Roger Pielke Jr. on FiveThirtyEight and his Climate Critics

Earlier in the year, Roger Pielke Jr. was named as a contributing writer for Nate Silver’s newly re-launched FiveThirtyEight site. Shortly after that, Pielke, a climate policy scholar and political scientist at the University of Colorado, in Boulder, published an article at FiveThirtyEight headlined, “Disasters Cost More Than Ever–But Not Because of Climate Change.”

Critics pounced immediately in blogs and on Twitter. That harsh reaction was then reported and commented on at Salon, Huffington Post, Slate, the Columbia Journalism Review, and elsewhere.

I recently conducted a Q & A with Pielke about this episode and the aftermath. The links in my questions are from me. I asked Pielke to provide his own links.

KK: It’s been noted on Twitter that you are not listed on the main contributors page for FiveThirthyEight. Does this mean you no longer write for the site? If so, can you explain what happened?

RPJR: That is correct, I no longer write for 538. Last month, after 538 showed some reluctance in continuing to publish my work, I called up Mike Wilson, the lead editor there, and told him that it was probably best that we part ways. I wished them well in their endeavor going forward. I remain a fan. Since then I have joined up with SportingIntelligence, a UK-based website that focuses on analyses of economic and other quantitative aspects of sport. It’s a great fit. And of course, I continue to publish in places like USA Today and the Financial Times on a wide range of subjects

KK: What do you make of the uproar your FiveThirtyEight piece generated? I know it quickly degenerated into an ugly pile-on, which I and some other journalists found unseemly. But did critics have any legitimate points you want to acknowledge?

RPJR: Well, that first piece was written on a subject that I have written on many times before (and perhaps as much as anyone) – disasters and climate change. The short essay was perfectly consistent with the recent assessments of the IPCC. The fact that some folks didn’t like it was not surprising — most anything on climate change is met with derision by somebody. What was a surprise was the degree to which the negative response to the piece was coordinated among some activist scientists, journalists and social media aficionados. I think that took everyone by surprise. I learned some new things about certain colleagues and journalists — both really good things and some really pathetic things. Seeing a campaign organized to have me fired from 538 also taught me a lesson about the importance of academic tenure.

KK: If you could write the piece over again, what would you do differently, if anything?

RPJR: Looking back, probably the main thing I would do differently would be to simply not write about climate change at 538. When I was originally hired there was actually zero discussion about me focusing on climate or even science, but rather covering a wide range of topics. I made clear to Nate and Mike that I was looking to at least partially escape from the climate change wars by focusing on other issues.  The climate change piece was an obvious place to start even so because the IPCC reports had just been released and the topic is also covered so thoroughly in the peer reviewed literature. Clearly, that judgment was wrong!

KK: Have you and Nate Silver talked about this ordeal? What was his reaction?

RPJR: I have not spoken with or corresponded with Nate since that first piece. Of course, I do wish that 538 had shown a bit more editorial backbone, but hey, it is his operation.  If a widely published academic cannot publish on a subject which he has dozens of peer-reviewed papers and 1000s of citations to his work, what can he write on?  Clearly Nate is a smart guy, and I suspect that he knows very well where the evidence lies on this topic. For me, if the price of playing in the DC-NYC data journalism world is self-censorship for fear of being unpopular, then it is clearly not a good fit for any academic policy scholar.

KK: The condemnation of your 538 piece quickly spiraled into ugly personal broadsides painting you (incorrectly) as a climate skeptic. This happened in various high profile venues, such as Slate. How did you feel when this happened?

RPJR: If you are engaged in public debates on issues that people care passionately about, then you will be called names and worse. It goes with the territory. It is not pleasant of course, but at the same time, it is a pretty strong indication that (a) your arguments matter and (b) people have a hard time countering them on their merits. Even so, it is remarkable to see people like Paul Krugman and John Holdren brazenly make completely false claims in public about my work and my views. That they make such false claims with apparently no consequences says something about the nature of debate surrounding climate.

KK: You say you were surprised by “the degree to which the response to the piece was coordinated among some activist scientists, journalists and social media aficionados.” But this response did not happen in a vacuum, either. For years, your work–or more specifically–pointed statements you’ve made about the climate science establishment–have been heavily criticized by a number of outspoken climate scientists and widely read climate bloggers. Looking back, it appears that animosity directed towards you stems more from sharply-worded commentary on your blog and elsewhere, than your research.

For example, in his recently published book, “Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed–and What it Means for Our Future,” NYU’s Dale Jamieson wrote about you. Here’s an excerpt that was posted at Salon:

In a 2010 book, Roger Pielke Jr. claimed that “[c]limate science is a fully politicized enterprise, desperately in need of reform if integrity is to be restored and sustained.” “Climategate,” the episode in November 2009 in which thousands of documents were stolen from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, revealed scientists “who saw themselves as much as activists as researchers,”  … “plotting to corrupt the peer review system.” According to Pielke Jr., the theft exposed a “clique of activist scientists” engaged in a “coup against peer review.” He went on to accuse a broad range of scientists and public figures of trying to scare people into taking action on climate change or advocating such scare tactics.

One remarkable feature of Pielke Jr.’s discussion is its shrillness. “Clique,” “coup,” and “plotting” are the kinds of terms usually reserved for organized crime syndicates, terrorist organizations, and other conspiracies against the public good. The repeated use of the word “activist” mobilizes a characteristic trope of right-wing ideologues. The term is typically applied to judges, who like scientists are supposed to be neutral when carrying out their duties, but all too often, on this view, betray their professional responsibilities. Even someone who is sympathetic to the claim that political considerations sometimes find their way into climate science might shrink from Pielke Jr.’s characterization of climate science as “a fully politicized enterprise.”

Perhaps you take issue with how Jamieson has characterized your statements. But even still, he appears to have identified the reasons for much of the animosity towards you that has built up over the years. This is the larger context that I think informs the ugly brouhaha over your 538 piece. What are your thoughts on this?

RPJR:  Anyone following these debates over the years and has observed whose arguments have actually been vindicated will no doubt understand why some of the louder critics of mine have resorted to bitter personal attacks. More generally, however, there is a common strategy of delegitimization used in the climate debates. It seems that labeling someone a “denier” offers a convenient excuse to avoid taking on arguments on their merits and to call for certain voices to be banished.

I’ve known Dale Jamison for about 25 years, dating back to the time that he was a philosophy professor at Colorado and NCAR. I have always got on well with him and learned a lot from him during the years that we were colleagues. I am perfectly comfortable with my claim that parts of the climate science field are indeed “fully politicized.” At the same time, as I have often said, there are many brilliant and hard-working scientists in the field. It just so happens that some of the most fervent ideologues find themselves in positions of authority. I don’t think that this is at all controversial.

What is controversial is the question whether the ends justify the means. That is to say, is the climate issue so important that we should look past issues of scientific integrity among those whose heart is in the right place?  Jamieson suggests that we should:

“I’ve known Roger for a long time, and he’s done a lot of work that I respect. Part of why I called him out in the book is because he’s not a climate change denier. He’s somebody who knows better, but the rhetoric that he’s used against scientists and the exaggerations and the kind of personal fights that he’s gotten into around the issue have really distracted from the broad consensus that actually exists around doing something.”

First, I’m flattered to see that Dale thinks that my views are so influential so as to distract from a broad consensus. I’d just disagree with that conclusion. As I document with evidence in The Climate Fix, there is a very strong and stable consensus in the US and worldwide about doing something on climate. But more generally, should an academic really be measuring his arguments by who they favor in a political debate? Or should I call things like I see them? I’ve chosen to call things as I see them, and I am quite happy with that career choice.

Second, many of the public debates that I have been involved in are associated with efforts to discredit or misrepresent my own academic work. The 538 episode is just one such example. I document in my book an episode when back in 2001 a leading climate scientist asked me to underplay my work for political reasons. Not only do I believe this to be unethical, I also think that it will be  counterproductive for those calling for action. Trying to trick policy makers or the public to believe that — say, disasters are getting worse because of climate change or that we have all the technologies we need for deep decarbonization — will only backfire in the end. I am a big fan of playing it straight with the science, because over the long term that reinforces public trust and leads to more reliable policy recommendations.

KK: I should say that I am in no way excusing or rationalizing the behavior of climate bloggers and others who have previously used slanderous language in an attempt to discredit you. But I guess what I getting at here is this: Do you feel in any way responsible for provoking the deep-seated anger directed at you over the years, which seems to have culminated in this mob-like attack on your reputation after publication of the 538 piece? I  just wonder if you feel like, given the chance to go back in time, might you have phrased your own criticisms of the climate science community differently?

