aija.org.au/ac06/Venning.pdf
In effect this is no more than a restatement of the principle that costs follow the event.
However Venning J. also said at paragraphs 33-35 of the Judgement that:
[34] Although private individuals and corporate bodies could be affected by NIWA’s decisions, in the absence of judicial review, such parties could be left without redress.
[35] I conclude that, in principle, the remedy of judicial review is potentially available to the Trust in relation to the decisions.
This is an important public principle which should not be mitigated by the harshness of the legal pedantry of the basic cost principle.
The argument against costs in these circumstances would be that a costs penalty to members of the public would make the availability of “the remedy of judicial review” prohibitive if the risk of the members of the public having to bear the cost was a real prospect.
It would vitiate the public interest test which Venning J, has approved and said should apply to such organisations as NIWA.
In any submissions to Venning J, about costs this issue should be raised.
Tallbloke also kindly links to the article in the NZ farmers weekly:
http://www.climatescience.org.nz/images/PDFs/pages-1.pdf
You should get the whole NIWA case onto Andrew Montford’s radar too for his visit here next year. The focus of his tour is on FREEDOM
Ah, the famous Bishop Hill blogger! When’s he visiting?
Simon (Oct 23rd at 9.19 p.m.)
are you still so convinced about how good ‘those data sets’ are now that Briffa has released his latest work highlighted below?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/28/manns-hockey-stick-disappears-and-crus-briffa-helps-make-the-mwp-live-again-by-pointing-out-bias-in-ther-data/#more-73211
We await your response!
It’s one data-set that should go into any meta-study.
If I was the kind of person who focuses solely on data that validated my internal biases I would draw attention to the rapid increase in post-2000 temperature and suggest that this totally invalidates the “no warming this century” meme. It doesn’t because one part of Sweden is not representative of the entire climate. I’d also note that the authors are from East Anglia, which the Climategate conspiracy theorists would have you believe have been intentionally manipulating data for years. Maybe these guys really are impartial and honest scientists after all.
Simon:
No, the rapid increase in tree-growth.
This was always the issue around Briffa’s data in the IPCC report, hence the need to hide the decline. If the tree proxies don’t match the temperature records exactly, how useful are they?
For me at any rate, the jury is still out on how useful these proxies are, even if this particular result suits my “internal biases”. By the way, I regard Briffa as the best of a bad lot over at CRU – he was one of the few to ever question Mann et al. (unfortunately only internally) about their dodgy dealings.
Steve McIntyre:
http://www.climateaudit.info/pdf/mcintyre-heartland_2010.pdf
I just ordered my (signed) copy of “Hiding the Decline” by Andrew Montford, the sequel to “The Hockey Stick Illusion”
Really, Mr. Andy, why waste your money on tendentious pseudoscience, when the definitive popular science text is available?
http://www.amazon.com/Hockey-Stick-Climate-Wars-Dispatches/dp/023115254X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351564042&sr=1-1
In quite a departure from Montford, Mann’s footnotes reference real papers that support the author’s conclusions. Also, it is Mann’s own work, rather than just lifted from someone else’s blog….
http://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-montford
I will buy the Nobel Prize winning Dr Mann’s book sometime, even though I have been banned from his Facebook page for some reason.
By the way, this McIntosh guy has come my way before
From his resume:
I’m not sure what “liberation theology” is about, but it surely has nothing to do with climate
Montford’s credentials are not terribly impressive. He wouldn’t pass the Justice Venning expert witness test. The URL also links to a rebuttal by Tamino of Montford’s book and McIntyre’s work which is an interesting read:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delusion/
I think the second book is more about the climategate inquiries and the so-called impartiality of them.
Of course I agree about the credentials. Unlike Michael Mann, he doesn’t have a Nobel Prize
It’s not just the Nobel Prize that separates Mike Mann from Montford and his ilk…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_E._Mann
Get the point? This is a specalised field, where amateurs come to grief. Do you do your own neurosurgery at home, guys?
(Actually, come to think of it, that might explain a few things…)
You obviously didn’t get the in-joke about the Nobel Prize. Or maybe you did
Never mind.
Tree growth is inevitably affected by some limiting factor which could be related to solar radiation, temperature, nutrients, or rainfall. Problems may arise if the limiting factor changes over time and I hope the researchers look at that. You can tell a lot about what a growing season is like by looking at the early versus the darker coloured latewood bands. Northern Sweden might be trickier as the trees shut down over winter and the growing season is much shorter. Isotope ratios and carbon content can tell you a lot about atmospheric CO2. It’s not perfect but at least it gives us a window into the past.
I once did a analysis that demonstrated that north-facing slopes in NZ grew stiffer and more dense timber because the latewood / earlywood ratio is much higher. The correlation was surprisingly good once you allowed for confounding factors such as tree stocking and genetics.
The issues raised by Briffa et al were concerned with methodology and sample bias
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/10/27/a-warm-welcome-back-to-the-mwp.html
The Torneträsk series does affect quite a lot of papers, as listed in the link above.
It’s an Interesting area of Sweden – I went ski touring there years ago. Spring lasts a few weeks and you are aware of the days getting longer each day you are there, such is the rapidity of the onset of spring in the Arctic circle
Wrong, Mr. Andy, it has been used for centuries, e.g. forced simple harmonic motion.
A simile is “damping”, which I am sure you will have heard of – this refers to a negative forcing.
Jeez, even when I was in the Territorials way back, we were trained to break step when marching over bridges, lest our combined motion force the structure into a resonant mode and damage it.
Remember Tacoma Narrows? Positive forcing from wind destroyed the whole damn bridge!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-zczJXSxnw
>”A simile is “damping”, which I am sure you will have heard of – this refers to a negative forcing”
A bit like what’s happened to climatic temperature this century then?
Richard, was it not you who recently pointed out that the climatic period is 30 years? Or are you still confusing short term with long term, regional with global, and raw data with statistical trends?
If so, I can recommend a book for you:
http://www.amazon.com/Global-Warming-Dummies-Elizabeth-May/dp/0470840986/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351573568&sr=1-1
>”Richard, was it not you who recently pointed out that the climatic period is 30 years?”
Yes it was. If CO2 forcing doesn’t dominate over that period is doesn’t dominate, period.
And it hasn’t. But just about everything else has.
Meanwhile, the GCM projections track post 2000 CO2 rise (depending on RCP scenario) to the detriment of meaningful and realistic climate modeling:-
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/christy-fig.jpg?w=808&h=622
Unrealistic, meaningless and useless as a 100 yr policy foundation if after only one decade they’re wildly off0track wouldn’t you say Rob?
I think the Demon Lord is getting confused between Force and Forcing Function eg: f(t) = cos(ωt).
If he was taught forcing functions in Otako Primary School then he had teachers who were well in advance of the syllabus of the rest of the world, it seems.
Quite different things, of course, forcing and forcing function but yes, Richard C, you’re right. It’s a peculiarly ClimateScience(TM) term.
>”but yes, Richard C, you’re right”
Andy not me Bob.
Brandoch’s reasoning in terms of forced friction, braking, harmonics etc seemed OK to me but those terms are a long way removed from the terms of the UN’s concoction, either FCCC or IPCC. Forced braking can be applied, released, applied and so on but UN climate forcing only accumulates over time since 1750.
However, it is evident that even climate forcing is applied and released otherwise we wouldn’t have the hiatus we are currently experiencing or the 1940s warming, 1970s cooling so maybe Brandoch is right for the wrong reasons.
>”Forced braking can be applied, released, applied and so on”
ABS braking is a good example of that. I suppose Brandoch’s ABS “simile” with climate would be the annual rise and fall of CO2 but progressively increasing mean (an effect the opposite of damping – impetus?). That’s if CO2 were to have any actual effect beyond 200 ppm that is.
Given CO2 concentrations are highest around tropical West Africa and northern India/Bangladesh according to GOSAT, I don’t think we need to worry too much about our industrial output of that particular gas.
Actually, cuz, I’m right for the right reasons.
if you bothered to read the helpful link I supplied, you may actually learn something – imagine that!
http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-is-not-the-only-driver-of-climate-intermediate.htm
I’ve learned Brandoch, that not only is CO2 not the only driver of climate, it’s not a driver of climate – far more powerful drivers are.
Mr. C., please specify these more powerful drivers of climate – I await with bated breath.
>”Please specify these more powerful drivers of climate”
Nodded off and missed it up-thread Brandoch? It was a lot to read and comprehend I do admit.
I realize you must feel an obligation to mount a kind of rear-guard action for the cause Brandoch – reminiscent of the last Japanese soldier in the Pacific’s obedience to the Emperor – but don’t you see the futility when your rifle’s rusted up and your ammunition’s damp beyond recovery?
Just saw Jim Salinger on Closeup doddering on about Sandy being made worse (“caused” is the Closeup caption) by climate change.
“Climate change” undefined as always leaving the suggestion of human complicity, Never let a chance go by eh Jim?
Salinger said the pressure of Sandy was exceptional because it was the lowest recorded since the 1970s (or words to that effect). Now I read in the SMH:-
“The atmospheric pressure at its centre was getting down to a record set in the late 1930s”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/leviathan-how-sandy-links-to-a-warming-planet-20121030-28gg8.html#ixzz2Alwla133
It’s not just what you say that matters – it’s also what you don’t say.
It’s warmer than it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. More heat means more hurricane energy and more moisture within those storms. It’s no coincidence that Katrina and Sandy have been during this very warm period.
Back in 1938 Simon:-
AWFUL DEVASTATION
New England Hurricane And Floods. Known Dead Total 600
NEW YORK, September 24
The awful devastation caused by the hurricane which swept New England and Long Island was revealed to-day. The coastguard cutter Chelan found last night that 200 or more people had been killed at Watch Hill, a small summer resort in Rhode Island. The rollers from the Atlantic, the report stated, had cut a swathe through Watch Hill, engulfing 68 houses and drowning whole families.
This is only one of many moving tragedies revealed as the storm and floods subside. Numerous washed-out resorts have been wiped off the map. The known death roll is now near 600. Workers are feverishly engaged in strengthening the damaged dykes, but with the Connecticut River slowly receding from the 35-feet level the danger is passing. There are 150,000 people engaged in recovering bodies and restoring communications. Fearing an epidemic, airmen are distributing anti-tetanus and anti-typhoid serum by parachute. Looters are active, and the militia fired on numbers of them and wounded one.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/81474878?searchTerm=hurricane%20new%20england&searchLimits=
And,
The #Frankenstorm in Climate Context
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/the-frankenstorm-in-climate-context/
Quotes Trenberth, Hoerling among others and papers but re your heat claim, from Michaels:-
“By any standard, this is an impressive cyclone for our latitude. You might want to check Ludlum’s “Early American Hurricanes” for the Snow Hurricane of 1804, which was earlier and a bit further north — but NYC showed a pretty similar barometric pressure. Are you familiar with his great series of books on pre-1900 weather?”
And,
“It’s also consistent with a planet with colder temperatures as well as one with warmer ones. More important, events like this are inevitable on a planet that has an ocean with the geography of the Atlantic (meaning a Gulf Stream-like feature), a large north-south continent on its western margin without a transverse mountain range to inhibit the merger of tropical warmth with polar cold, and four seasons in the temperate latitudes. And I predict confidently that we will survive Sandy, which should not be a tropical cyclone at landfall.”
I’m well aware of the 1938 storm Richard. I’m just saying that the probability of such a storm has likely increased. I read somewhere yesterday that ocean temperatures on the Eastern seaboard were 3 degrees (probably Fahrenheit) up on average but only 0.8 degrees of that could be attributed to global warming, the rest is due to unusual circulation patterns. I’m not sure how anyone could calculate the attribution.
What does this statement mean?
Beats me, that why I was skeptical about the attribution. I see the same numbers were quoted in Richard’s link, sea temps are up by 5F, of which 1F is global warming. Regardless, Sandy’s strength at these more northerly latitudes is a function of the higher water temperature.
and your reasoning is?
>”I’m just saying that the probability of such a storm has likely increased. I read somewhere yesterday that ocean temperatures on the Eastern seaboard were 3 degrees (probably Fahrenheit) up on average….”
Revkin quoting Jeff Donnelly paper:-
“Over the last 5,000 years, the eastern Caribbean has experienced several periods, lasting centuries, in which strong hurricanes occurred frequently even though ocean temperatures were cooler than those measured today, according to a new study.”
Agree totally. The frequency of hurricanes are the function of other factors, but the severity is affected by water temperature ceteris paribus. One storm doesn’t prove anything but Sandy + Irene + Katrina might get people questioning why the recent past appeared to be more benign than the current decade. The US Government might even consider doing a cost/benefit analysis of future mitigation, though somehow I doubt it.
>”The US Government might even consider doing a cost/benefit analysis of future mitigation,”
What hurricane mitigation projects do you suggest Simon?
NOAA FAQ:-
Q. What water temperature is needed to sustain a strong hurricane?
A. In most cases, water temperature above 80F (26.5C) and warm water depths of 150 feet (50 meters) as well.
Coastal Water Temperature Table, Atlantic Coast: South
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/dsdt/cwtg/satl.html
Miami Beach FL June – October bi-monthly:-
81 84, 85 86, 86 86, 84 84, 83 83
Water temperature was higher than October in the other 3.5 months above 80F but no hurricane. Hurricane season in the Atlantic begins June 1st and ends November 30th. Therefore, ocean heat would have to be lower than 80F for 6 months of the year so as not to sustain a strong hurricane just to be sure – how do you propose to achieve this?
But how much warmer are Florida SSTs over the last century? From Global Warming Science:-
“The following figures show the annual average sea surface temperature anomalies to 2008 for Florida. (from the Hadley Climate Research Unit HadSST2 database plotted at http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climate.aspx) The figures show [left] Gulf SST in the 25-30Nx80-85W grid, and [right] Atlantic SST in the 25-30Nx75-80W grid. The Gulf coast exhibits a cooling trend for the last 60 years, whereas the Atlantic coast has warming since 1970.”
Gulf http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/RS_FloridaUSA_files/image013.jpg
Atlantic http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/RS_FloridaUSA_files/image014.jpg
The Atlantic off Florida was generally as warm or warmer 1930 – 1960 as it was 1978 – 2008 i.e. there is nothing extraordinary about current SSTs off Miami and I have my doubts that hurricane mitigation was proposed in 1938 when SST spiked well above normal and recent levels.
>”I’m just saying that the probability of such a storm has likely increased”
Probability means nothing unless actual occurrence backs it up – it doesn’t:-
‘Sandy doesn’t tell us anything about climate change’
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/10/29/terence-corcoran-frankenscience/
If the IPCC says that man-made climate change would be unlikely to increase hurricanes, how can one hurricane — no matter how freakish — serve as a proxy for climate change? Roger Pielke Jr., a professor at the University of Colorado’s Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, says such links are impossible to make. In a paper he co-authored in 2010, Prof. Pielke found that, based on the existing climate models, man-made climate signals “are very unlikely to emerge in U.S. tropical cyclone losses at time scales of less than a century.” The overall time scale for such evidence is likely somewhere between 120 and 550 years.
So far, however, there is no sign of climate-driven hurricane activity. In an interview Monday, Prof. Pielke said there are no signs of a trend in hurricane activity. “We’ve done long-term trends with respect to hurricane damage in the United States, and it’s very safe to say that regardless of how [Sandy] plays out, there’s a century-long time series with no trend in it — and that’s in damage, the number of landfalls, or the intensity of storms at landfall. So, if you are looking for signals of long-term climate change, focusing in on any one storm is the wrong way to go about it to begin with.”
There is that paper of Hansen’s that shows how the probability distribution of extreme events has changed. As far as I know there hasn’t been a robust rebuttal of it yet. If there is one I’m sure you can post a reference for me.
Was this paper based on reality or computer models?
Simon:
Come on Simon, that’s really weak. Katrina was a cat 3 at landfall, Sandy hardly even a cat 1.
We’ve just seen one of the longest spells without a serious land-falling hurricane in the USA, and you claim that “it’s no coincidence…”.
What’s no coincidence? That we’ve had so few serious land-falling hurricanes in the US? Because that’s the only thing unusual that’s happening over there right now.
If you believe that Sandy is anything out of the ordinary, then you have come to believe in AGW simply because you do, and you have no interest in the facts. Show us the trend graphs, the ones that show an increase in hurricane energy. Even the world’s experts admit that they show no change.
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/G3.html
Hurricane categories are solely a measure of wind speed. They do not indicate size or potential rainfall. You are either intentionally putting up a misleading straw-man or you are lacking a basic understanding of meteorology.
Sandy is exceptional due to record warm ocean temperatures and a extreme outlier Greenland blocking high. For a balanced discussion see Revkin’s latest blog post. http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/two-views-of-a-superstorm-in-climate-context/
There are papers that show how more intense hurricanes occur in years with warmer ocean temperatures, just as the physics would predict. I’m not going to find a reference for you though.
Nowhere did I attribute any of this to anthropogenic causes, but rather that it is the consequence of an unusual Arctic Oscillation and consistently warmer than usual global temperature.
>”Sandy is exceptional due to record warm ocean temperatures”
No it is not exceptional and what “record warm ocean temperatures” (Atlantic coast vicinity of Florida say)?
See this comment for SST plots that don’t show any recent Atlantic/Florida SST record to 2008, the record is 1938.
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2012/10/niwa-says-it-wasnt-about-climate-change/#comment-133965
So maybe, after all, it is just coincidence after all that Sandy occurred at a time when sea surface temperatures were not at a record high, during a period noted for a lack of land-falling hurricanes, while the hurricane ACE continues near 30-year low values.
I’m now very confused about which coincidence we’re supposed to be looking for.
Homogeneous record of Atlantic hurricane surge threat since 1923
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/10/10/1209542109.abstract
We find that warm years in general were more active in all cyclone size ranges than cold years. The largest cyclones are most affected by warmer conditions and we detect a statistically significant trend in the frequency of large surge events (roughly corresponding to tropical storm size) since 1923. In particular, we estimate that Katrina-magnitude events have been twice as frequent in warm years compared with cold years (P < 0.02).
Storm power outages in the US are always exacerbated by 2 factors, 1) overhead line distribution once you get out of CBDs, and 2) lots of trees adjacent to those lines.
It’s apparent in US movies (TV/cine) and news clips. I’ve seen it for myself and having worked in electricity distribution and knowing the tree/shelter-belt problem I expect there will be many homes without power there for some time.
At least when a branch or entire tree takes out a line (or house), it wont do it again.
OK, RT, would it be acceptable for me to follow your example of
by saying
Please elucidate the rules of engagement, or are they as capricious as they seem?
>”…basic concepts of physics”
In respect to what?
LWIR penetration of the ocean surface?
http://omlc.ogi.edu/spectra/water/gif/hale73.gif
CO2 pathlength curves?
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/eggert-co2.png
Second Law of Thermodynamics?
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/seclaw.html
What?
As I thought, Mr. Cummings, you are reluctant to specify these oh-so-powerful drivers of climate.
Come on, man, everlasting glory awaits you, the man who bought the entire rotten edifice of AGW theory to its knees!
Unless, of course, you can’t…
>”…you are reluctant to specify these oh-so-powerful drivers of climate”
Already have. Read again up-thread, this time try to stay awake – try coffee.
(Yawn) In your own words, please, Mr. C., to avoid any – misunderstandings.
Come on, name them, and the timescale they operate on.
I’ll make it easy for you – here’s the usual list (none of which explain AGW)
“There are many climate forcing factors spanning an enormous range of periodicities. The longest, 200 to 500 million years, involves the passage of our Solar System through the galaxy, and the variations in galactic dust (Williams, 1975a). These may be considered to be external forcing mechanisms (section 2.5.1). Other long time scale variations (10^6 to 10^8 years) include the non-radiative forcing mechanisms, such as continental drift, orogeny (mountain building) and isostasy (vertical movements in the Earth’s crust affecting sea level) (Raymo & Ruddiman, 1992; Ruddiman & Kubasch, 1991). These are internal forcing mechanisms (sections 2.6.1 and 2.6.2). External changes in the amount of solar radiation (Wigley & Kelly, 1990; Eddy, 1976, 1977, 1982; section 2.5.3) and the Earth’s orbit around the Sun (Milankovitch, 1941; Berger, 1978, 1984; section 2.5.2), and internal variations in volcanic activity (Sear et al., 1987; section 2.6.3), ocean circulation (Broecker & Denton, 1990; section 2.6.4) and atmospheric composition (IPCC, 1990a, 1992, 1995; section 2.6.5), all occur over time scales from 1 year to 105 years.
Additionally, there are numerous other internal feedback mechanisms (see section 2.7) which all contribute to the changing of the global climate. The actual climate state at any point in time represents an aggregate response to all cycles of variation superimposed on the background noise.
The response of the climate system to this combination of forcing factors itself depends upon the different response times of the various components of the system. The overall climatic response will then be determined by the interactions between the components. The atmosphere, surface snow and ice, and surface vegetation typically respond to climatic forcing over a period of hours to days. The surface ocean has a response time measured in years, whilst the deep ocean and mountain glaciers vary only over a period spanning hundreds of years (Henderson-Sellers & McGuffie, 1987). Large ice sheets advance and withdraw over thousands of years whilst parts of the geosphere (e.g. continental weathering of rocks) respond only to forcing periods lasting hundreds of thousands to millions of years.”
http://www.global-climate-change.org.uk/2-4.php
To be honest, Mr. C., I think you have got your external and internal forcings muddled up, but I’m open to persuasion that you might know something the rest of the world doesn’t, [so it’s time for you to either put up or shut up. – You’re awfully rude. Just who the hell do you think you’re talking to, and what are you so afraid of? Stop being hostile. Comments removed that attribute unworthy motives. – RT]
“None of which explain AGW”
Well if your theory is “anthropogenic”, (the “A” in AGW) then obviously no other non-anthropogenic theories will explain your anthropogenic theory
We could also mention Svensmark’s theories too, which you seem to have left off your list.
In the meantime, I hope all those folks on the East Coast of the States are OK, AGW or otherwise.
>”Come on, name them, and the timescale they operate on”
Already have. But what say you quantify all-CO2 forcing over the 30 years 1981 – 2010 so we can make some comparisons? Here’s the IPCC’s simplified CO2 forcing expression:
dF = 5.35 ln(C/Co).
Here’s the Mauna Loa data ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_annmean_mlo.txt
Now, what is
a) Total all-CO2 forcing 1981 – 2010
b) Per decade all-CO2 forcing 1981 – 2010
c) Per year all-CO2 forcing 1981 – 2010
As expected, Mr. C., you refuse to list the “far more powerful drivers of climate” that you imply are overwhelming the CO2 contribution in the current epoch.
This is, of course, simply because you can’t; humanity is the equivalent of a vast volcanic eruption over hundreds of years, a dire forcing indeed, and one that you cannot hide from without resorting to desperate handwaving and cherry-picking of raw data over carefully-selected time periods.
Time to wake up, C., smell the coffee and check the news!
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0620/1224318256659_pf.html
You still haven’t provided any proof that this climate change is caused by man though, have you Brandoch. As mentioned before, CO2 can only raise the temperature a maximum of 1.2C per doubling of total (not just man’s) CO2 levels – in other words, it’s greenhouse effect is so weak it’s practically impotent.
Where is the evidence of the positive feedback from water vapour that is supposed to amplify the minute effects of CO2? Where is the tropospheric hot spot that would go along way to proving such feedbacks are happening?
The predicted hot spot is a no show according to 2 satellites, and over 30,000,000 weather balloons.There is no evidence for positive feedback, therefore no evidence for amplification, and as a result no evidence that man is the cause of any temperature changes beyond the tiny amount CO2 contributes – and it is tiny, so tiny it’s practically indistinguishable from whatever else is causing the warming.
Whatever is warming the planet it isn’t CO2. How can it without positive feedback from water vapour? Since you have no evidence of positive feedback from water vapour, and CO2 is such a weak source of warming, perhaps you can explain how the theory of AGW can be responsible for the warming without the amplification of water vapour?
Perhaps one of the ‘consensus’ scientists might know, try asking them. Until you can answer this question anything you say in support of climate change is irrelevant, because you simply have no evidence whatsoever to back up your claims. All you have are failed computer models and a temperature record supporting the findings of the satellites and radiosondes that find the tropospheric hot spot is non-existant.
C’mon Brandoch, deep down you know I’m right. If I’m not I’m sure you can correct me by showing evidence of positive feedback from water vapour. If you can’t, why do you believe in something for which the evidence actually seems to point in the opposite direction from the hypothesis? Over 40 yrs worth of evidence from multiple sources too.
>”As expected, Mr. C., you refuse to list the “far more powerful drivers of climate” that you imply are overwhelming the CO2 contribution in the current epoch”
No I don’t refuse. I was waiting for you to quantify the all-CO2 forcing 1981 – 2010 to make a comparison but nothing forthcoming. Since you’re either incapable or in denial, let me help you out.
dF = 5.35 ln(C/Co).