RPJR: It is a fair question. Hindsight is of course 20/20. But let’s say that all the criticisms Jamieson levies are accurate: I have been hard on some climate scientists. I have criticized some of their work in public, and even accused some of exploiting scientific authority for political ends. Sometimes I have used colorful language (“coup against peer review” — though for actual “shrillness” I would point Jamieson over to Joe Romm!). Some people have disagreed with my arguments. I have even been critical of the IPCC at times. Also, I have popularized my work on carbon pricing, decarbonization, energy, disasters, and the politicization of science. My work has occasionally been cited by the bad guys. I have also challenged claims that are seemingly widely accepted, but which my work shows to be wrong. I believe that policy debates deserve a plurality of voices, not a harmonization of views. I do not focus obsessively on the skeptics and deniers.

What part of the above would I change? Not much at all.

To be very clear, it is only a few climate scientists who have engaged in the “mob-like attacks” (it was actually mostly journalists and bloggers). Almost all the feedback I get from colleagues in climate science is overwhelmingly positive. Those climate scientists engaged in the climate debate are all big boys (mostly) and girls. If they cannot take the rough and tumble of public debate, then they should not be in public debate. There is “deep-seate anger” because of colorful language and apparent thin skins? Right. Tell me about it.

Ultimately, what I learned from the 538 episode is how small and insular the community of self-professed “climate hawks” actually is. Sure they made a lot of noise online and got John Stewart’s attention. But that was because of Nate Silver’s fame, not mine. Back in the real world, outside the climate blogosphere and the NY-DC data journalism circle virtually no one knew or much cared about the 538 brouhaha, even within academia. I found that encouraging.

I do wish the 538 folks all the best going forward. They were put in a difficult position. I have no hard feelings. There are some brilliant people there and they will no doubt have some great successes.

But in conclusion, let’s take a step back. Disaster losses continue to increase worldwide. Carbon dioxide continues to accumulate in the atmosphere. The world continues to demand ever more energy. Climate policies in place or proposed are not up to the task. In short, we need more ideas, more debate, more disagreement if we are to make intelligent progress. Efforts to demonize or silence unwelcome voices probably don’t move the dial very far on any of these issues Was this campaign to have me removed from 538 a victory for the climate movement? Was it the right battle to wage? I hope the climate hawks ask themselves these questions.

1,892 Responses to “Roger Pielke Jr. on FiveThirtyEight and his Climate Critics”

  1. JonFrum says:

    KK: I should say that I am in no way excusing or rationalizing the behavior of climate bloggers and others who have previously used slanderous language in an attempt to discredit you. But…
    In other words, Kloor IS excusing and rationalizing. Rhetorically, that is what can be called the disingenuous ‘but.’ It acknowledges that the fact are on his opponents side, but….

  2. CacheLaPoudre says:

    Dude was railroaded for having politically incorrect views based on facts.

  3. Tom Scharf says:

    Good interview. It opened up a lot on things I was generally curious about and RPJ was as consistent on this subject as he has always been.

    I’m biased here. Living in Florida the very first thing I looked into about climate was related to spiraling increases in homeowners insurance due to climate models predicting a sharp increase in hurricanes frequency and intensity. It didn’t take long to find RPJ’s blog and the statistical analysis and data on long term trends. There was a distinct difference in the actual trend data and how it was portrayed in the media and the insurance companies were happy to play along.

    It’s always been my opinion that this “extreme events are already worse” meme was going to backfire. It is simply too easy to refute with data, and overstatements abound in the media. You would think credibility matters to some people, just apparently not the self elected climate leaders. Naturally they respond hostilely when their credibility is questioned.

    My guess is RPJ probably single handedly brought sanity to the SREX report. And the latest IPCC AR5 was consistent with the SREX. I do enjoy directly quoting the IPCC every time this debate comes up, turning the consensus tables on its head so to say.

    “Looking back, probably the main thing I would do differently would be to simply not write about climate change at 538”

    …and here is yet another example of the toxicity of the climate debate. Many bloggers and journalists (including KK) has started to de-emphasize their climate coverage. It is easy to see how one would grow tired of playing in this swamp. It is repetitive, hostile, not career enhancing, and has devolved into a mentality of trench warfare using chemical weapons.

    RPJ no longer writing on 538…who actually won here? Nobody. The loser is open scientific debate and science transparency. Diversity is not a prized goal in the climate debate.

  4. The Batman says:

    “Seeing a campaign organized to have me fired from 538 also taught me a lesson about the importance of academic tenure.”

    This growing trend of lobbying for firings is pathetic anti-intellectualism of the highest order. As a life-long liberal I’m ashamed of this burgeoning distaste for intellectual freedom. See also this recent incident at Scientific American: http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/07/scientific_americans_pc_police_dismisses_a_blogger.html`
    Sad.

  5. JabbaTheCat says:

    Roger on the money, as usual…

  6. J M says:

    Looks like RPJ will get additional flak from European anti-GMO NGOs (Greenpeace etc.) by defending Anne Glover, Chief Scientific Advisor to the EU president. The said NGOs have asked the president to abolish the position and take advice from NGOs instead. The reason? Glover spoke in favour of GMOs, based on scientific consensus.

    http://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2014/jul/24/science-advisers-coalition-environment-ngo-europe

  7. Trakar says:

    Agreed, his views seem guided primarily by who is signing the checks to him or which political party they support; sad that a scientist would use these types of “evidence” upon which to base their scientific opinion.

  8. Eli Rabett says:

    Those of us who go back to 2007 or so, remember the late Climate Feedback, effectively killed at birth by the first post, Roger’s, with exactly the same sort of parsing that got him, and 538, in trouble. You friend has form Keith.

    Oh yes, this made it all worth while

  9. harkin says:

    Alarmists will do what they do, shout doom and gloom regardless of facts to gain control of more and more. The same folks did everything they could to kill nuclear power and even now will refuse to admit they were wrong.
    RPJ and his colleagues who only speak for truth are heroes.

  10. Charlie Johnson says:

    Pielke Jr reminds me of Kary Mullis. 20 years ago, after getting his nobel prize for PCR, he pointed out on a research project that AIDS research had become so politicized and backfilled with sloppy “race to cure” science that they’d never arrive at a cure because they still didn’t understand the cause – just correlations.

    He was condemned and excoriated for this and was told his comments and ideas were utterly useless and counter productive and would prevent a cure (which was just around the corner).

    20 years later? No cure.

    The a***oles are often the ones that force advancement of our understanding of phenomena.

  11. nealjking says:

    Charlie Johnson:
    – As I recall the argument, Duesberg, Mullis and a few others claimed that the a) the theory behind HIV as the cause of AIDS was wrong, and b) that the drugs based on that theory would fail to work.
    – I’m not up with the latest theories; but I see that the HIV+ people don’t seem to be dying at nearly the same rate as before; in fact, some of the folks that took out “reverse mortgages” to get the equity our of their houses are now in trouble, because they’ve lived beyond their expectations. The damn drugs have worked.
    – So it looks to me like Mullis got that wrong.
    – Nor do these prominent names fail alone: The idiot former President Mbeki of South Africa read and believed this negativism; based on which his entire country, for many years, based its preventative approach to AIDS on dietary guidelines, not even bringing in the connection with unprotected sex. The result? About an extra 1 Million people who contracted AIDS.

    A Nobel Prize may give you the right to be heard, but it unfortunately does not guarantee correctness; and when a big tree falls, a lot of other bushes get crushed underneath.

  12. Tom Scharf says:

    So your problems with the 2007 article is what exactly?

    The Arbor data is here:
    http://www.arborday.org/media/map_change.cfm

    This appears to show that from 1990 to 2006 that most areas experienced a 5F change in average low temperature (about a 0.5 hardiness zone change), and some areas experienced a 2 zone change (>10F) change. In 16 years?

    I went here and looked around:

    http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/city-list/

    I looked in the areas marked as 2 zone changes and I couldn’t find anything that looked greater than 1F. The global temperatures would have changed on the order of 0.6F in this period.

    This hardiness zone chart looks off by a factor of 5x to 10x.

    What is the discrepancy?

  13. Charlie Johnson says:

    “does not guarantee correctness”

    Agree. Can’t think of anything that does.

    “but I see that the HIV+ people don’t seem to be dying at nearly the same rate as before”

    That doesn’t mean the cause has been identified. It can mean symptoms are being managed. I recall Magic Johnson decided years back that he was cured (HIV was undetectable), went off the meds, and HIV returned, so he went back on meds.

    So the meds can make the HIV go away to the point that the virus can’t be detected (does it hide somewhere?) but the virus will return once the toxic soup that kills it is removed.

    “President Mbeki of South Africa read and believed this negativism”

    So Kary Mullis prescribed this diet cure? Or did Kary Mullis simply point out that the cause had not been pinned down? I don’t see how Mullis is responsible for Mbeki’s idiocy, nor is any scientist responsible for people misinterpreting criticism of another scientists work.

    Anyways – I agree that the “drugs have worked” but that doesn’t advance our understanding of AIDS. Remediation of symptoms doesn’t signify progress towards a cure just as chicken soup doesn’t cure the common cold.