Co 340.10
C 389.78
dF = 5.35 ln(389.78/340.10)
dF = 0.73 W/m2
So a 49.68 ppm change in CO2 concentration results in the following power (supposedly):-
a) Total all-CO2 forcing 1981 – 2010: 0.73 W/m2
b) Per decade all-CO2 forcing 1981 – 2010: 0.24 W/m2
c) Per year all-CO2 forcing 1981 – 2010: 0.024 W/m2
Compare to Hatzianastassiou (2011) 2001-2006 all sky SWsfc (observed solar at surface modulated by cloud cover)
Change: -2.7 Wm-2 or -4.5 W/m2/decade or -0.45 Wm-2y-1
SWsfc is 18.75 times greater (0.45/0.024) forcing than CO2 over 2001 – 2006. Assuming aCO2 is 0.4 of all-CO2 (from SkS), SWsfc is 450 times greater (0.45/(0.024*0.4) forcing than aCO2 2001 – 2006.
There is the most significant of the “far more powerful drivers of climate” that [I’ve just proved is] overwhelming the CO2 contribution in the current epoch.
Wild et al 2012 comes up with even wilder numbers for 1993 – 2010 but that’s next if you want to go on with it.
Two very good replies, one by Magoo, one by Richard C.
Popcorn, anyone? While we wait for Brandoch to reply with:
a) evidence of the actual, hitherto unfound, tropospheric hotspot, and
b) evidence that CO2 forcing is not tiny compared with SWsfc.
Amen to that!
As expected, C., you are confusing internal forcings (intrasystem energy transfers) with external forcing (net system energy increase), and hiding “in the noise”.
This is as intellectually bankrupt as claiming that anthropogenic CO2 emissions aren’t a problem, as they are dwarfed by natural biospheric annual emissions…
Whilst this is true, it is misleading and irrelevant, as natural emissions and absorptions balance themselves out over a year, whilst anthropogenic CO2 steadily accumulates in the system, and has driven atmospheric CO2 from 280 ppm to 390 ppm and rising.
Unless you prefer to remain confused xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, this article will aid your understanding:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas-intermediate.htm
Lord Daha:
Nope, I think not. Richard C.’s quote definitely stated
So what about it? As far as I understand it, incoming energy is modulated over decadal timescales by increases or decreases in cloud cover, and these are not covered by the models (see Hansen, 2005 – note list of forcings, and absence of cloud cover or ENSO).
Therefore the warming seen over the past few decades could well have been caused by cloud cover changes and PDO, not CO2. therefore Hansen’s climate sensitivity numbers could be out by orders of magnitude, no?
After all, we hear continually that the scientists “cannot explain the warming by any other means than by CO2”.
Strawman alert. Skeptics refer to the lack of the tropospheric hotspot, which is a consequence of positive water vapour feedback.
Ah yes, cloud cover, the last refuge of the denialist scientist – just like the “God of the Gaps” beloved of creationists everywhere.
Unfortunately, clouds don’t generate their own energy, they just process latent energy of evaporation and condensation over a short time scale, i.e. they are a feedback, not a driver.
Have you, perchance, been reading Roy Spencer?
I believe Dr Spencer managed to correlate the change in cloud cover with the observed warming, and then there is Svensmark’s theories about cloud formation and cosmic rays that might drive these changes in cloud cover. There was also the CLOUD experiment at CERN that corroborated some of these findings.
All jolly interesting and real science, and obviously “debunked” at Skeptical Science
[..insert link to SkS or failing that an ad hom from Desmogblog here..]
Yes, and it might also be fairies at the bottom of the garden…
Cue Spencer evisceration here:
http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/roy-spencers-great-blunder-part-1/
The link that follows is a balanced review of potential cosmic-ray effects, but the problem for you is that:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/09/cosmic-rays-and-clouds-potential-mechanisms/
You know I really don’t give a damn. I am celebrating the death of the UK wind industry tonight.
Happy days indeed
>”…there has been no significant trend in the cosmic ray flux over the 50 years”
There’s more to it than that:-
Galactic Cosmic Rays vs Cloud Cover
In April 2008, Professor Terry Sloan of Lancaster University published a paper in the journal Environmental Research Letters titled “Testing the proposed causal link between cosmic rays and cloud cover”,[26] which found no significant link between cloud cover and cosmic ray intensity in the last 20 years. Svensmark responded by saying “Terry Sloan has simply failed to understand how cosmic rays work on clouds”.[27] Dr. Giles Harrison of Reading University, describes the work as important “as it provides an upper limit on the cosmic ray-cloud effect in global satellite cloud data”. Harrison studied the effect of cosmic rays in the UK.[28] He states: “Although the statistically significant non-linear cosmic ray effect is small, it will have a considerably larger aggregate effect on longer timescale (e.g. century) climate variations when day-to-day variability averages out”. Brian H. Brown (2008) of Sheffield University further found a statistically significant (p 3 months)and GCR gave correlations of p=0.06.[29]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_Svensmark#cite_note-12
‘When skeptics cite water vapour as the most dominant greenhouse gas, they are actually invoking the positive feedback that makes our climate so sensitive to CO2 as well as another line of evidence for anthropogenic global warming.’
And what positive feedback would this be Brandoch? I take it you have some evidence for it, maybe the tropospheric hot spot.
Just a quick question, if there is no evidence of positive feedback from water vapour, what evidence do you have for AGW beyond the tiny, minute amount CO2 contributes (1.2C max. per doubling of total atmospheric CO2)?
Your point escapes me, Mr. Magoo. WV is obviously an important positive feedback and a major contributor to climate sensitivity, as the IPCC notes.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/mains2-3.html
I thought the question was exceptionally clear. What evidence do you have for the tropospheric hotspot, which in turn provides us with the evidence for positive WV feedback?
Simple question, really. The answer should be really easy, no?
“…as global average temperature increases, tropospheric water vapour concentrations increase”
Speculation by the IPCC that hasn’t been borne out in the metrics except at the surface (and minimally there). Above the surface at mid and upper troposphere, WV has declined:-
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20ESRL%20AtmospericSpecificHumidity%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1948%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
‘Water vapour changes represent the largest feedback affecting equilibrium climate sensitivity’
Well good Brandoch, maybe the IPCC has some evidence for positive feedback from water vapour. Where do you think it is, where have they cited it?
Until you come up with some evidence of positive feedback from water vapour your theory of AGW has no evidence to back it up, something that is reflected in the failure of the computer models. Face it Brandoch, all you have is faith in the failed gaia religion with absolutely no evidence to back it up whatsoever.
Magoo:
Seconded.
>”…clouds don’t generate their own energy, they just process latent energy of evaporation and condensation over a short time scale, i.e. they are a feedback, not a driver”
Clouds do MUCH more than that Brando. Clouds reflect solar energy (albedo effect), around 25% but varying. Cloud increase/decrease modulates insolation at surface so although clouds aren’t an energy source as solar is, clouds certainly determine the amount of solar energy reaching the surface. So cloudiness change (from dimming to brightening and vice versa) is a forcing and a driver at surface but a modulator not a feedback on solar. Solar at TOA is conventionally a “solar constant” (but see below), A modulation is not necessarily a feedback. If there was a positive or negative feedback on the solar constant, it wouldn’t be a solar constant.
Cloud (lower in particular) is posited to be related to cosmic ray flux and the flux is modulated by solar wind and magnetic field:-
Cosmic Ray Modulation
The flux (flow rate) of cosmic rays incident on the Earth’s upper atmosphere is modulated (varied) by two processes; the sun’s solar wind and the Earth’s magnetic field. Solar wind is expanding magnetized plasma generated by the sun, which has the effect of decelerating the incoming particles as well as partially excluding some of the particles with energies below about 1 GeV. The amount of solar wind is not constant due to changes in solar activity over its regular eleven-year cycle. Hence the level of modulation varies in autocorrelation with solar activity. Also the Earth’s magnetic field deflects some of the cosmic rays, which is confirmed by the fact that the intensity of cosmic radiation is dependent on latitude, longitude and azimuth. The cosmic flux varies from eastern and western directions due to the polarity of the Earth’s geomagnetic field and the positive charge dominance in primary cosmic rays; this is termed the east-west effect.
Continues…..
http://www.optcorp.com/edu/articleDetailEDU.aspx?aid=1739
Influence of Cosmic Rays on Earth’s Climate
by Henrik Svensmark* 1998
During the last solar cycle Earth’s cloud cover underwent a modulation more closely in phase with the galactic cosmic ray flux than with other solar activity parameters. Further it is found that Earth’s temperature follows more closely decade variations in galactic cosmic ray flux and solar cycle length, than other solar activity parameters. The main conclusion is that the average state of the heliosphere affects Earth’s climate.
[…]
The solar cycle length has been shown to be an important parameter due to its close connection with temperature variations of the Earth. This parameter is determined empirically and it has not been straightforward to interpret. The present work gives a hint on why it is relevant to Earth’s climate. The physical interpretation is based on the close agreement between variations in solar cycle length, GCR flux, and temperature as seen in Fig. 3. The solar cycle length is therefore a measure of the processes occurring within the sun of unknown dynamical origin which manifest themselves in the solar activity within the heliosphere that modulates the GCR, averaged over the solar cycle.
This does not imply that other factors cannot affect clouds or climate. However, a cloud cover that is modulated by solar activity in this way will have an influence on climate and could be important in explaining the observed agreement between climate proxies and solar activity [1,3,4]. There is at present no detailed understanding of the microphysical mechanism that connects solar activity and Earth’s cloud cover. It is necessary to identify a microphysical mechanism, which might not be an easy task. The present study hopes to increase not just the interest in finding a physical mechanism but to point at where and how to locate it in the atmosphere.
http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/global/CREC.html
Subsequently Aarhus University’s EMMA and CERN CLOUD
Ok, so is this all you’ve got?
Mythical volcanoes, non-physical interactions between cosmic rays and clouds, a misconstrued section of AR4 and some Moncktonian handwaving?
Come on, where’s Christy’s reanalysis of the NZCSET temperature record? That’s sure to take the world by storm…
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/30/global_warming_hits_home/
There is the point of no evidence of positive feedback from water vapour rendering the AGW hypothesis impotent. Surely if you believe in AGW you must have a reason. Where’s the evidence of positive feedback from water vapour, and if you can’t provide it then explain how the AGW hypothesis works without it.
>”Ok, so is this all you’ve got?”
A whole lot more than you’ve got Brando
>”Mythical volcanoes”
That NIWA is investigating? No, I repeat for your comprehension (hopefully):-
“Actually I was claiming THE MINOR INPUT of hydrovents injecting siperheated water (up to around 400 C) into climate critical areas (e,g, tropical east Pacific, GNS did at least one paper on this as did others) mostly at 2000 – 2500m IN COMBINATION WITH THE MAJOR SOLAR INPUT”
>”…non-physical interactions between cosmic rays and clouds”
No, Aarhus University’s EMMA and CERN CLOUD are investigating physical interactions
>”….a misconstrued section of AR4 and some Moncktonian handwaving?”
No, Hatzianastassiou et al 2011, Wild et al 2012, Rob Painting/Skeptical Science, and this search of Google Scholar for dimming+brightening:-
http://scholar.google.co.nz/scholar?hl=en&q=dimming%2Bbrightening&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=
7,950 results
>”….you are confusing internal forcings (intrasystem energy transfers) with external forcing (net system energy increase), and hiding “in the noise””
Rubbish. we’re talking about CHANGE, and yes I AM presenting “external forcing (net system energy increase [or decrease])”. “Internal forcings (intrasystem energy transfers)” in oceanic terms is heat transport currents and suchlike but that’s NOT what I’m presenting.
The observed SWsfc is a CHANGE in radiation reaching the surface, just as TSI Maunder Minimum – present is a CHANGE in radiation reaching TOA. But TOA levels aren’t all that relevant In isolation if cloud reflects around a quarter of SW back out to space. Therefore, any CHANGE in cloudiness (and aerosols) must be taken into account. That is why SW is measured all-sky and clear-sky, the “all” sky taking into account cloudiness (same for LWdown).
Clearer skies produce brightening, cloudier and polluted skies produce dimming. It is generally accepted (including at SkS) that there was dimming from around 1950 to 1980ish and brightening from 1980ish to 2000. From Wild 2011 via SkS this brightening/dimming graphic (Wild et al 2012 has a similar graphic for Potsdam Germany):-
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/WildFig2.png
Those CHANGE values are W/m2 and obviously far greater on a per decade basis than CO2. From 2000 onwards there’s a difference between BSRN-only (little CHANGE, Wild 2011/12) and GEBA+BSRN (dimming, Hatzianastassiou 2011).