    Correlation isn’t causation.

  14. nealjking says:

    – If you believe Mullis, you then have to ask, “Why are all these people suddenly living longer? If they don’t have their hands on the right cause, why is the medication helping?” ‘Cause if the cause of dead chickens is really racoons, why has shooting the foxes been effective?
    – Kary Mullis is not responsible for formulating Mbeki’s program; but he should be aware that his right to express himself on what is possible is not without consequences, in this case for 1 Million people, who were at the mercy of Mbeki. Mbeki spent many hours reading Duesberg and Mullis, convincing himself that they had “the truth,” and formulating the AIDS program for South Africa accordingly.

  15. David L. Hagen says:

    The coordinated ad hominem attack against Prof. Pielke is clear evidence of how little evidence climate alarmists actually have and weak are their arguments. e.g. > 95% of 34 year predictions by global climate models are hotter than actual temperatures. . Ross McKitrick shows a step change explains tropospheric temperatures better than CO2. etc.

  16. DavidAppell says:

    Except climate models don’t predict “a sharp increase in hurricane frequency and intensity.”

    This is from the IPCC 5AR WG1 Ch14 pg 1220:

    “Based on process understanding and agreement in 21st century projections, it is likely that the global frequency of occurrence of tropical cyclones will either decrease or remain essentially unchanged, concurrent with a likely increase in both global mean tropical cyclone maximum wind speed and precipitation rates. The future influence of climate change on tropical cyclones is likely to vary by region, but the specific characteristics of the changes are not yet well quantified and there is low confidence in region-specific projections of frequency and intensity.”

    and

    “There is low confidence in the projections of future changes for the tropical Atlantic, both for the mean and interannual modes, because of systematic errors in model simulations of current climate. The implications for future changes in Atlantic hurricanes and tropical South American and West African precipitation are therefore uncertain.”

    For example, see:

    “Modeled impact of anthropogenic warming on the frequency of intense Atlantic hurricanes.”
    MA Bender MA et al, Science. 2010 Jan 22;327(5964):454-8. doi: 10.1126/science.1180568.

    From the abstract:

    “The model projects nearly a doubling of the frequency of category 4 and 5 storms by the end of the 21st century, despite a decrease in the overall frequency of tropical cyclones….”

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20093471

  17. Charlie Johnson says:

    The point wasn’t about whether Mullis of 1994 is to be “believed” as an article of faith. The point is and was that scientific sanitation requires people to keep assertions and blithely held assumptions in check. Someone has to be the jerk.

    Mullis was a jerk. And he was right to be one. 30 years ago the assertion was made that HIV causes AIDS and that a cure would therefore come in 2 years.

    HIV is now attacked much like most cancers are – with toxins. That isn’t a cure. It’s a therapy. People who are ‘cured’ of cancer know that they are actually in remission – there’s no guarantee that every cancer cell was killed and they are cured.

    As it turns out the of the many billions spent on AIDS over the last 30 years only the parts that went to creating the cocktails of toxins that suppress HIV were productively spent. Everything in the “cure” bucket has been fruitless. Yes – we learn things along the way, but we’d have learned things spending the billions differently.

    Mullis didn’t advocate eliminating therapies or ignoring the epidemic. He wanted the billions that were going toward “finding the cure” to be directed based on science rather than jealously defended platitudes from celebrity-researchers whose findings couldn’t be questioned (nor replicated). That is the entire point. Science requires gadflies that point out the risks and costs of taking shortcuts. When such people are attacked as anti-science rather than have their arguments rebutted, then there isn’t much science left to defend, is there?

  18. nealjking says:

    … and what you fail to get is that, in the real world, when a “big name” says something, it can have an effect way out of proportion to the intention and degree of consideration expended.
    When a small child stands up in a small boat and waves his arms around, it’s cute. When a grown man does exactly the same thing, it can over-turn the boat. 1 Million people in SA alone took a dive because some people didn’t understand that.

  19. JH says:

    Roger’s problem is that he doesn’t play the game right.

    If you ask an athlete about h/her competitor, typically you get something like this: “well, you know, joe’s a great ball player and, well, you have to respect his power and his ability to make things happen in a game”. Joe could be a .200 hitter with a 0.655 fielding percentage and the highest strikeout ratio in baseball. That’s Athlete Speak for “I don’t want to piss that guy off and get him to hit a homer off me”.

    When Roger talks about other people’s work, he’s supposed to say things like “Bob et all have taken an unusual approach. Their idea that hurricane damage trends indicate that civilization will be wiped out in the next 50 years, well, that’s very interesting, and it looks like there might be some potential evidence that may suggest this as a potential possibility under some conceivable scenarios” That’s science speak for “Bob’s methods are questionable at best and his work is totally irrelevant but I’d like him to sign off on my next NSF application”

    But no. Roger tells it like it is. This puts pressure on other scientists to do good work, and it scares the hell out of their fan base. Right? From the 49er-fan perspective, the worst thing about Richard Sherman wasn’t what he said – it was that he was right. He was better, and he had the nerve to point it out.

    And alas science speak is all well and good when scientists are talking about sand box science – like whether or not dinosaurs had feathers. But when they’re talking about important science – science that may support $$$TTTs in Federal spending and reroute the entire economy – then it’s time to take Roger’s approach and get down to brass tacks. Unfortunately, some scientists can’t tell the difference between important science and sand box science, and they treat them the same.

  20. Tom Scharf says:

    Right, not anymore. I’m totally with you here.

    But they did in 2006 after a couple big hurricane years. They have since correctly walked it back (the data has forced them to…), but surely you remember the “hurricanes will increase in frequency and intensity” times, don’t you? Many people still repeat this.

    AR4:

    “Earlier studies assessed in the TAR showed that future tropical cyclones would likely become more severe with greater wind speeds and more intense precipitation. More recent modelling experiments have addressed possible changes in tropical cyclones in a warmer climate and generally confirmed those earlier results.”

    What I’m specifically referring to is this:

    Florida insurers rely on dubious storm model
    http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20101114/article/11141026

    It’s a bit long, but won the Pulitzer prize for investigative journalism in 2010. The re-insurer RMS dropped historical trends for disaster prediction and started using estimates from climate scientists, including Kerry Emanuel. *** Instant 45% increase in estimated major hurricane strikes ***.

    “In the end, the four scientists came up with four hurricane estimates — similar only in that they were all above the historic average.”

    “Thus, the long-term reality of 0.63 major hurricanes striking the U.S. every year yielded to a prediction of 0.90.”

    Post-mortem is that the decade 2000-2010 ended up being right at the historical average of disaster damage, even given the two horrendous years in mid-decade. Hilariously after 2006 we haven’t even had one major hurricane strike in the US, the Al Gore effect I suppose. What the future holds is uncertain.

  21. DavidAppell says:

    The paragraph below the one you quoted (4AR WG1 CH10 section 10.3.6.3) says:

    “A study with roughly 100-km grid spacing shows a decrease in tropical cyclone frequency globally and in the North Pacific but a regional increase over the North Atlantic and no significant changes in maximum intensity (Sugi et al., 2002). Yoshimura et al. (2006) use the same model but different SST patterns and two different convection schemes, and show a decrease in the global frequency of relatively weak tropical cyclones but no significant change in the frequency of intense storms…. Another global modelling study with roughly a 100-km grid spacing finds a 6% decrease in tropical storms globally and a slight increase in intensity, with both increases and decreases regionally related to the El Niño-like base state response in the tropical Pacific to increased greenhouse gases (McDonald et al., 2005). Another study with the same resolution model indicates decreases in tropical cyclone frequency and intensity but more mean and extreme precipitation from the tropical cyclones simulated in the future in the western north Pacific (Hasegawa and Emori, 2005).”

    Then looking at another class of models, they write (pg 788):

    “Thus, from this category of coarser-grid models that can only represent rudimentary aspects of tropical cyclones, there is
    no consistent evidence for large changes in either frequency or intensity of these models’ representation of tropical cyclones, but there is a consistent response of more intense precipitation from future storms in a warmer climate.”

    From a later paragraph on the same page:

    “In that study, tropical cyclone frequency decreased 30% globally (but increased about 34% in the North Atlantic).”

    Basically the same message: lower frequencies, higher intensities, and an admission there’s a still a lot we don’t know.

    So I don’t see the inconsistency. Or how scientists of the past were supposed to read the minds of scientists of the future.

  22. DavidAppell says:

    “Hilariously after 2006 we haven’t even had one major hurricane strike in the US.”

    Hurricane Sandy (2012):
    deaths: 286
    US damages: $65M

    That looks “major” to me.

  23. DavidAppell says:

    “In the end, the four scientists came up with four hurricane estimates — similar only in that they were all above the historic average.”

    Insurers are in business to make money. They consulted experts. Did they do something that violated free market principles?