So given the 5 – 13 W/m2 range of SWsfc 1980 CHANGE between brightening and dimming in the graphic, we should expect SST to exhibit inflexions at 1980 and again at 2000:-
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadsst2gl/from:1950
Sure enough, 2 inflexions and CO2 had no influence because all that happened was that there was a huge turnaround (a CHANGE) in SWsfc from -ve to +ve around 1980 and a whole lot more energy reached the ocean surface from 1980 – 2000. Now that the solar/cloud/aerosol forcing combo has weakened and either neutral or dimming, there’s been no more SST or SAT increase since 2000.
!910 – 1940 saw a similar energy influx at the ocean surface due to brightening in that period also:-
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadsst2gl/from:1845
No CO2 correlation in that graph. The ocean being a heat sink, doesn’t necessarily give up all the energy over the same time span that it takes it up unless there’s strong dimming (e.g. 1880 – 1910) so the heat steadily accumulated after 1980 as we see in OHC charts but by solar input via brightening-dimming cycles, not by fierce heat injection from GHGs. That process will reverse over the predicted solar grand minimum.
Three questions, Bob:
1. wanna bet?
2. what happened to the invisible undersea volcanoes that you earlier claimed were causing the rise in OHC? (Bruce Bayliss had a giggle about that at the pub last night).
3. Monckton tried running this line to Congress, and was shot down in flames. Do you really think you can do better?
http://profmandia.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/monckton-testimony-at-us-congress-ignorance-or-perjury/
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-brightening-global-warming.htm
1. wanna bet?
Bet on it Brando.
2. what happened to the invisible undersea volcanoes that you earlier claimed were causing the rise in OHC?
Actually I was claiming THE MINOR INPUT of hydrovents injecting siperheated water (up to around 400 C) into climate critical areas (e,g, tropical east Pacific, GNS did at least one paper on this as did others) mostly at 2000 – 2500m IN COMBINATION WITH THE MAJOR SOLAR INPUT, but here’s NIWA:-
‘Niwa observes underwater volcano changes’
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/7871961/Niwa-observes-underwater-volcano-changes
3. Monckton tried running this line to Congress, and was shot down in flames. Do you really think you can do better?
Err, I’m going by Wild et al (CMIP5/AR5 commentary) and Hatzianastassiou et al. Are you dissing ALL of that? If you are, couldn’t that be construed as – in warmist parlance – “denial” Brando?
This Bruce Bayliss of yours wouldn’t be connected with THE Bruce Bayliss mate?
Yeah, that’s Brucie – he sure gets around, eh boy!
So your real name is Fred Dagg then?
>”There is no evidence that such changes occurred over the oceans”
AR4 3.4.4.2 Surface Radiation (from Pinker, see link below)
In addition, the satellite observed increase in surface radiation noted by Pinker et al. (2005) occurred primarily over ocean, whereas the increase observed by Wild et al. (2005) was restricted to land stations
+ + +
Do Satellites Detect Trends in Surface Solar Radiation?
Pinker, Zhang and Dutton, 2005
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/308/5723/850.short
Abstract
Long-term variations in solar radiation at Earth’s surface (S) can affect our climate, the hydrological cycle, plant photosynthesis, and solar power. Sustained decreases in S have been widely reported from about the year 1960 to 1990. Here we present an estimate of global temporal variations in S by using the longest available satellite record. We observed an overall increase in S from 1983 to 2001 at a rate of 0.16 watts per square meter (0.10%) per year; this change is a combination of a decrease until about 1990, followed by a sustained increase. The global-scale findings are consistent with recent independent satellite observations but differ in sign and magnitude from previously reported ground observations. Unlike ground stations, satellites can uniformly sample the entire globe.
+ + +
Monckton:-
“Allowing for the fact that Dr. Pinker’s result depended in part on the datasets of
outgoing radiative flux from the ERBE satellite that had not been corrected at that time
for orbital decay, it is possible to infer a net increase in surface radiative flux amounting
to 0.106 W m–2 year–1 over the period, compared with the 0.16 W m–2 year–1 found by
Dr. Pinker.”
“Elementary radiative-transfer calculations demonstrate that a natural surface global
brightening amounting to ~1.9 W m–2 over the 18-year period of study would be
expected – using the IPCC’s own methodology – to have caused a transient warming of 1
K (1.8 F°). To put this naturally-occurring global brightening into perspective, the
IPCC’s estimated total of all the anthropogenic influences on climate combined in the
256 years 1750-2005 is only 1.6 W m–2.”
+ + +
0.106 W m–2 year–1 is 1.9 W m-2 over the 18 years 1983 to 2001 for SWsfc
0.024 W m–2 year–1 is 0.4 W m-2 over the 18 years 1983 to 2001 for all-CO2
Rachel Pinker doesn’t think SWsfc and CO2 forcing should be compared as Monckton does (so do I, so would anyone thinking this through) because (She quotes AR4 WGI FAQ 2.1):-
“Radiative forcing is usually quantified as the ‘rate of energy change
per unit area of the globe as measured at the top of the atmosphere’,
and is expressed in units of ‘Watts per square metre’”
+ + +
She can’t object on that basis because the emitted flux from CO2 is in all directions including down to surface and both are a “rate of energy change per unit area”, therefore directly comparable.
Rachel very helpfully clarifies cloud forcing however:-
The effect of clouds F, on the Earth’s radiation balance is measured as the difference
between clear-sky and all-sky radiation results both in shortwave (SW) and longwave
(LW)
FSW (cloud) = FSW (clear) – FSW (all-sky)
FLW (cloud) = FLW (clear) – FLW (all-sky
Fnet (cloud) = FSW (cloud) + FLW (cloud)
Fnet (cloud) => Clouds have a cooling effect on Climate if Clouds have a warming effect on Climate if > 0
Usually, it is applied at the Top of the Atmosphere, but can be also defined at the surface. [as for CO2 forcing Rachel]
+ + +
Monckton’s Congressional testimony 6 May 2010
http://globalwarming.markey.house.gov/files/HRG/050510climateScience/monckton.pdf
Pinker answering questions re Monckton’s testimony
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/wp-content/blogs.dir/443/files/2012/04/i-3ee75ca959427e6a5c1396646172693c-debate_australia_tim_lambert.pdf
Cook’s dizzy commentary
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-brightening-global-warming.htm
Oops, the above comment went wrong somehow during editing, “Undefined” so I resubmitted.
Please ignore the above comment and refer to the edited version following below.
>”There is no evidence that such changes occurred over the oceans”
AR4 3.4.4.2 Surface Radiation (from Pinker, see link below)
In addition, the satellite observed increase in surface radiation noted by Pinker et al. (2005) occurred primarily over ocean, whereas the increase observed by Wild et al. (2005) was restricted to land stations
+ + +
Do Satellites Detect Trends in Surface Solar Radiation?
Pinker, Zhang and Dutton, 2005
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/308/5723/850.short
Abstract
Long-term variations in solar radiation at Earth’s surface (S) can affect our climate, the hydrological cycle, plant photosynthesis, and solar power. Sustained decreases in S have been widely reported from about the year 1960 to 1990. Here we present an estimate of global temporal variations in S by using the longest available satellite record. We observed an overall increase in S from 1983 to 2001 at a rate of 0.16 watts per square meter (0.10%) per year; this change is a combination of a decrease until about 1990, followed by a sustained increase. The global-scale findings are consistent with recent independent satellite observations but differ in sign and magnitude from previously reported ground observations. Unlike ground stations, satellites can uniformly sample the entire globe.
+ + +
Monckton (see link below):-
“Allowing for the fact that Dr. Pinker’s result depended in part on the datasets of outgoing radiative flux from the ERBE satellite that had not been corrected at that time for orbital decay, it is possible to infer a net increase in surface radiative flux amounting to 0.106 W m–2 year–1 over the period, compared with the 0.16 W m–2 year–1 found by Dr. Pinker.”
“Elementary radiative-transfer calculations demonstrate that a natural surface global brightening amounting to ~1.9 W m–2 over the 18-year period of study would be expected – using the IPCC’s own methodology – to have caused a transient warming of 1 K (1.8 F°). To put this naturally-occurring global brightening into perspective, the IPCC’s estimated total of all the anthropogenic influences on climate combined in the 256 years 1750-2005 is only 1.6 W m–2.”
0.106 W m–2 year–1 is 1.9 W m-2 over the 18 years 1983 to 2001 for SWsfc
0.024 W m–2 year–1 is 0.4 W m-2 over the 18 years 1983 to 2001 for all-CO2
+ + +
Rachel Pinker doesn’t think SWsfc and CO2 forcing should be compared as Monckton does (so do I, so would anyone thinking this through) because (She quotes AR4 WGI FAQ 2.1 in link below):-
“Radiative forcing is usually quantified as the ‘rate of energy change per unit area of the globe as measured at the top of the atmosphere’, and is expressed in units of ‘Watts per square metre’”
She can’t object on that basis because the emitted flux from CO2 is in all directions including down to surface and both are a “rate of energy change per unit area”, therefore directly comparable.
+ + +
Rachel very helpfully clarifies cloud forcing however:-
The effect of clouds F, on the Earth’s radiation balance is measured as the difference between clear-sky and all-sky radiation results both in shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW)
FSW (cloud) = FSW (clear) – FSW (all-sky)
FLW (cloud) = FLW (clear) – FLW (all-sky
Fnet (cloud) = FSW (cloud) + FLW (cloud)
Fnet (cloud) => Clouds have a cooling effect on Climate if Clouds have a warming effect on Climate if > 0
Usually, it is applied at the Top of the Atmosphere, but can be also defined at the surface. [as for CO2 forcing Rachel]
+ + +
Monckton’s Congressional testimony 6 May 2010
http://globalwarming.markey.house.gov/files/HRG/050510climateScience/monckton.pdf
Pinker answering questions re Monckton’s testimony
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/wp-content/blogs.dir/443/files/2012/04/i-3ee75ca959427e6a5c1396646172693c-debate_australia_tim_lambert.pdf
Cook’s dizzy commentary
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-brightening-global-warming.htm
Correction, the following would not copy properly from the Pinker pdf:
“Fnet (cloud) => Clouds have a cooling effect on Climate if Clouds have a warming effect on Climate if > 0”
Should be:-
Fnet (cloud) => Clouds have a cooling effect on climate if less than 0
Fnet (cloud) => Clouds have a warming effect on climate if greater than 0
Just to clarify what’s going on here. The dimming-brightening cycle has emerged as probably the greatest threat to CAGW alarm. Needless to say (but let’s be clear), every warmist that recognizes the threat has swung into damage control mode in order to spin it to the moon.
Those spinners would include: Wild, Lambert, Painting, Cook and Johnny-come-lately Brando. No doubt the IPCC will join in next year.
So, boys, having failed in claiming that short-term WV feedbacks are somehow long-term forcings, you produce a tired old straw man, the mythical THS.
Is that really the best you can do?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Dispelling-two-myths-about-the-tropospheric-hot-spot.html
BTW, you can feel the evidence for positive WV feedback on your own skin, by going outside on a cloudy night, then on a clear, starry night.
I certainly notice the difference on the way to the milking shed at sparrowfart, but perhaps you city boys aren’t up that early?
As Bob said, it’s a simple question: cite some evidence. Your anecdote is interesting but not evidence of a global trend.
>”BTW, you can feel the evidence for positive WV feedback on your own skin, by going outside on a cloudy night, then on a clear, starry night”
Duh! Cloud is liquid, WV is gas, they are not one-and-same. WV is a negative feedback on temperature. In an arid tropical location the temperature can reach 50 C by day and freezing by night. A humid tropical location only goes into the 30s (or 40s perhaps) and certainly doesn’t get down to freezing so it acts against temperature rise and fall as a modulator (negative feedback).
See Carl Brehmer’s The Greenhouse Effect . . . Explored
Is “Water Vapor Feedback” Positive or Negative?
http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Greenhouse_Effect_Research/Water%20Feedback_files/Is%20Water%20Vapor%20Feedback%20Positive%20or%20Negative.pdf
Lord Daha:
Is that really the best you can do, to simply mis-state our question, pretending that the hotspot is mythical?
I thought so.
By the way, while you’re desperately searching through Skeptical Science for an answer, what does the fact that the THS is mythical say then about the IPCC – it predicted the hotspot, after all?
You should read AR4 – it’s really very entertaining, in a sad sort of a way.
This blog is really very entertaining, in a sad sort of a way.
Meanwhile, the world’s most media-rich city has just had an object lesson in rising SST and SSL, storm surge, coastal erosion, salt water penetration, flooding, extreme weather and economic shock, aka the predictable consequences of AGW.
Here’s a link to cheer you up in these difficult times:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYP10UU8ACM
Meanwhile, the world’s most media-rich city has just had an object lesson in………downgraded tropical cyclones.
Happened in the past (notably 1938) and it will happen again.
The number of people killed as a result of this storm was less than that from the Christchurch earthquake.
Just putting this in some perspective
From a holistic perspective, it’s worth exploring the relationships between Arctic ice melt, shifting of the jet stream, Rossby waves, blocking highs, oscillations in large scale weather patterns and changes in ocean temperature. They are all inter-related in a chaotic system. There are feedback loops everywhere. How can you be so confident that greenhouse gas concentration is irrelevant?
>”How can you be so confident that greenhouse gas concentration is irrelevant?”
History.
Some sense in this article:-
‘Meteorological bomb’ or climate change? Experts eye Sandy’s cause
Sandy began as a late-season hurricane coming up from the Caribbean in what many experts believe were conditions fuelled by unusually warm water temperatures for this time of year. It then joined forces with a large Arctic weather system, which increased its size and transformed it into a winter storm with far more power than would otherwise have been expected.
The third unusual element was a high pressure system off Canada’s east coast that blocked Sandy’s escape route. While hurricanes usually turn eastward, the system forced Sandy to make a very sharp left turn and slam into the New Jersey coast.
“Many, many hurricanes have threatened the east coast of the United States over many, many years,” said David Nolan, an associate professor of meteorology and physical oceanography at the University of Miami. “Virtually all of them move up the coast and eventually turn to the right and head out to sea.”
Nolan said there would likely have been a winter storm forming at about this time. Because Sandy happened to be coming up the coast at exactly the right moment, it gave that storm a head start.
“Instead of starting from nothing, the storm is starting from a circulation as strong as a hurricane,” he said.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/meteorological-bomb-or-climate-change-experts-eye-sandys-cause-20121101-28l5j.html#ixzz2AvqhLkDp
Thanks for the link. That was exactly the point that I was trying to make.
>”BTW, you can feel the evidence for [energy modulation by clouds] on your own skin, by going outside on a cloudy night, then on a clear, starry night”
What you are effectively conceding here Brando, is that clouds have a greater forcing effect than GHGs.
What you are effectively conceding here Richardo, is that water in the atmosphere increases the climate sensitivity to CO2.
Again, read my lips: atmospheric H2O is a short-term FEEDBACK, not a FORCING.
The effect of CO2 persists for millenia (Solomon et. al.), whereas H2O typically persists for only a few weeks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor
Perhaps you have heard of – or even experienced – the atmospheric phenomena known as “rain”?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas-intermediate.htm
You’re confusing the difference between cloud (liquid) and water vapour (gas) Brando. They are both H2O but different phases (states). It takes a change of phase/state for the gas phase/state (water vapour) to become liquid phase/state (cloud) and thence rain.
Water vapour is a negative feedback on temperature when it is present (easily proved as per Carl Brehmer). In humid conditions, water vapur “damps” (remember YOUR terminology Brando) rise and fall (think Singapore). When humidity is absent (but CO2 is present) there’s little damping to rise or fall (think Sahara) and no WV feedback obviously. This demonstrates the overwhelmingly superior GHE properties of WV compared to CO2. Humidity becomes a forcing when long-term levels trend up or down but the posited up trend has not eventuated and if anything WV has trended down in the bulk of the atmosphere.
Clouds are a long-term forcing (dimming/brightening, see Rachel Pinker’s cloud forcing definition) and short-term modulator of solar and convection by day and of out going radiation and convection by night but not a feedback on the solar constant because if it was it wouldn’t be a solar “constant” as I’ve pointed out previously. Cloud feedback on temperature acts diurnally, annually and decadally and in the longer term becomes a forcing with the greatest effect being on the ocean so although cloud is transient, the long-term effect of cloudiness is profound in combination with the oceanic heat sink and thermal lag as explained previously.
I realize your imperative to make dimming/brightening go away by any means fair or foul Brando but dissing 7,950 Scholar catalogues puts you in very lonely company indeed.
>”on average, the residence time of a water molecule in the troposphere is about 9 to 10 days.”
Blockbuster: Earths Energy Balance measured – models are wrong
JN – “Another major implication is that water is churning up and falling out of the sky faster than the experts thought. The Earth’s evaporative cooler is lifting more water, taking more heat, and dumping that heat in the atmosphere. At the top of the atmosphere heat is radiating off the planet to offset the radiation coming in. On the water planet, it really is all about water.”
“Though latent heat and evaporation are so important to our energy balance, the uncertainties on the water cycle are large. How much rain falls on the oceans? We only know to within 10 or 20%.”
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/10/blockbuster-earths-energy-balance-measured-models-are-wrong/#more-24658
Graeme L. Stephens, Juilin Li, Martin Wild, Carol Anne Clayson, Norman Loeb, Seiji Kato, Tristan L’Ecuyer, Paul W. Stackhouse Jr, Matthew Lebsock & Timothy Andrews An update on Earth’s energy balance in light of the latest global observations, Nature Geoscience, 5, 691–696 (2012)
“….the surface energy balance needs to be revised….”
“…the longwave radiation received at the surface is estimated to be significantly larger, by between 10 and 17 Wm–2, than earlier model-based estimates. Moreover, the latest satellite observations of global precipitation indicate that more precipitation is generated than previously thought. This additional precipitation is sustained by more energy leaving the surface by evaporation — that is, in the form of latent heat flux — and thereby offsets much of the increase in longwave flux to the surface.”
“For the decade considered [2000-2010], the average imbalance is 0.6 = 340.2 − 239.7 − 99.9 Wm2 when these TOA fluxes are constrained to the best estimate ocean heat content (OHC) observations since 2005 (refs 13,14). This small imbalance is over two orders of magnitude smaller than the individual components that define it and smaller than the error of each individual flux. The combined uncertainty on the net TOA flux determined from CERES is ±4 Wm2(95% confidence) due largely to instrument calibration errors12,15. Thus the sum of current satellite-derived fluxes cannot determine the net TOA radiation imbalance with the accuracy needed to track such small imbalances associated with forced climate change11.”
Figure 1 | Surface energy balance. Observed and climate model deduced energy fluxes (all in Wm2) in and out of the TOA (a) and at the surface (b). The observed fluxes (containing error estimates) are taken from Fig. B1 and the climate model fluxes are from simulations archived under the World Climate Research Programme’s Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) twentieth-century experiments. The fluxes from a 16-model ensemble are summarized in terms of the range in model values (maximum and minimum fluxes) with the ensemble mean fluxes given in parenthesis. ‘SW in’ and ‘SW out’ refer to the incoming and outgoing (reflected) solar fluxes at the TOA and ‘LW out’ is the outgoing longwave radiation. Similarly ‘SW down’ and ‘SW up’ refer to downward and upward (reflected) solar fluxes at the surface, and ‘LW up’ and ‘LW down’ refer to the upward emitted flux of longwave radiation from the surface and the downward longwave flux emitted from the atmosphere to the surface, respectively. SH and LH refer to latent and sensible heat fluxes.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/earth-energy-budget/stephens-surface-energy-balance.gif
Figure B1 | The global annual mean energy budget of Earth for the approximate period 2000–2010. All fluxes are in Wm–2. Solar fluxes are in yellow and infrared fluxes in pink. The four flux quantities in purple-shaded boxes represent the principal components of the atmospheric energy balance.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/earth-energy-budget/stephens-earth-energy-balance-diag-crop.gif
# # #
The effect of CO2 forcing “is lost in the noise of uncertainty” – JN Hat tip to Doug Hoffman for the phrase.
Basically, the hydrological cycle is the planet’s primary climate modulator – as we already knew.
Indeed, we do, Richie. Now, here’s the $64K question… think carefully …. where does the heat to drive the climate come from?
Yes, indeed, go to the top of the class, Richie, it’s THE SUN!
Now – you’ll have to really concentrate for this one – the sun’s energy output is stable, so why is the Earth system accumulating heat?
OK, if you’re stuck, you can look in the back of the book for the answer:
http://climate.nasa.gov/kids/
“…the sun’s energy output is stable”
TSI was stable at a higher level than Maunder Minimum but now on a decline for a couple of decades at least.
SSN is never stable.
SWsfc is cyclical (dimming/brightening).
The hydrological cycle modulates the energy and the effect of CO2 forcing “is lost in the noise of uncertainty”
Case closed.
Tallbloke (April 2013):-
“Errrmm, why I have not heard of this 2006 paper before? 1.6W/m^2 per decade is a not insignificant trend. Did the IPCC ignore this?”
Do Satellites Detect Trends in Surface Solar Radiation?
R. T. Pinker,1 B. Zhang,2 E. G. Dutton3
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/pinker-et-al-do-satellites-detect-trends-in-surface-solar-radiation/
Bob Tisdale at WUWT:-
“Over at Tallbloke’sTalkshop, Tallbloke has a post about the Pinker et al 2005 paper “Do Satellites Detect Trends in Surface Solar Radiation?” ”
The Sun Was in My Eyes – Was It More Likely Over the Past 3-Plus Decades?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/12/the-sun-was-in-my-eyes-was-it-more-likely-over-the-past-3-plus-decades/
# # #
These issues were the subject of the above (off topic) sub-thread in November 2012 in which Pinker et al was cited among several others.
Nah, “Fred Dagg” just a fictional character dreamt up by John Clarke, but my mate Brucie does some TV work in between driving the milk truck and working his farm up in the sticks behind Whangamomona.
Anyway, speaking of not knowing how lucky we are, have you seen the latest good news?
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/31/the_wave_for_obama/
Looks like the would-be climate-change-denier-in-chief is “drowning in the bathtub”, as they say.
If there really is a God responsible for storms, perhaps He doesn’t like Mormons?
And now the denialists push back – sort of…
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/31/you_cant_keep_a_good_climate_skeptic_down/
Propaganda, unsupported by the science, as you know
Hey, guys, Governor Cuomo of the State of New York has a few words for you:
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2012/10/6538853/cuomo-whoever-doesnt-see-extreme-weather-pattern-denying-reality
“There has been a series of extreme weather incidents. That is not a political statement, that is a factual statement,” Cuomo said.
What Cuomo didn’t say was that he hadn’t checked his facts or metrics or scientists opinions. Facts and metrics like this:-
Number Of October US Hurricane Strikes Per Decade
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sxfL–JnNpo/UJEwnN1BuKI/AAAAAAAANQw/drIbcl9nleQ/s400/hurricanceoctober.jpg
# October Hurricane Strikes Are Becoming Much Less Common: Occurred almost 3 times as often during 19th century as they do now
#’They used to happen about once every 1.7 years, and now they happen about once every five years. The peak decades for October hurricanes were the 1880s and the 1940s, which both had six
And this,
US Hurricane Strikes Vs. Atmospheric CO2
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-0-2kYBNkDAk/UJKr_M-hIzI/AAAAAAAANUE/JhAu33Nkkyc/s400/hurricaneco2.jpg
# The US Has Had 285 Hurricane Strikes Since 1850: U.S. has always been vulnerable to hurricanes. 86% of U.S. hurricane strikes occurred with CO2 below Hansen’s safe level of 350 PPM
And a graph you can do at home (as Steven Goddard did),
Eleven Year Running Mean Of US Hurricane Strikes
http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/screenhunter_142-aug-03-22-42.jpg?w=960&h=584
# “There were plenty of hurricanes below 350 PPM, and recent claims that hurricanes are caused by CO2 are simply idiotic”
And scientists opinions like this:-
Prof. Pielke Jr.: ‘Sandy was terrible, but we’re currently in a relative hurricane ‘drought’ — It’s been ‘more than 7 years since’ Cat 3 or larger made landfall, ‘longest such span in over a century’
The mainstream media is pretty much unanimously reporting that AGW increases the probability of storms like Sandy:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/10/hurricane-sandy
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/10/30/did-climate-change-cause-hurricane-sandy/
Even the Daily Mail (which I wouldn’t catagorise as high class journalism) is struggling to spin it otherwise.
Tabloid Climatology at its very best – stick with facts:-
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2012/10/niwa-says-it-wasnt-about-climate-change/#comment-135289
It’s not the number of hurricanes, its the increasing intensity, idjit.
Here’s more “tabloid journalism” from the right wing:
http://www.salon.com/2012/11/01/bloomberg_endorses_obama_citing_climate_change/
The only accurate part of this Bloomberg Business Week cover is “stupid” – Roger Pielke Jr.