    What process do you recommend they use to assess future hurricane risk? It’s easy to say, after the fact, they should just have used the 120-year trend (trend in what?). But I’m sure there are periods where that misses the mark, either over or under, Scientists would no doubt be blamed for doing that, by people like you.

    Predicting hurricanes numbers and intensities before the season starts, let alone 5 years from now, is difficult. Look how often William Gray’s predictions are wrong.

    Modelers, of course, can’t win. If they overpredict, people like you jump on them. If they underpredict, people like you jump on them. If they predict correctly people like you dismiss them or attribute it to blind luck. They’re expected be exactly right all the time for every parameter. So maybe it’s your expectations that need adjusting.

  24. Tom Scharf says:

    Due to the erratic nature of hurricane landfalls, the insurance industry should models rates on 25 or 50 year averages, not 5 years. This does not align well with Wall Street practices.

    I am not fan of the property insurance industry. In fact I would say they are primarily at fault here. They hand selected people who would give them the answer they wanted. This justified rate increases.

    In theory, property insurance rates should not change after a disaster, in practice it always does. They effectively pay for disasters after they happen and bank profit in between. Florida rejected these wild rate increases and most insurers left the state.

    Yes, this is the free market, not always perfect.

    You will find it interesting that it is actually legal for insurance companies to collude on pricing and they have an anti-trust exemption.

  25. Charlie Johnson says:

    Sorry – it isn’t that I fail to get it – it is that I simply don’t agree that it is either pertinent, important or advisable.

    When we place the obligation on a scientist to suppress information that the public may misinterpret we might as well shut all of our labs down.

    Saying “we don’t know the cause precisely” is not saying “there is no cause hence no disease.” The fact that stupid people do stupid things with information that they don’t understand is an increasing hazard of the information age. That is no reason to assign a moral obligation on the informed to suppress information.

    Well intentioned disinformation campaigns don’t advance science – they tend to backfire as the unscrupulous exploit said disinformation to enrich themselves with public money, yet furnish no remedy to the thing that they made the disinformed public fear. When that happens and people realize they’ve been disinformed, they often leap to the assumption that what they were told to fear shouldn’t be feared. Did I mention these people are often stupid?

    Better to put what is known out there and to vigorously examine how we came to know it. That provides an actual foundation for progress that a passionate, well intentioned, yet dishonest disinformation campaign can’t.

  26. Tom Scharf says:

    You of course know that major is a Cat3+.

    Sandy was not even a hurricane at landfall, that’s why they call it a “Superstorm”.

    NY / NJ was woefully unprepared for even this level of storm. It also hit at almost the worst case trajectory and at high tide. So a lot of things combined ended in a disaster.

    Cat1 hurricanes in Florida are not going to cause near this level of catastrophic damage because it is better prepared for obvious reasons.

  27. DavidAppell says:

    “You of course know that major is a Cat3+.”

    Then clearly any classification of hurricanes that doesn’t consider Sandy to be “major” is flawed. .

  28. nealjking says:

    There are two essential points:
    – As a Nobel Laureate, Mullis has a certain responsibility to think about the consequences of opening his mouth, and to act accordingly. Most of them are smart enough to do that.
    – Mullis was not discussing something that he knew much about: His training and accomplishments are in Biochemistry. This is nowhere close to knowing about viruses, the immune system, and related diseases. He did not have the expertise to be dissing an entire field of scientists who have spent their lives on a subject he knows nothing about.

    This is not the only time he’s shot from the hip: According to the Wikipedia article on him, he’s also promoted climate-change denial and (you’ll love this) astrology. Astrology? Astrology! The only thing that could be scientifically stupider would be buying lottery tickets.

  29. DavidAppell says:

    Then there’s this:

    “Increasing storm tides in New York Harbor, 1844–2013,” S. A. Talke, Geophysical Research Letters (2014).
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL059574/abstract

    Some of its figures are here:
    http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-upward-trend-in-new-york-city-storm.html

  30. Tom Scharf says:

    The Saffir-Simpson scale is very well established. I guess you can talk to hurricane experts who came up with this and ask them to implement the Appell scale. Good luck.

    Damage is correlated to wind speed, which drives storm surge, and random chance of where it strikes, the trajectory, how fast it is moving, tide level, etc. That’s what matters. Being unprepared has nothing to do with the science. There is a difference between a major disaster and a major hurricane.

    Storm surge increases with SLR, which has been about 8 inches over the past century, and is still about 1 inch / decade. Land subsidence is a problem in some areas. This as it relates to storm surge is uncontroversial as far as I know.

  31. Tom Scharf says:

    You are preaching to the choir. There is many times a huge disconnect between the summary and the details, and how it is reported in the media.

    In most cases what the scientists say is fine, it is what activists “say the scientists say” is where the wheels usually come off I have found.

    Quoting single studies is the norm, or worst case projections from a single study, etc. is very common.

    You can Google cyclones “more frequent and intense” and you will find endless claims of this variety. Most people have backed away from it in the past 5 years.

    Just 1 of a zillion:
    http://science.time.com/2013/07/09/a-new-study-says-hurricanes-will-get-stronger-and-more-frequent-thanks-to-climate-change/

    Compare the title to the details in the text. Emanuel again. It’s irrelevant what his track record is here. Standard fare.

  32. Charlie Johnson says:

    He brought the issue up before he was awarded the Nobel Prize while he was working on an AIDS project for a CA biotech. He was asked to write a paper on PCR vis a vis blood testing for HIV and simply wanted to cite an authoritative source for “HIV likely causes AIDS” and could never find it, even after politely consulting experts in the field including the people who first made the assertion.

    So your critique of social consequences of Nobel awarded scientists calling out others and being misinterpreted should be directed at the Nobel committee who awarded him the prize after the fact.

    As for fitness to make the criticism, it was precisely because he deemed himself not an authority that he asked around for the citation that he himself could not find. Someone posted a transcript from his book on the event -> www [dot] virusmyth [dot] com/aids/hiv/kmdancing.htm

    As for other things he holds true with or without foundation, how does that strengthen the assertion that HIV causes AIDS circa 1988? If he believed something you find to be absurd when he developed PCR, does that invalidate PCR? We are talking about science here, right? Isaac Newton used references in the Bible to calculate the earliest date for Armageddon to be 2060. I’m not worried, are you? That doesn’t invalidate his other work.

    As for his reputation, so be it. That is his to manage. But discounting a specific assertion solely based on who made it is definitionally an ad-hominem.

    Getting back to Pielke – I am all for people stating cases clearly and battling spooky disinformation even if morons choose to misinterpret the statements or hold the utility of spooky disinformation dear. Discovery is non-linear so science is messy. As long as science attracts big egos, part of it becomes blood sport. Let knowledge prevail and let the weak minded fall.

  33. nealjking says:

    1993: Nobel Prize
    1998: Wikipedia states: “In his 1998 autobiography, Mullis expressed disagreement with the scientific evidence supporting climate change and ozone depletion, the evidence that HIV causes AIDS, and asserted his belief in astrology.”

    “He brought the issue up before he was awarded the Nobel Prize while he was working on an AIDS project for a CA biotech.” UHH, NOT SO MUCH.

    “As for other things he holds true with or without foundation, how does that strengthen the assertion that HIV causes AIDS circa 1988? If he believed something you find to be absurd when he developed PCR, does that invalidate PCR? We are talking about scien ce here, right? Isaac Newton used references in the Bible to calculate the earliest date for Armageddon to be 2060. I’m not worried, are you? That doesn’t invalidate his other work.” a) 1988 =/= 1998; b) also: 1998 =/= 1727. NEWTON WOULD ALSO BE CONSIDERED WACKY IF HE DID THAT TODAY.

    “But discounting a specific assertion solely based on who made it is definitionally an ad-hominem.” YOU GOT IT BACKWARDS: I’M DISCOUNTING MULLIS BECAUSE OF HIS GOOFBALL ASSERTIONS: NO AD-HOMINEM HERE.

    “Getting back to Pielke – I am all for people stating cases clearly and battling spooky disinformation even if morons choose to misinterpret the statements or hold the utility of spooky disinformation dear.” UNFORTUNATELY, PIELKE IS THE ONE THAT HAS BEEN TELLING HALF- OR QUARTER-TRUTHS: Here’s a detailed discussion, including how Pielke misrepresented his OWN papers after the fact: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/mar/25/fivethirtyeight-misrepresents-climate-change-research . Every bit of it is documented by links to the original. Pielke is the classic “Let’s just split this down the middle” guy – no matter who and how many are on the two sides.

  34. CB says:

    67% of Arctic sea ice has disappeared in the last 34 years. If you understand this sea ice is keeping sea surface temperatures lower, and if you understand warmer seas cause stronger storms, why wouldn’t you expect an increase in storm strength once Arctic sea ice disappears completely?

  35. David Skurnick says:

    While sea ice extent was shrinking in the Arctic, it was expanding to a record area in the Antarctic. Total sea ice is currently above the long term average. So, would you expect a reduction in Southern Hemisphere typhoons? I don’t recall people making such a prediction.