BTW, Michael Bloomberg has been both a Democrat and a Republican, at present endorsing left wing Obama.
>”…its the increasing intensity, idjit”
These graphs of cyclone energy indicate that the “idjit” is you Brando:-
Global and Northern Hemisphere
http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryheat/files/2010/09/Hurricane-intensity-to-Sep-2010.jpg
Global Tropical
http://climaterealists.com/attachments/database/2012/ACE-Global_10_2012__540x343.jpg
It’s also about where these storm systems are going too. Sandy wouldn’t have done what it did without the necessary conditions of warmer ocean temps and a big blocking Greenland high pushing Sandy in an unusual direction. The blocking high was a 3 sigma extreme outlier. You can argue that it was all an unlikely coincidence (the high spring tide didn’t help), a perfect storm if you will, but the blocking high was likely a product of the Arctic melt affecting the jet-stream which forced the high to sit and intensify. Fingerprints on a smoking gun….
You can argue that it was all an unlikely coincidence (the high spring tide didn’t help), a perfect storm if you will”
Yes
>”…but the blocking high was likely a product of the Arctic melt affecting the jet-stream which forced the high to sit and intensify”
All natural phenomenon, no anthro attribution.
>”Fingerprints on a smoking gun….”
Of compounded factors, none of which point to anthro cause in view of historical cyclone records.
Excellent point, Simon; this event had either a significant contribution from AGW, or God hates Mitt Romney…
Even if the intensity of hurricanes is getting stronger (which Richard C’s scientific evidence shows it isn’t), how can you connect that with man’s emissions when the amplifying effect of positive water vapour feedback is non-existent. I don’t think you understand Brandoch, all your points that you raise are redundant if you can’t prove the WV effect. If you can’t prove the WV feedback, you can’t prove AGW, and if you can’t prove AGW you can’t prove that man is responsible for anything to do with the climate or the weather. Sandy was a big storm, so where is the proof that man was responsible for it? You have absolutely nothing whatsoever to back up your fantasies, the scientists don’t either. Here’s another question for you – if the evidence for AGW is so ‘overwhelming’, why can’t you provide evidence of positive WV feedback?
The good old “God of the Gaps” argument. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In matters outside of my expertise, I am happy to defer to the experts. Richard C does not qualify until he submits his paper to Nature.
In over 40 yrs of looking more than 30,000,000 radiosondes have failed to find the hotspot. This is backed up by 2 satellites that have also failed to find the hotspot. Both of these are backed up by the temperature record that show hows the computer models falied when they took account of the positive feedback of water vapour:
Page 13 of http://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/mmh_asl2010.pdf
I think the evidence is pretty strong that the hot spot doesn’t exist. So what evidence is there for positive WV feedback without the hotspot? If there is no WV feedback, what evidence do you have for AGW theory?
As for Richard C, I’m sure if you ask him nicely he’ll provide the source of the scientific data for his graphs regarding hurricane intensity.
>”Richard C does not qualify until he submits his paper to Nature”
No need for me to bother when there’s this:-
1100+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarm
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
1. Who collated this list?
2. Why don’t the editors list their last names and employer?
2. Who paid to have this list collated?
3. Do all of these papers really dismiss AGW?
This looks suspiciously similar to the CO2Science crock.
33 papers in the ‘Hurricanes’ section Simon
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html#Hurricanes
Should keep you in reading for a while.
Ah right, here’s the source of Richard C’s graphs:
Maue (2011) Recent historically low global tropical cyclone activity: (published June 2011)
Geophys. Res. Lett. (2011, in press PDF)
About halfway down the page under ‘Most Recent Peer-Reviewed Literature’
http://policlimate.com/tropical/
Now Simon, since you say “I am happy to defer to the experts”, what do you say to Dr Ryan Maue’s compendium (H/t Magoo) of Cyclone Activity and Accumulated Cyclone Energy?
I note the list of citations:-
Maue, R. N. (2009), Northern Hemisphere Tropical Cyclone Activity, Geophys. Res. Letts. paper PDF
Maue, R. N. (2011), Recent historically low global tropical cyclone activity. , Geophys. Res. Letts. VOL. 38, L14803, 6 PP., 2011 doi:10.1029/2011GL047711 ( paper PDF )
Weinkle, J., R. N. Maue, R. Pielke Jr. (2012), Historical global tropical cyclone landfalls. J. Climate ( in press). PDF in press
Maue, R. N. (2012), Are tropical cyclones becoming more intense? (submit after AMS tropical)
Expert enough for you Simon?
Ryan Maue: ‘Global warming/hurricanes stuff will die down quick. Actual science will prevail over tabloid quality speculation from attention whores’
# # #
‘We must prepare for extreme weather events, not vainly try to stop them’
by Tom Harris
http://www.fcpp.org/blog/we-must-prepare-for-extreme-weather-events-not-vainly-try-to-stop-them/
Listening to climate campaigners, you would think that Hurricane Sandy, already downgraded to a tropical storm, was something that never happened before in the United States. While damage has indeed been severe for a number of reasons I discuss below, winds are already slowing due to drag produced as the storm moves over land.
In fact, there have been many storms far more powerful than Sandy, which, by the time it hit the coast of the U.S. was barely a category 1 hurricane.
[…]
This didn’t stop main stream media, ever anxious to hype extreme weather events as harbingers of climate catastrophe, from pronouncing it a hurricane of unparalleled proportions. In many cases they simply echoed the excited claims of climate campaigners such as 350.org’s Bill McKibben, who described Sandy as “really something that we haven’t seen before.” As Terry Corcoran wrote in Canada’s National Post, “Frankenstorm, he [McKibben] said, “is really the right name for it,” as he linked the hurricane to man-made climate change, Mitt Romney and “the most powerful and richest industry on earth.” Big oil caused the big storm.”
[…]
ICSC Science Advisory Board member, Dr. Madhav L. Khandekar, an “Expert Reviewer” of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (2007), said in a telephone interview with the author Tuesday evening that claims such as McKibben’s are “absolute bunko”. Listen in to his interview on CFRA Radio in Ottawa later in the evening of October 30 by clicking here. Dr. Khandekar explains how tropical cyclones (called hurricanes in the North Atlantic) are not on the rise worldwide. The following graph illustrates this point:
[graph from Maue compendium]
Instead of vainly trying to stop extreme weather such as Tropical Cyclone Sandy from happening, we need to harden our societies to these inevitable events by burying electrical cables underground, reinforcing buildings and other infrastructure and ensuring reliable energy sources so that we have the power to heat and cool our dwellings as needed.
In the meantime, there is no excuse for most of the power failures. Year in and year out, we see parts of the electricity infrastructure fall apart in storms that meteorologist tell us are inevitable from time to time. Power companies should simply pay more attention to preventive maintenance and better harden our power supply by burying more electricity transmission cables underground.
No disagreements there. You’re missing the point, which is that there are underlying reasons for why Sandy did what it did and that it is related to Arctic melting and the Northern Arctic Oscillation.
>”…it is related to Arctic melting and the Northern Arctic Oscillation.”
Among other factors, none of which points to CO2.
Just to put this one to bed finally, Joe Bastardi has a nice analysis via Anthony Watts:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/02/next-time-somebody-tries-to-tell-you-hurricane-sandy-was-an-unprecedented-east-coast-hurricane-show-them-this/
This picture says it all:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/images/tracks/majors_1951_1960.jpg
Note the 6 major hurricanes (categories 3 and 4 – Sandy was only a cat 1) in only two years!
Links through to Roger Pielke Jr:-
‘Mayor Bloomberg’s Deft Climate Politics’
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/mayor-bloombergs-deft-climate-politics.html
Whatever the motivations behind Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision to cite Sandy and climate change as a reason for his endorsement of President Obama, it has the effect of relocating responsibility for Sandy’s devastation from NYC City Hall to Washington, DC.
As New Yorkers (and others) affected by Sandy’s wrath pick themselves back up and recover, attention will soon focus on the broader reasons for the disaster. While some will continue to link Sandy with energy policy decisions, important questions will have to be asked about why NYC was not better prepared, and what can be done in the months and years ahead to fix that, before the next storm barrels up the coast.
To that end, a few excerpts from the New York City Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan (April, 2009, here in PDF) will indicate that absolutely nothing about Sandy and its impacts should have been a surprise to anyone. It would be fair to ask NY politicians why the city was not better prepared for a disaster that it saw coming……….
>”…this event had either a significant contribution from AGW”
ONE downgraded cyclone that turned left instead of turning right as usual proves AGW for you Brando? Get a grip
Presumably we can also attribute the apparent increase in earthquake activity along the Pacific Rim to AGW?
Even though I make this statement flippantly, some people have been making this claim
** YAWN ** BORING STRAW MAN ALERT
Sorry, Magoo, the burden of proof is on you deniers to come up with an alternative theory to explain 150 years of consistent scientific observation and experiment.
RC, by the way, is not a climate scientist – or any kind of scientist, as far as I can tell. Maybe a pensioned-off engineer?
Well try this one then Brandoch, it has to be something else because the empirical evidence shows it can’t be CO2.
>”..the burden of proof is on you”
No, the burden of proof is on the proponent of the hypothesis – we hold the null.
>”…to come up with an alternative theory to explain 150 years of consistent scientific observation
Considering the effect of CO2 forcing “is lost in the noise of uncertainty” and the hydrological cycle modulates the variations at surface of solar energy, itself varying over 150+ years, we have plenty of alternative.
>”…and experiment”
What “experiment” is that exactly?
As far as your ‘strawman’ argument assertion goes, it’s not a strawman argument at all. If you can’t prove that man is responsible for a changing climate then you can’t say that things like storms or rising temperatures are caused by man.
‘To “attack a straw man” is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the “straw man”), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.’ Wikipedia.
Disproving a vital supporting foundational basis for a theory so that it is no longer valid is not a strawman, it is an attack on one of the core components of the argument. You can’t say man is responsible for the storm when you can’t even prove that man has the ability to do so. There is no substituted parallel argument used. All your arguments that are based on the assumption that man is changing the climate are false until you can prove that man actually is changing the climate – and the empirical evidence shows that he isn’t.
Dear Mr. Magoo, you win again! Your logic is impeccable…
Now, please feel free to leap out of tall buildings, as what could possibly go wrong?
After all, what greenies call “gravity” is just a theory that lacks vital supporting foundations.
Firstly, they would have to unify General Relativity with quantum mechanics; and then go on to prove the Universe exists by explaining the Big Bang (or Bangs, if it turns out that perpetual inflation is the correct model).
Whilst we’re about it, are you aware that no supporting foundation has yet been found for mathematics? Or that, given the AdS / CFT correspondence, the Universe itself may be a hologram?
Goodness, so much doubt, it’s a wonder you can function at all; hardly surprising, then, that your neurons seem impaired – it’s not easy, when you don’t even known how many dimensions you exist in – is it 4, 5, 11, or that of the Monster Group?
Gosh, why is life so hard? Why do we always have to find things out, one step at a time?
I can see how it would be so much more comforting to hide away in the fantasy Denialoverse, but some of us have to live in the real world…
>”…but some of us have to live in the real world…”
I see you haven’t made the adjustment yet Brando.
Yeah, I thought that would be over your head, Richard, buried in the sand as it is….
>”..buried in the sand as it is….”
Enlightening sand is is too. In it I found this review:
‘New Global Energy Balance Data Shows Climate Models Profoundly Uncertain’
http://www.thegwpf.org/doug-hoffman-new-global-energy-balance-data-shows-climate-models-profoundly-uncertain/
The net energy balance is the sum of individual fluxes. The current uncertainty in this net surface energy balance is large, and amounts to approximately 17 Wm−2. This uncertainty is an order of magnitude larger than the changes to the net surface fluxes associated with increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
In other words, the radiative forcing due to doubling CO2, estimated to be ~4Wm−2, is lost in the noise of uncertainty
Now they’re good examples of straw man arguments Brandoch.
I have evidence that shows that there is no positive feedback from water vapour – the tropospheric hot spot does not exist, as evidenced empirically by over 30,000,000 radisosondes over a 40 yr period, 2 satellites, and a supporting temperature record that backs up the lack of the water vapour feedback. What evidence do you have that it might exist, nothing?
As the theory of AGW is as follows:
1/ Man is increasing the levels of CO2.
2/ Man’s emissions of CO2 warms the atmosphere by a tiny amount.
3/ The warming attributed to CO2 causes increased water vapour that is supposed to amplify the effects of CO2 by the vast majority of the predicted warming.