  36. David Skurnick says:

    Good interview. I was hopeful when 538 was founded, but their failure to check the facts on this topic and report honestly turned me off.

  37. CB says:

    “While sea ice extent was shrinking in the Arctic, it was expanding to a record area in the Antarctic… would you expect a reduction in Southern Hemisphere typhoons?”

    Yes, sea ice is expanding in the Antarctic because the continent is melting down. Ice is moving from the land to the sea. I would expect a marked increase in typhoon activity once this ice disappears completely.

  38. JH says:

    Twisting the the words to win the argument. Tsk tsk David.

  39. JH says:

    Tom Scharf:
    “what the activists say the scientists say is where the wheels usually come off ”

    David Appell (implied below):
    Hurricane Sandy was a “major” hurricane.

    Hats off to Mr. Scharf

  40. Buddy199 says:

    It’s incredible how a boring backwater of science – the Weather – was co-opted by Leftist political hacks and perverted into a modern athiestic version of 15th century heretic burning religious fanaticism.

  41. DavidAppell says:

    “Damage is correlated to wind speed…”

    Not for the two most damaging US hurricanes since 1900, Katrina and Sandy. Or Ike (2008, Cat 2), Wilma (2005, Cat 3) or Ivan (2004, Cat 3).

    http://www.businessinsider.com/a-list-of-the-worst-hurricanes-in-history-2012-10

    What good is a metric that doesn’t correlate with what is important to people’s lives? Or did all these storms just happen to hit in unlucky places?

    Any classification of “major” that doesn’t include storms that do “major” damage isn’t the classification most people are interested in, nor can it be the only relevant metric.

  42. DavidAppell says:

    “You can Google cyclones “more frequent and intense” and you will find endless claims of this variety. Most people have backed away from it in the past 5 years.”

    Except you tried to slip it in, up above. And imply that only RPJer’s blog gave a straight picture, when the 4AR and 5AR did as well (and to much better depth and width).

  43. DavidAppell says:

    You are confusing sea ice extent with volume. In fact, Arctic sea ice volume (or mass) is decreasing about 10 times faster than Antarctic se ice volume is expanding. That means global sea ice is decreasing quite rapidly, and is far below the long-term trend.

  44. Mervyn says:

    Across the western world, it is becoming more and more apparent that people in today’s society are now quite willing to give up on freedom of expression and various democratic principles in favour of authoritarianism and consensus thinking.

    I say let this new way run its course. Let today’s spoilt western generation experience intolerance and censorship and persecution against their ideas and research. Only then will society eventually come to its senses. I see another 10 years of this nonsense as long as “human-caused dangerous global warming” continues to dominate.

    These are dangerous times. Skeptics (who in my opinion sit on the correct side of the global warming debate based on the science) who think there is light at the end of the tunnel are deceiving themselves.

    The manner in which the UN and its agencies, national governments, their bureaucracies, scientific and academic institutions, and the media have endorsed “human-caused dangerous global warming”, makes it clear that the global warming deception is going to remain for another 10 years.

    Why ten years? Because by 2014, Mother Nature will have exposed the IPCC’s supposition as false – the supposition that claims carbon dioxide emissions from human activity is causing catastrophic global warming and is the key driver of climate change.

    As is the case now, by 2014 there will be still be no evidence of catastrophic global warming, let alone human caused global warming, despite an increased carbon dioxide concentration. There will be no evidence of any discernible warming. I base this on the overwhelming wealth of scientific evidence that is available in relation to natural climate variability, something the IPCC purposely excluded from its role as stated in its “Principles Governing IPCC Work” which states:

    <>

    The IPCC only considers science relating to human-induced climate change… and conspicuously excludes the scientific evidence of natural climate variability.

    The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the
    scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of
    risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.
    IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they may need to deal objectively with
    scientific, technical and socio-economic factors relevant to the application of particular policies.

  45. OWilson says:

    I would hope Roger will continue to speak truth against “consensus” and “conventional wisdom”.

    The past greats in science, arts and politics all had to suffer scorn for their beliefs.

    As he says, it goes with the territory.

    Science can not advance, and no great achievements will ever be produced by an intellectually lazy adherence to the status quo, that borders on the religious.

  46. OWilson says:

    I read Nate Silver’s book from cover to cover, in which he demolished a lot of statistical myths.
    But when I got to the inevitable “global warming” chapter, Nate was very careful not to upset the apple cart.
    He is after all a business man, and he is looking out for his own economic interests.

  47. JH says:

    As Michael Jordan once said when asked why he doesn’t advocate more for liberal issues:

    “Republicans buy shoes too”.

  48. rtcdmc says:

    Mr. Pielke appears to be a scientist, in the correct sense of that word. As for the activists … a quotation comes to mind. I believe it was Patton who said, “if everyone is thinking alike, someone is not thinking.”

  49. brock2118 says:

    Warmists are definitely a mob. Cross them and you will never get tenure.

  50. Tom Scharf says:

    Obviously they are unlucky. Luck plays a very strong role for the reasons identified above. Location of landfall, time over target, high or low tide, trajectory, etc.

    A stronger hurricane that hits the same area will cause even more damage.

  51. Abraham_Franklin says:

    “Except climate models don’t predict a sharp increase in hurricane frequency and intensity.”

    If not now, they did until a few years ago.

    But let’s accept David Appell’s point: No sharp increase in hurricanes. Why then is RPJR the bad guy for telling the truth? And why aren’t the modellers publicly correcting politicians and media figures who hype climate nonsense?

    One gets the impression many climate scientists are privately skeptical of the alarmism but are afraid to publicly reveal their skepticism.

  52. Tom Scharf says:

    Where did I say “only”? It was where I compared media portrayals to actual data trends. RPJ documents exactly what the IPCC says.

    Are you really saying the story on hurricanes has been consistent all along? I’ll let Chris Mooney document it for you, he should be a trusted source, eh?

    http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/09/hurricane-season-ipcc-sandy

  53. Tom Scharf says:

    Warmer seas = stronger storms is a theory. The observational data does not yet support it.

    The future remains uncertain. My major objection has been with those who claim it is already getting worse. It is not.

    My “theory” is that they do not yet understand hurricanes and climate well enough to make accurate predictions on future trends. So far my theory is winning. We will see if that changes.

  54. DavidAppell says:

    “Obviously they are unlucky.”

    All of the top 6 storms — five since 2004 — just happened to be “unlucky.” Does that really sound plausible to you, strictly on the probabilities?

  55. Finrod Felagund says:

    Technically Sandy when it came ashore in New Jersey was a “post-tropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds”. It hit Cuba as a Cat 3, diminished to a tropical storm, then regained hurricane-force winds.

  56. DavidAppell says:

    “If not now, they did until a few years ago.”

    I showed up above that the 4AR didn’t show that.

    Scientific knowledge advances with time. On complex topics with much uncertainty, scientists sometime change their minds in the light of new evidence. What’s wrong with that? They people, not oracles.

  57. DavidAppell says:

    “Why then is RPJR the bad guy for telling the truth?”

    Because many think he didn’t tell the whole truth. For example, stricter local building codes often follow hurricanes, which he did not account for. He didn’t account for other projects meant to minimize hurricane losses — dikes, things like the MRGO, the economic incentive not to rebuild where a hurricane has already hit (like NO).

    And a problem with normalizing to GDP is that it requires GDP to at least keep pace with storm damages. That’s a problem if your economy doesn’t, or if you live in countries like Haiti, Jamaica, or Mexico others that have weaker economies than the US and are much less resilience to strong storms.

    As well, it ignores *people* whose income doesn’t keep pace with their country’s GDP. I.e the poor. A poor person’s life can be utterly destroyed by a hurricane — no insurance perhaps, flimsy houses, no savings to fall back on — in a way that an affluent person’s life is not. So unless there is a way for people suffering the damage to be compensated by those causing the problem (fossil fuel users), a shift in wealth is taking place, from the poorer person to the richer person.

  58. DavidAppell says:

    And because RPJr writes things like this:

    “John Holdren’s Epic Fail”
    http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2014/03/john-holdrens-epic-fail.html

    which is not cool in the professional scientific world.

  59. DavidAppell says:

    No, I don’t trust Chris Mooney, and never have. He writes “opinion journalism,” which isn’t journalism in my book.

  60. CB says:

    “I don’t trust Chris Mooney, and never have”

    For serious!?

    I think Mooney has an amazing talent for translating climate science into a language most people can understand… he was using the term “skeptic” for a while there, which made me a bit peevish, but I think he’s since stopped.

    Have you seen him get something wrong?

  61. Michael Stone says:

    Do you trust the TV weatherman Anthony Watts?

  62. Abraham_Franklin says:

    John Holdren is a misanthropic nutcase. Dangerous men like him deserve ridicule.

    http://www.zombietime.com/john_holdren/

  63. Michael Stone says:

    You have bought into a myth spread by the corrupt Anthony Watts followers….