The final part (the the one that is supposed to be the major driving force of temperature change) is non-existent, therefore the theory failed an empirical test, and is falsified as a result. The fact that the temperature is no longer rising despite increasing CO2 levels, and the previous warming is nothing unusual compared to historical records further reinforces the failure.
What does the pro AGW camp have? No rising temperatures for the past 16 yrs. despite ever increasing CO2 levels, a string of failed computer models, no tropospeheric hot spot, no water vapour feedback, no scientific connection between the world’s weather and man’s CO2 output, etc., etc. You have no evidence, all you have are doomsday speculations based on faith in a theory that has failed numerous empirical tests.
The funny thing is you’re willing to present a storm as evidence of AGW without a shred of evidence to back it up, yet you reject the peer-reviewed science that shows empirically that the AGW theory is a failure. You then say that those who don’t agree with you belong to the ‘fantasy denialoverse’ when you have not one piece of evidence to back you up. As I said before, whatever is causing the Earth to warm it certainly isn’t CO2.
Wow, that’s a great compilation of discredited xxxxxxx xxxxxxxx [we’re not insulting you, buster, so you keep your cheap mouth shut! – RT] ] memes, Magoo, but it will not save your credibility, which is no better than the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx science from xxxxxxxx websites that Richard alone seems to think matters a damn.
Reality has finally caught up with your little movement in the US, as it is in Australia, and there will be hell to pay when the full cost of the last two decades of AGW inaction hits home! [Think you might support those wild assertions with some credible evidence? AFTER you’ve provided evidence for the AGW theory!!! – RT]
Oh, for heaven’s sake, BD, stick to the point you’re trying to make – nobody argued that gravity doesn’t exist! Of all the strawman arguments, that one gets first prize! When the argument goes against you, you resort to meaningless, time-wasting arm-waving. What’s your evidence, man?
I often wonder if people like Lord Daha actually believe this tripe, or if they’re just having a laugh.
Nobody in their right mind could actually have this view of the world, surely? I sometimes worry about their mental stability, seriously.
Have they really never looked into the history of weather-related events in the past, or are they simply wishing it were true that these things never happened before?
Given a noisy temperature record, many different statements can be true at the same time, but very few of them are informative about future trends:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/11/short-term-trends-another-proxy-fight/
But the computer models were supposed to be able to predict the future trends and look how they’ve failed. The WV feedback is obviously missing. The last 16 yrs. that has seen little to no warming is more than half of the 25 odd years of warming that is supposed to be attributable to anthropogenic emissions. And those 25 yrs are remarkably similar to the 30 yrs of warming from 1910 to 1940 which can’t be attributed to anthropogenic emission.
There’s very little evidence of AGW, if any at all. The evidence to the contrary far outweighs it.
The history that is relevant here, boys, is that of the cancer-denying tobacco companies, who were eventually emeshed in the web of their own lies and forced to reveal how they had funded denialist “science” and lobby groups for decades.
Do any of you smoke, by the way?
Thought not….
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-01/its-global-warming-stupid#p1
http://hot-topic.co.nz/its-global-warming-stupid-telling-it-like-it-is-in-post-sandy-usa/#comment-35307
BD, I’m serious now: one more straw man argument in this thread and you’re gone for good. This is idiotic time-wasting and you’re obviously uninterested in pursuing a sensible argument or even in listening. Neither gravity nor smoking are relevant, you nincompoop. I don’t smoke, and I don’t know who might, but that, too, is irrelevant. If you’re so concerned about “caring” for the earth, why do you make money by dirty dairying?
Try to keep up, RT, I was pointing out the absurdity of Magoo’s assumption that science deals in some kind of absolute knowledge, which it does not.
Science deals in the empirical validation of hypotheses, out of which come reasonably settled areas of knowledge (“Theories”).
We know that apples fall, but we don’t know what happens inside black holes; both are manifestations of gravity, but our best theory of falling apples doesn’t scratch the surface of a black hole.
Nevertheless, apples still fall, and we “know” why, to a high degree of accuracy. Our lack of knowledge of BH interiors does not invalidate General Relativity.
Neither does our lack of knowledge as to what caused the Big Bang invalidate the science we do know; we can always find out more, and should strive to do so.
Whatever of wherever the fabled THS is, it does not disprove AGW, which comes from a huge body of knowlege based in quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, chemistry, meteorology, climatology, etc., etc.
Clearly, Magoo does not understand this, or is dissembling.
>”Whatever of wherever the fabled THS is”
See this comment for a synopsis:-
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2012/10/niwa-says-it-wasnt-about-climate-change/#comment-136214
>”it does not disprove AGW”
Wrong way round Brando. If it eventuates, it validates the CO2-forced GCMs and AGW. If it doesn’t (and it hasn’t), it proves the CO2-forced RF methodology of the models and AGW to be invalid.
BTW, for someone subscribing to AGW you don’t know much about AGW if you don’t know “whatever of wherever the fabled THS is”.
Observation is everything in science Brandoch, and 40 yrs of observation from multiple sources show the hot spot doesn’t exist. You could argue gravity & black holes, but we can see gravity in action when something falls or moves – we can’t see positive water feedback in action because the temperature & the upper atmospheric relative humidity hasn’t been rising. If it exists it isn’t doing anything, therefore the AGW hypothesis fails again
You can believe in the tropospheric hot spot, all you need to do is ignore the 30,000,000 radiosondes, 2 satellites, the temperature records, the computer models, and still have no evidence to promote your own claim – that’s all.
Actually, the history that’s relevant is the 40 yrs of looking for a tropospheric hot spot and failing to find one, and no amount of hissy fits will make up for the fact that it doesn’t exist.
How do you accurately measure temperature in the upper troposphere?
Can you explain exactly why the THS is a necessary condition for AGW but not for any other form of radiative forcing?
Are you really 100% sure that the Tropospheric Hot Spot (THS) is not present even at short time intervals?
How do we know what the troposphere actually looks like at other concentrations of CO2?
If you can’t answer these questions then your assertion does not carry a great deal of weight.
>”If you can’t answer these questions”
Don’t have to answer any questions, the onus is on the proponents to prove the (undocumented) hypothesis.
At present, the observing systems are inadequate (Trenberths “travesty”) to detect any anthropogenic signal among the major forcings operating and the uncertainty of measurement whether posited THS or TOA imbalance i.e. AGW forcing – if it even exists – is minor, negligible and of no consequence.
>”Can you explain exactly why the THS is a necessary condition for AGW”
It IS AGW Simon. The posited AGW effect (that we can glean from the disarray of posits), apart from TOA imbalance, is the interception of OLR at the “last stop” (about 100 hPa) of the troposphere above the tropics. The interception is supposedly due to increasing CO2 concentration (along with the minor GHGs) and a posited increase in humidity (positive feedback) at that altitude. That top layer then re-emits (supposedly) back down to the layer immediately beneath (about 150 – 350 hPa, 10 km) causing a build up of heat (supposedly). That is the AGW fingerprint, signature or whatever and the models – if they are valid – exhibit this e.g. here:-
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/missing-fingerprints/
Given the buildup of heat has not eventuated and neither has the humidity increase in the upper troposphere, the fingerprint is entirely absent unless you wish to imagine it is there as you seem inclined to do Simon.
There has been plenty of time (satellite era plus radiosondes) if the THS was ever to eventuate for it to become apparent but it hasn’t.
‘How do you accurately measure temperature in the upper troposphere?’
Measuring the tropospheric temperature has it’s flaws, but measurements from both radiosondes (thermometers) and satellites both confirm that the hot spot doesn’t exist. The temperature record also confirms a temperature record that would be expected without the positive feedback of water vapour. Would you be asking this question if the same methods found the hot spot?
Can you explain exactly why the THS is a necessary condition for AGW but not for any other form of radiative forcing?
It can be a result of any radiative forcing you like, but the source of the THS is irrelevant. The fact that it doesn’t exist shows that there is no evidence for positive water vapour feedback whatever it’s cause. AGW relies on positive water vapour feedback for the vast majority of it’s warming and is invalidated as a result.
Are you really 100% sure that the Tropospheric Hot Spot (THS) is not present even at short time intervals?
Show some evidence of it. It needs to be warming faster than the surface during times of warming. Here’s the result of 30 yrs. of radiosondes on page 116:
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/sap1-1-final-chap5.pdf
And here’s the predicted hot spot vs. the observations. The satellite record confirms a missing hot spot as well:
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/hot-spot/hot-spot-model-predicted.gif
Source page 25: http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/sap1-1-final-chap1.pdf
How do we know what the troposphere actually looks like at other concentrations of CO2?
Does it matter? The missing hot spot means the expected evidence for water vapour positive feedback doesn’t exist, regardless of CO2 levels. You’re getting confused between the ‘fingerprint’ argument and evidence for WV feedback. Without WV feedback the AGW hypothesis fails, and several lines of scientific observation have failed to find it.
If you have no evidence for the tropospheric hot spot, thereby proving positive WV feedback, thereby confirming the AGW hypothesis, what evidence do you have for AGW? In the absence of positive WV feedback, how do suggest the temp. can rise beyond the 1.2C per doubling of total atmospheric CO2 concentrations? If you can’t answer these questions on what grounds do you base your belief in AGW?
As we have come to expect, Richard, you have once again created a false “quote” from a respected climatologist to somehow bolster your nonsense.
Trenberth’s comment related to the need to better track energy transfer between components of the earth system, not a failure to detect an anthropogenic signal.
Whilst I do not expect honesty from you, I would at least hope for a little more quality in your disinformation!
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Kevin-Trenberth-travesty-cant-account-for-the-lack-of-warming.htm
Here is an update that includes the latest Argo data:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Kevin-Trenberth-travesty-cant-account-for-the-lack-of-warming-advanced.htm
>”We know global warming has continued because satellites find an energy imbalance.”
Update: Stephens et al 2012. We don’t know squat.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/full/ngeo1580.html
>”It’s that our observation systems need to be more accurate in tracking the energy flows through our climate and closing the energy budget.”
Exactly – Trenberth’s “travesty” as I said. Right now, any anthropogenic signal – if it even exists – is undetectable among far greater forcings operating and is minute in comparison to the uncertainty of measurement. This leaves the IPCC in a precarious predicament in the lead-up to AR5 – how, in the fifth report after four others since 1990 do they support their AGW hand waving when the anthropogenic signal in undetectable?
And if the anthropogenic signal is undetectable, why should there be concern or alarm?
Stephens et al (2012) available in entirety here:-
‘An Update on Earth’s energy balance in light of the latest global observations’
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8gkbto14cy8ip2y/ngeo1580.pdf
I note that the only CMIP5 model to actually mimic temperature so far this century (INM-CM4, Russian Academy of Sciences) is also the only model to exhibit positive all-sky OLR (Figure 2a).
Those Russians just might know something that everyone else doesn’t.
>”Here is an update that includes the latest Argo data:”
How do you know that work includes ALL the ARGO data Brando?
NODC (read Willis) is in the habit of discarding floats that don’t provide the requisite data to keep the trend rising. Thanks to Bob Tisdale’s data obsession we now know that UKMO EN3 (-ve) disagrees in sign with NOAA (+ve) over ARGO era 0 – 700m OHC.
Must have been embarrassing because UKMO hastily (but too late) withdrew their OHC data from their website after the news went around the world.
As expected, a flurry of irrelevancies and increasingly desperate attempts to muddy the waters by our resident Pinocchio.
>”a flurry of irrelevancies”
To you of course Brando. But to policy formation, most definitely relevant.
>”and increasingly desperate attempts to muddy the waters”
The waters are already very muddy if 17 W/m2 uncertainty is anything to go by. Just think, at the current rate of (posited) CO2 forcing (about 0.24 W/m2/decade), the measurement uncertainty is 70 times greater than the forcing that is claimed to be bringing life-as-we-know-it to a close.
Kinda takes the sting outta the narrative dont it Brando?
Speaking ‘of irrelevancies and increasingly desperate attempts to muddy the waters’ have you come up with any evidence for positive water vapour feedback yet?
If the largest part of the AGW theory has failed to eventuate, how does anything else to do with AGW matter considering the hypothesis has failed so decisively. If you think it hasn’t failed then go ahead and provide some evidence as to how the temp. can rise above 1.2C without the non-existant amplifying positive feedbacks.
RC, ever since Monckton got trounced by Abrahams et al for misrepresenting scientific papers by quote-mining out of context, this has been a risky game to play…
In the example above, you take a clause out of context from a paper about energy flows:
Here is the full abstract of that paper:
This was what Trenberth was talking about, the need for better instrumental coverage of the Earth’s entire surface, and the ocean depths, to better see where the additional heat from AGW is going.