    The freshwater land based ice on Antarctica is rapidly melting now.

    As that freshwater enters the ocean around the continent of Antarctica it caused more winter sea ice to form than normally does as it is not saline as the ocean water is.

    The increased ocean ice during the past three winters is mostly thin and rotten ice and melts off very quickly during it’s short summer season.

    Yes I am aware that a ship was locked in ice there last winter, nothing unusual about that in the Southern Ocean, but the GW deniers try to have a field day with the issue.

    Keep in mind that the Larson B ice shelf broke off of Antarctica in 2003, which was a wakeup call that we were entering a serious global warming trend.

  64. CB says:

    Lol! I doubt if David would buy into what Watts is selling. David’s actually an extremely reliable source of information on climate science… he doesn’t seem to like Mooney though…

    Maybe he thinks he’s too wordy. I could see that as a valid criticism… it is his job though.

  65. Hominid says:

    Arctic sea ice has been increasing.

  66. Tom Scharf says:

    “Because many think he didn’t tell the whole truth.”

    Do you understand the difference between “not telling the whole truth” and an honest academic disagreement?

    I guess “many” didn’t include the IPCC SREX or AR5 reports, which appear to agree with his view.

    AR5:

    “Economic growth, including greater concentrations of people and wealth in periled areas and rising insurance penetration, is the most important driver of increasing losses… loss trends have not been conclusively attributed to anthropogenic climate change.”

    SREX:

    “Most studies of long-term disaster loss records attribute these increases in losses to increasing exposure of people and assets in at-risk areas (Miller et al., 2008; Bouwer, 2011), and to underlying societal trends – demographic, economic, political, and social – that shape vulnerability to impacts (Pielke Jr. et al., 2005; Bouwer et al., 2007). Some authors suggest that a (natural or anthropogenic) climate change signal can be found in the records of disaster losses (e.g., Mills, 2005; Höppe and Grimm, 2009), but their work is in the nature of reviews and commentary rather than empirical research.”

  67. Tom Scharf says:

    It’s my understanding that there was a big insurance coverage difference as to whether Sandy was or was not an official hurricane at landfall. Politicians started lobbying to define it as a hurricane. Maybe this was the end result.

  68. Tom Scharf says:

    Yes it makes sense. The amount of infrastructure in place has increased dramatically over the last 50 years. More stuff to damage.

    The same hurricane hitting the same place every decade will produce higher damages.

    We have already had the hurricane trend discussion, there’s nothing to see here. We can count hurricane landfalls very accurately.

    Long term hurricane trends are flat, and landfalls decidedly down in the US the last 8 years. Do you think this dearth proves something too?

    What point are you trying to make? I’m not getting it.

  69. tomandersen says:

    Why would land based ice in Antarctica melt more with an increase of even 5C (let alone 1). Its cold there.

    The answer is of course that its not shrinking at all, or better put its within measurement error. “Overall, a recent estimate puts Antarctic net mass balance at -71 ± 53 gigatonnes per year”. In human terms that’s 0.

    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/antarctic-ice-sheet-surface-mass-balance/

    Its not even clear that Antarctica will add to or subtract from ocean levels over the next 100 years, as increased snowfall will offset melting.

  70. Tom Scharf says:

    Let me make a wild guess with 97% certainty….you are a Democrat, or at least hard left leaning.

    Mooney’s assertions that Republicans are brain damaged should at least throw up a couple red flags for you.

    Believing that those opposing your view are incompetent, immoral, or unable to process information is a pretty sheltered viewpoint.

    Underestimating your opponents can lead to unfortunate outcomes.

  71. Tom Scharf says:

    There is hope for you yet, ha ha.

  72. Michael Stone says:

    You are wrong…. The perennial Arctic sea ice has decreased by near 70% since 1970. It is not increasing…

    Winter sea ice does increase sometimes more so than the previous year, but winter sea ice is thin rotten ice and melts of quickly during the summer months.

    It is the Arctic Ocean’s thick perennial sea ice that is rapidly melting away and that is a very serious issue.

    Check it out and get educated on the subject.

  73. Michael Stone says:

    Thank you David, excellent reply..

    Global warming and global climate change are GLOBAL.

    There have been many major hurricanes or typhoons around the globe every year and also major storms with severe flooding of large areas around the globe.

    Many storms were record setting in size, and damage created. The key words anymore are “record setting”, which has now become rather common.

  74. Michael Stone says:

    A major storm can be cat one or not even a one.. A monstrous (*slow moving*) storm with flooding rainfall is a major storm.

  75. Michael Stone says:

    Please do point out the twisted words… Thank you.

  76. David Skurnick says:

    Michael, here are some responses to your comment.
    1. I said Antarctic ice extent is at a record high. That is a fact, not a myth, regardless of any other characteristics of this ice. Note that ice extent is important because of ice’s reflectivity. Low ice extent in the Arctic tends to increase global warming, since less heat is radiated back. Similarly, high ice extent in the Antarctic tends to decrease GW.
    2. I don’t know what you mean by “GW denier”, but I’m not one. I believe the globe has been warming and that man’s activity has contributed some amount the warming. I believe this is the view of most climate skeptics.
    3. Do you have a link showing that the growth of Antarctic sea ice extent is being caused freshwater melt? In other words, is this a theory or an established fact? Also, did the IPCC or other climatologists predict in advance that Antarctic sea ice would grow to a record level?

  77. Swood1000 says:

    As that freshwater enters the ocean around the continent of Antarctica it caused more winter sea ice to form than normally does as it is not saline as the ocean water is.

    Possible, but the IPCC has “low confidence” in that explanation. http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter10_FINAL.pdf, page 870.

  78. Hominid says:

    YOU are wrong.

  79. BarryBarry says:

    It is actually a perfect fit for them. Environmentalist have long sided with the various “isms” out there that provide the government authority to force rules and regulations without much discussion or providing any avenues for relief…authoritarian governments.

    When the primary authoritarian government in the world fell and reverted to a quasi democracy, the natural refuge for the True Believes became the Environmentalists movement.

    All you need to do is compare the broader societal agenda of the various “isms” to the Environmentalists agendas. They pretty much match point for point.

  80. BarryBarry says:

    “anti-intellectualism” : disagreeing with the “consensus”.

  81. DavidAppell says:

    “There is hope for you yet, ha ha.”

    If you agree, then why did you cite him? Any port in a storm?

  82. Michael Stone says:

    No; I’m not …..

    National Snow and Ice Data Center; monthly update : __ December 2013 sea ice in the Arctic remained well below average, with the average extent ending up as the fourth-lowest on record at 270,300 square miles below the 1981 to 2010.

    http://summitcountyvoice.com/2014/01/20/arctic-sea-ice-wavers-near-record-low-in-december/

    June 2014 averaged 11.31 million square kilometers (4.37 million square miles). This is 580,000 square kilometers (224,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average for the month.

    http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

  83. DavidAppell says:

    “I think Mooney has an amazing talent for translating climate science into a language most people can understand…”

    That makes him a good writer, not a journalist.

    “Have you seen him get something wrong?”

    http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2012/03/no-its-not-republicans-brains.html

    http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-not-to-advocate-for-your-science.html

    http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/chris-mooney-evolution-and-politics/

    http://politicalmathblog.com/?page_id=1780

  84. DavidAppell says:

    “Do you understand the difference between “not telling the whole truth” and an honest academic disagreement?”

    That isn’t what’s going on here — RPJr labeled Holdren’s view and “epic fail.” That hardly sounds like an honest academic agreement.

    RPJr’s treatment of the Marcott et al Science paper was shameful –a (very poor) attempt just to cause controversy for its own sake, while getting his name in the papers.

  85. DavidAppell says:

    “Do you trust the TV weatherman Anthony Watts?”

    Seriously??

    Before he dies, Anthony Watts will apologize for his blog and for his views on climate change.

  86. BrightMind says:

    Sandy was not a hurricane.

  87. BrightMind says:

    No, it sounds like a lot of properties have been built in harms way in recent years.

  88. Swood1000 says:

    67% of Arctic sea ice has disappeared in the last 34 years.

    Arctic sea ice is shown in the middle of the graph below. It doesn’t look like 67% of it has disappeared in the last 34 years. What are you referring to?

  89. Michael Stone says:

    Sorry I asked you that David…. CB explained… Watts is a rat and a hired assassin, he will never apologize.

  90. DavidAppell says:

    “Sandy was not a hurricane.”

    Tell that to the people of Jamaica and Cuba. It further illustrates the misleading nature of calling some hurricanes “major” and not other cyclones.

    The National Hurricane Center called it a “hurricane,” and then a “post-tropical cyclone” with a “catastrophic storm surge.”

    http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL182012_Sandy.pdf

  91. DavidAppell says:

    “The amount of infrastructure in place has increased dramatically over the last 50 years. More stuff to damage.”

    So? It’s still damage, and it still costs money to repair it.

  92. DavidAppell says:

    “Long term hurricane trends are flat, and landfalls decidedly down in the US the last 8 years. Do you think this dearth proves something too?”

    No. Eight years does not make a statistically significant trend. Nor does it say anything about the future in a changing world.

  93. DavidAppell says:

    Oops, sorry Michael. I didn’t pick up on the scarcasm.

  94. DavidAppell says:

    “No, it sounds like a lot of properties have been built in harms way in recent years.”

    Two people live on a coast. One lives in a cardboard box, and the other in a $2 million dollar mansion, both of which are destroyed.

    Who loses the most, and why?
    Which costs society the most, and why?

  95. Michael Stone says:

    Where did you dig up that phony graph guest, from an Anthony Watts article?

  96. Tom Scharf says:

    Sigh. I hope you understand this comment is for landfall in NYC. Do you believe people are contesting whether Sandy was ever a hurricane?

    http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/A3.html

    “Major hurricane” is a term utilized by the National Hurricane Center for hurricanes that reach maximum sustained 1-minute surface winds of at least 50 m/s (96 kt, 111 mph). This is the equivalent of category 3, 4 and 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

    You can use the Appell scale as you like. The rest of us will stick to the common definition.

  97. Tom Scharf says:

    Please do a little research first.

    http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/A3.html

    “Major hurricane” is a term utilized by the National Hurricane Center for hurricanes that reach maximum sustained 1-minute surface winds of at least 50 m/s (96 kt, 111 mph). This is the equivalent of category 3, 4 and 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

    You guys are conflating an ambiguous use of the phrase “major disaster” with the technically defined “major hurricane”.

    When you say major hurricane to others, people will interpret that as Cat3+. It is a common and well understood term.

  98. Tom Scharf says:

    Good, now repeat after me, neither does Sandy.

  99. Tom Scharf says:

    I have no idea what you are talking about anymore. This discussion was about why disaster costs are increasing while hurricane trends are not, RPJ’s controversial 538 post, this comment was relevant to that point.

  100. DavidAppell says:

    There is more to the globe than the US (and even NYC), which includes people who suffer more than Americans in a hurricane.

    It doesn’t matter what its category number is — Sandy has a huge impact where it struck. It was “major” by any normal sense of the world.

  101. DavidAppell says:

    I never said Sandy did. But this does;

    http://policlimate.com/tropical/north_atlantic_hurricane.png

  102. Michael Stone says:

    When a monstrous very slow moving storm dumps over a foot of rain during a 24 hour period I call it a major STORM.
    What the weather service terms a hurricane as major has nothing to do with what I choose to term a major storm… And since the storm which has been discussed here caused billions of dollars in damage, I term it was a major storm.. You can term it whatever make your ears tingle.
    I do believe any of the thousands who suffered damage during that STORM, would agree it was a major storm and not a common occurrence prior to now.
    The word major in Webster’s 2012 college edition means; great or greater in number , size or extent, or higher in importance or rank than minor.
    Would you say that storm was a minor storm? 😉

  103. Hominid says:

    Arctic sea ice always fluctuates below AND above average, dummy. It is currently on an upward slope – which is what I said.

    YOU are wrong.

  104. Hominid says:

    Exactly. Climate ‘science’ predictions are nonsense.

  105. DavidAppell says:

    Climate science doesn’t make predictions.

  106. Michael Stone says:

    Cite your reference ape man.

    http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/07/29/huge-waves-measured-for-first-time-in-arctic-ocean/

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/07/30/giant-waves-found-in-arctic-ocean-could-be-accelerating-sea-ice-loss/

    Sea ice extent in the Arctic is decreasing rapidly this summer. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, “during the second half of June, sea ice extent loss was the second fastest in the satellite data record.” It has been decreasing 21 percent faster than average for this period. Sea ice thickness in 2014 has been tracking among the lowest four years on record, according to data from the University of Washington

    Depending on timing and location, storms can work to

    accelerate or decelerate sea ice loss. In 2012, a massive Arctic storm enhanced sea ice melt and pushed the year across the record line. As sea ice thins, it becomes more susceptible to strong, Arctic winds and waves, and it becomes more prone to breaking. And as sixteen foot waves become business as usual in the Arctic Ocean, we can likely expect sea ice extent to respond in-

  107. Hominid says:

    LOL!!!! You’re an imbecile.

  108. Hominid says:

    Nope. You’re citing propaganda based on faulty data.

    Monthly data from the Natl Snow & Ice Data Ctr shows that Arctic sea ice has increased significantly for the past two years.

    CryoSat shows a greater than 50% INCREASE this year over 2013.

    Additionally, according to NASA, ANTarctic sea ice is increasing at record rates.

  109. Michael Stone says:

    You are not telling the truth. Where is your reference? I cited references for NSIDC and NASA that say what you are writing is false.
    GA-bye, I won’t waste my time discussing it with you.

  110. DavidAppell says:

    So then show me one of climate science’s predictions.

  111. Swood1000 says:

    National Snow & Ice Data Center

    NSIDC GlobalArcticAntarctic SeaIceArea

  112. Michael Stone says:

    Bullshittr; liar; I just posted a link for NSIDC and that is not what they are reporting.

    Stick your comments up where the sun don’t shine you lying idiot. Here are their graphs.

    http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=graphs+of+polar+ice+change&qpvt=graphs+of+polar+ice+change&FORM=IGRE

    http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Global+Warming+Graph&FORM=R5FD0
    http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Greenhouse+Effect+Graphs&FORM=R5FD5

  113. Hominid says:

    YOU are lying. I gave the sources – all you have to do is go to them to see the findings.

  114. Hominid says:

    I don’t waste my time trying to “show” Lib-Leftist dorks anything. Everyone here is familiar with the many erroneous predictions made by climate pseudoscientists.

  115. Tom Scharf says:

    We’ve been down this road and I’m not going to repeat it again. If you are claiming the world is experiencing “North Atlantic” warming then you might have a point, but it is unwise to use subsets of small erratic data when larger and longer global sets are available. Global hurricane trends are flat. I can post other basins that show global warming is lowering hurricanes. Will this prove something to you?

    If you think the no warming folks are cherry picking, you have a bad case of hypocrisy here.

  116. Michael Stone says:

    You gave the names but didn’t post any link for an article that states the lies you posted.

    You couldn’t, that is because the scientists at NSIDC, NOAA, NASA never said those things, outright lies that you posted…

    I posted links for what they did report and it wasn’t anything like the lies you are writing. You must be insane.

  117. Swood1000 says:

    “Bullshittr; liar; I just posted a link for NSIDC and that is not what they are reporting.”

    Your vehemence astounds me. As is immediately obvious to anyone looking at the graph, it was put together by Climate4you using NSIDC data. You will find it here: http://www.climate4you.com/images/NSIDC%20GlobalArcticAntarctic%20SeaIceArea.gif

    Here is the blurb that accompanies it:

    “Graphs showing monthly Antarctic, Arctic and global sea ice extent since November 1978. The area covered by sea ice is defined as having at least 15% sea ice cover. Thin blue lines show monthly values, and thick blue lines show the simple running 13 month average. The red lines show the 1979-2012 average. Data kindly provided by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Last month shown: May 2014. Latest figure update: 13 July 2014.”

    Is Climate4you.com a subversive organization? Did they fail to use NSIDC data as they claimed to do?

  118. Michael Stone says:

    That graph is not anything like the NSIDC graphs I posted ,,, It’s total bullshitt from GW denying liars and you know it.

  119. DavidAppell says:

    I’m not familar with such predictions. So how about pointing one out, to back up your claim?

  120. DavidAppell says:

    “…but it is unwise to use subsets of small erratic data when larger and longer global sets are available.”

    It’s hardly useless when those are the hurricanes that impact the Caribbean and the U.S.

    What good does a flat global trend do you if the trend where you’re live is increasing?

  121. DavidAppell says:

    “I can post other basins that show global warming is lowering hurricanes. Will this prove something to you?”

    How can data for a specific basin show something about global trends?

    But, yes, I’d like to see the global data.

  122. Swood1000 says:

    Well, when I get the data from this location: ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/north/daily/data/NH_seaice_extent_final.csv and graph it in Excel it looks very much like the middle Climate4you graph. Where did I go wrong?

  123. Hominid says:

    There it is folks ^^, the classic Lib psychosis – reality inversion, projection, and hypocrisy.

  124. S Graves says:

    Don’t blame you for your opinion. Watt’s contributed to your being caught out. Will you apologize for your BS on the death treats to scientists scam that you ran?

    The bizarre “climate scientists get death threats” at Australian National University finally imploded completely with the former chancellor Ian Chubb going on record in the Australian saying:

    “For the record, there were no alleged death threats except when journalists picked up the story.”
    Nuf said.