That is a completely separate issue from the direct observation of AGW from the net flow at the top of the atmosphere, by satellites.
You attempt to conflate the two, by confusing energy flows WITHIN the system with the global TOE net energy imbalance between solar energy in, and thermal radiation out.
As I have said, this is dishonest and will only fool some of the people here, some of the time.
As for the sources you quote above, Richard (GWPF and populartechnology.net), here is their fossil-fuelled background:
>“900+ list”
Update: 1100+ list
“real facts” ?
‘Expert Embarrassment in Climate Change’
By Thomas Fuller
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/05/expert-embarrassment-in-climate-change/
The paper ‘Expert Credibility in Climate Change,’ published in PNAS by Anderegg, the late Stephen Schneider, James Prall and Jacob Harold attempts to measure the credibility of climate scientists by counting how many papers they have published and how often their work has been cited by others.
This led to the creation of a blacklist that will be used to injure the careers of those who have signed letters or petitions that do not agree with the Al Gore/James Hansen position on climate change, and to intimidate future scientists, effectively silencing dissent.
The paper is poorly done, as I’ve explained elsewhere. They used Google Scholar instead of an academic database. They searched only in English, despite the global nature of climate science. They got names wrong. They got job titles wrong. They got incorrect numbers of publications and citations.
As I’ve mentioned, the highly respected Spencer Weart dismissed the paper as rubbish, saying it should not have been published.
But the worst part of this is the violation of the rights of those they studied. Because Prall keeps lists of skeptical scientists on his weblog, obsessively trawling through online petitions and published lists of letters, and because those lists were used as part of the research, anyone now or in the future can have at their fingertips the names of those who now or in the past dared to disagree.
Continues…….
Poptech pops up at JN (‘Blockbuster’ post):-
Author: Poptech
Comment:
Poor James posting more long debunked propaganda,
http://www.populartechnology.net/2011/02/google-scholar-illiteracy-at-skeptical.html
Rebuttal to “Meet the Denominator”
In a desperate attempt to diminish the value of the list of peer-reviewed papers supporting skeptic’s arguments, Rob Honeycutt from Skeptical Science not only lies but puts on a surprising display of his Google Scholar Illiteracy. He fails to use quotes when searching for phrases, is unable to count past 1000 and fails to remove erroneous results. It is clear that not only does he not understand how to properly use Google Scholar, he has no idea of the relevance of any of the results he gets.
Update: Rob was forced to concede I was correct (though never owns up to blatantly lying) and has desperately made a flawed updated “analysis”. His original inaccurate number of 954,000 results went down to 189,553 results (which he fails to mention in his update) of which 160,130 (84%) CANNOT BE VERIFIED due to the 1000 result limit imposed by Google Scholar. The remaining results are irrefutably filled with erroneous nonsense that has to be individually removed before any sort of accurate count can be taken (see the updates for more information). None of which was done leaving his post to be worthless and those who cite it computer illiterate.
http://z4.invisionfree.com/Popular_Technology/index.php?showtopic=4328
Rebutal to “Poptech’s list of Confusion” #2:
An alarmist spammer who comments at Jo Nova’s site by the screen name “Blimey” and around the Internet as “itsnotnova” continues doubling down on his insanity. After having his original blog post completely refuted he decided to add new lies, misinformation and strawman arguments to it. He is so incompetent that he did not even read the list correctly (Lie #4) or understands that “Letters” is a term used to describe a type of peer-reviewed scientific document format in certain scholarly journals such as Nature (Lie #13).
>”This is what Trenberth was talking about, the need for better instrumental coverage of the Earth’s surface,”
Which is EXACTLY what I was referring to when I mentioned Trenbrth’s “travesty”. Can’t you see that I am NOT disagreeing with you Brandoch and not misrepresenting Trenberth in the slightest? You really are a nincompoop at times Brandoch.
The consequences of the travesty have now been documented in agonizing detail by Stephens et al (you should read the paper Brandoch – it’s sad, so have tissues handy) as they state in ‘The challenge ahead’:-
“Essential observations such as precipitation, TOA radiative fluxes, ocean surface winds, and clouds have to be sustained if progress is to continue. But even with these steps in place, the precision needed to monitor the changes in fluxes associated with forced climate change remains a significant challenge”
By “if progress is to continue” read – if we are to ever actually identify an anthropogenic signal this century (or maybe next) among all those observations.
>”…the direct observation of AGW from the net flow at the top of the atmosphere, by satellites”
Stephens et al:-
AGW is currently undetectable at TOA and therefore untrackable. The CERES uncertainty is ±4 Wm–2 for measurement over the 2000 -2010 period when CO2 forcing was in the order of 0.24 Wm–2 (which if valid leaves a 0.36 W/m-2 forcing unresolved BTW, 0.6 – 0.24 = 0.36) according to the IPCC forcing expression and assuming that is valid (it isn’t).
This inadequacy is in no way a sound basis for public policy formation and until such time as climate science can come up with substantial evidence of human climate forcing there is no need to persist with abatement regulations and punitive taxes.
Correction: “(which if valid leaves a 0.36 W/m-2 forcing unresolved BTW, 0.6 – 0.24 = 0.36)”
0.24 is an increase in imbalance that should be observed over the decade, 0.6 is an average of the imbalance fluctuations over the decade so the two are not in the same terms.
Roy Spencer has CERES Global Radiative Flux Anomalies 2000 – 2010 (2 graphs, 1 ENSO corrected) in his May 19th, 2011 post:-
‘Indirect Solar Forcing of Climate by Galactic Cosmic Rays: An Observational Estimate’:-
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/05/indirect-solar-forcing-of-climate-by-galactic-cosmic-rays-an-observational-estimate/
First, it is difficult (impossible?) to see the average +0.6 W/m-2 positive imbalance from Stephens et al that should be apparent in the black “-Net” curve on the “radiative gain” (bottom) side of 0.0 (I think). Spencer – “Note I have plotted the variations in the negative of Net, which is approximately equal to variations in (LW+SW)”. Since Stephens et al do not graph out the data they used it is impossible to make a comparison (possibly Supplementary Information might shed some light).
Second, it is equally difficult (impossible?) to see in the ENSO corrected graph, a discernible 0.24 W/m-2 imbalance increase over the decade because the data is simply fluctuating about 0.0.
I just don’t see the Stephens 0.6 imbalance in either of Spencer’s CERES plots – where is Stephen et al’s imbalance?
Answering my own question – where is Stephen et al’s imbalance?
Stephens et al state:-
Presumably, the average OHC flux since 2005 is 0.6 below the 0.0 baseline on Spencer’s CERES plots.
The references are:-
13. Lyman, J. M. et al. Robust warming of the global upper ocean. Nature 465, 334–337 (2010).
14. Willis, J. K., Lyman, J. M., Johnson, G. C. & Gilson, J. In situ data biases and recent ocean heat content variability. J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol. 26, 846–852 (2009).
There seems to be a great deal hanging on the work of Lyman et al and Willis et al.
While looking for whatever I could find showing the latest CERES TOA net flux vs OHC flux this paper came up:-
‘On the determination of the global cloud feedback from satellite measurements’
T Masters, 23 August 2012
http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/3/73/2012/esdd-3-73-2012-print.pdf
“Due to the low correlations between global surface temperature and dCRF, it is clear that the variations in the cloud forcing are resulting from other changes in the climatology, and that clouds are acting as more than simple feedbacks on these timescales.”
Two different TOA imbalances from 2 different methods.
Stephens et al 2012 (satellite obs, Sfc flux obs) :-
Douglass and Knox 2012 (implied from OHC):-
The DK12 imbalance looks much more like an average of Net SW+LW in Spencer’s CERES plots and the certainty is greater than Stephens et al.
DK12:-
Stephens et al 2012 Supplementary Information:-
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/extref/ngeo1580-s1.pdf
Looks like there’s still a ways to go before the TOA radiative imbalance (if in fact it is imbalanced) can be reliably defined.
A fascinating series of exceptionally well presented comments by one Berényi Péter taking on the Skeptical Science regulars re TOA radiative imbalance May, 2011, Starts here at #109:-
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=178&p=3#50619
Snippet from that comment (my emphasis):-
Gets better at #139:-
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=178&p=3#51256
Snippet from that comment (my emphasis):-
State-of-play now Stephens et al 2012, TOA imbalance 2000 – 2010, 0.6 ±0.4 (TOA, CERES), 0.6 ±17 (Sfc, GEBA, BSRN) and Douglass and Knox 2012 (implied from OHC), TOA imbalance 2001 – 2008, −0.034 ±0.06.
Quite a game.
>”You attempt to conflate the two, by confusing energy flows WITHIN the system with the global TOE net energy imbalance between solar energy in, and thermal radiation out.”
That is rubbish Brandoch. If you look at Stephens et al Figure 1 there are 2 budgets, TOA and Surface. Both are smitten with uncertainty with Surface the greater (10 – 17 W/m-2 vs 4 W/m-2) and BOTH are “net energy imbalance between solar energy in, and thermal radiation out”.
The upshot being that the hydrological cycle moves more heat to space than was previously estimated.
Correction: “(10 – 17 W/m-2 vs 4 W/m-2)”
Should be:-
(17 W/m-2 vs 4 W/m-2)
10 – 17 refers to the increase since previous estimates of LWdown at sfc.
Correction (again).
“(17 W/m-2 vs 4 W/m-2)”
Should be:-
(17 W/m-2 vs [0.4] W/m-2)
These 2 figures are uncertainty of the respective Sfc and TOA imbalances, just to be clear.
Correction (again, again).
The source of my confusion over the TOA uncertainty 0.4 vs 4 (both are correct, sort of) is to be found in the Stephens et al text, page 1:-
And,
Somehow, the huge uncertainty of the satellite data (±4 W/m2) becomes more certain (±0.4 W/m2) when “constrained” by OHC even though Douglass and Knox find a much different imbalance implied from OHC (−0.034 vs 0.6).
This just gets better and better.
Dittohead, a Google search on “your” phrase above,
returns pages of the exact same phrase from denial sites across the world.
Here is a genuine quote from Spencer Weart, who you say you respect so highly:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/11/29/205021/climategate-science-historian-spencer-weart-scientists-tobacco-companies/
>”who you say you respect so highly”
Whom Thomas Fuller says is highly respected.
So, Richard, you copied Fuller’s phrase and attempted to pass it off as your own?
Your regular modus operandi of fraudulent disinformation, quote-mining and bogus “research” leads me to believe you are either a denialist dittohead, sock puppet or web-bot.
Whatever you are, your credibility is nonexistent, and your cause is lost.
>”So, Richard, you copied Fuller’s phrase and attempted to pass it off as your own?”
No I did not. Refer to the comment:-
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2012/10/niwa-says-it-wasnt-about-climate-change/#comment-136369
What do you understand the meaning of “by Thomas Fuller” to mean Brandoch? You apparently understand “by Thomas Fuller” to mean “by Richard C” therefore your comprehension is severely lacking intellectually.
Fuller stated that Weart (“highly respected”, one of your own, DeSmog’s and Fuller’s apparently), dismissed ‘Expert Credibility in Climate Change’ as “rubbish” and that it should never have been published. You on the other hand cite it as some sort of AGW conclusiveness.
I understood Richard’s comment as attributed to Tom Fuller. Maybe if he had put the phrase in blockquotes it would have been a bit clearer, but I think it is a bit if a stretch to say that Richard has no credibility as a consequence.
Andy, Richard has as much credibility as NZCSET will have when their appeal is disposed of.
I am astounded at the idiocy of the oleaginous Barry Brill insinuating that Judge Venning is corrupt because he may own shares in a forestry company – does Brill own any shares in, say, an oil company, or an airline?
A small word of advice, gentlemen; when you find yourself in a hole, it is best to stop digging…
BD,
If you are unable to discern the potential conflict of interest of deciding the fate of a case that directly affects the course of one’s investments, you disqualify your remarks from serious consideration.
Barry Brill is not sitting in judgement upon an opponent of an oil company, as Venning J is judging the underpinnings of the ETS, which enriches foresters. Nor is Barry “insinuating” corruption, but merely asking a question. The answer may or may not lead to suspicions of corruption – but no allegations have been made.
The difference between allegations and mere questions is distinct enough to those of a cogitative disposition.
Thanks for the link. By some amazing coincidence, someone else posted this link over at Hot Topic at the same time.
http://hot-topic.co.nz/the-climate-show-30-obama-sandy-and-the-rabbit/#comment-35448
Thanks for the link, Andy, These HT jokers look like they know which way is up – are they mates of yours?
Maybe they know where the evidence is for positive feedback from water vapour, try asking them.