  125. S Graves says:

    NSIDC. “The extent of multiyear ice within the Arctic Ocean is distinctly greater than it was at the beginning of last winter. During the summer of 2013, a larger fraction of first-year ice survived compared to recent years. This ice has now become second-year ice. Additionally, the predominant recirculation of the multiyear ice pack within the Beaufort Gyre this winter and a reduced transport of multiyear ice through Fram Strait maintained the multiyear ice extent throughout the winter.”
    Sorry again Stoner.

  126. S Graves says:

    ” The perennial Arctic sea ice has decreased by near 70% since 1970. It is not increasing…”
    I didn’t bother with your newspaper citation but there is nothing on multi-year ice on the NSIDC page. You claim “It is not increasing…”

    Again, Stoner. From the very same agency you cite above; “The extent of multiyear ice within the Arctic Ocean is distinctly greater than it was at the beginning of last winter. During the summer of 2013, a larger fraction of first-year ice survived compared to recent years. This ice has now become second-year ice. Additionally, the predominant recirculation of the multiyear ice pack within the Beaufort Gyre this winter and a reduced transport of multiyear ice through Fram Strait maintained the multiyear ice extent throughout the winter.”

  127. Michael Stone says:

    UH Graves…. Check out what they say about perennial ice, ice that is at least 800,000 years old and had never melted during that time… Not multi year ice that can be two to three years old. Okay Graves? Good boy.

  128. Michael Stone says:

    Here are some current info from NASA about the perennial ice S.

    According to data from NASA’s QuikSCAT satellite, between 2004 and 2005 the Arctic lost an unprecedented 14 percent of its perennial sea
    icettp://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/09/060914-arctic-ice.html

    http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/Perrenial_Sea_Ice.html

    NASA study finds that perennial sea ice in the Arctic is melting faster than previously thought — at a rate of 9 percent per decade. If these melting rates continue for a few more decades, the perennial sea ice will likely disappear entirely within this century, due to rising temperatures and interactions between ice, ocean and the atmosphere that accelerate the melting process.

     

    If the perennial ice cover, which consists mainly of thick multi-year ice floes, disappears, the entire Arctic Ocean climate and ecology would become very different,” said Josefino Comiso, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., who authored the study.

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/05/28/arctic_sea_ice_global_warming_is_melting_more_ice_every_year.html

    http://www.universetoday.com/13248/arctics
    -oldest-and-thickest-ice-is-melting-away/

    This year, the perennial sea ice covered only 30% of the Arctic. And the most ancient ice, that which has survived more than 6 years, used to comprise 20% of
    the Arctic. Now it’s down to just 6%.

  129. S Graves says:

    Man, Stoner. It’s HARD to keep you on topic.

    You said above and H. responded to: “”Sea ice extent in the Arctic…” Arctic ice is the topic. I don’t see anywhere that you discuss Antarctic sea ice…which is at or near record extent.
    So…are you now claiming that there somehow used to be 800ky Arctic sea ice? Can you point it out in your citations. I can’t find it so I beg your assistance. Now remember…we are speaking of SEA ICE that’s 800ky…sort of like that 200′ thick sea ice around Greenland that you, TJ and I discussed a while back.

  130. S Graves says:

    Discussing this stuff with you is like herding cats.

    You said elsewhere in this thread: “Check out what they say about perennial ice, ice that is at least 800,000 years old and had never melted during that time… Not multi year ice that can be two to three years old.”

    Now you cite something that says “And the most ancient ice, that which has survived more than 6 years…” How come the 800ky ice (remember, no one mentioned the Antarctic) isn’t the “ancient ice”? Why don’t these guys you cite know the ancient 6 year old ice isn’t all that ancient by 794,000 years? Want me to tell you or will you try to somehow explain?

    Stoner…you just can’t make stuff like this up…oh…wait!

  131. CB says:

    Ah, so your issues with Mooney concern his claims about psychology, sociology, political science and genetics, not climate science…

    I don’t know enough about the genetic predisposition statements so I won’t defend him there, but I think one would have to be crazy not to acknowledge a connexion between political affiliation and climate science denial.

    You can count the Republicans who accept climate science on one hand… I basically know of John McCain, and now he’s even walking back his previous position.

    To point out the correlation between Republicanism and science denial is not some kind of political hit-job, it’s a statement of simple, empirical fact. The party is being affected by some kind of mass hysteria. Mooney didn’t make that up.

  132. Michael Stone says:

    Did I do that? Oops.

    Hey; it just hit me. You could not possibly have read all of the article I liked for you before you replied… F/U Graves you sneak.

  133. S Graves says:

    Correct…I onlyread the NASA article. National Geo. is a magazine with stories. Does it say there is 800ky sea ice somewhere in the NG story? Of course not. But I don’t blame you for being upset. When you are again proven the fool you can either man up or spew invective. You generally choose the latter.

  134. S Graves says:

    Well…actually, CB, you are the hysterical one. I can prove it in your own unscientific words if you want.

  135. S Graves says:

    Why are you over here trying to drum up traffic for you dead blog?

  136. S Graves says:

    Stoner…you are again out of your depth. Where is the ice in Antarctica? So if you know, what is the melt rate in the EAIS? What is the condition of the SMB and what does that portend? What do you say to the peer reviewed work demonstrating that the Antarctic SI increases are driven by winds…not the mechanism you cite?

  137. S Graves says:

    I just love your “science” resources…Guardian, dailycaller, Slate…what nonsense, Stoner. And you criticize Watts. Geezzzzz….

    Oh…and this is very inconvenient wrt your melt water claim and the increase in Antarctic SI.

    ScienceDaily (Oct. 23, 2012) from a NASA study;

    “Winds off the Ross Ice Shelf are getting stronger and stronger, and that causes the sea ice to be pushed off the coast, which generates areas of open water, polynyas,” said Josefino Comiso, a senior scientist at NASA Goddard. “The larger the coastal polynya, the more ice it produces, because in polynyas the water is in direct contact with the very cold winter atmosphere and rapidly freezes.” As the wind keeps blowing, the ice expands further to the north.”
    Stoner…give these guys a call and get themstraightened out.

  138. S Graves says:

    Stoner…what would you mother say about that language?

  139. S Graves says:

    Again, Stoner, from the NSIDC piece you cited elsewhere just today; “The extent of multiyear ice within the Arctic Ocean is distinctly greater than it was at the beginning of last winter. During the summer of 2013, a larger fraction of first-year ice survived compared to recent years. This ice has now become second-year ice. Additionally, the predominant recirculation of the multiyear ice pack within the Beaufort Gyre this winter and a reduced transport of multiyear ice through Fram Strait maintained the multiyear ice extent throughout the winter.”

    Multi-year ice is actually increasing. Don’t go off about the 800ky ice…you were proved wrong on that one, as you admitted.

    As the wise man said, “Check it out and get educated on the subject.” You are just TOO funny Stoner.

  140. Katherine says:

    What a great quote! And very true.

  141. Swood1000 says:

    That graph is not anything like the NSIDC graphs I posted ,,, It’s total bullshitt from GW denying liars and you know it.

    Can we assume that you have had a chance to examine the data from the link I provided and are able to acknowledge that the graph is what it says it is?

  142. Swood1000 says:

    Bullshittr; liar; …you lying idiot … It’s total bullshitt from GW denying liars and you know it.

    No acknowledgment that the graph is accurate. Then it would be safe to assume that there will be no retraction or apology.

    Actually, the graph is innocuous and does no harm to your position. In fact, after I posted it I changed my mind and tried to delete the post, but that only caused it to be sent from “Guest.” CB had posted a graph that showed ice volume. Mine shows surface area covered with ice, which really has little to do with volume.

    For example, suppose you fill a glass with small ice cubes and then fill with water to the top. Looking down from the top, 95% of the water is covered with ice. Now if you heat the water so that half the ice melts and look down from the top you will see that it is still 95% covered with ice. In fact if you heat it so that only one layer of ice cubes remains it will still be 95% covered with ice but that is irrelevant since it has lost most of its volume of ice.

    I actually forgive the insult because I recognize with what conviction you believe that we stand at the brink of annihilation. And if I felt that way I would have as little patience with those who refused to see the facts. Best wishes.

  143. Sagitarriat Jefferspin says:

    The climate debate lacks integrity. Everything else is consequence.

  144. S Graves says:

    “The freshwater land based ice on Antarctica is rapidly melting now.”
    Almost 85% of the worlds ice is in the EAIS. How fast is it melting? Sorry, Stoner, you continue to be the dunce.

  145. S Graves says:

    Oh please. Cite a single peer reviewed work that predicts that the AIS is going to melt down. There AREN’T ANY!! What absolute made up nonsense.

  146. Michael Stone says:

    A lot faster than last year Dufus… And it shouldn’t be melting at all but serious global warming with a 400+ ppm atmospheric CO2 level is the cause.
    Check it out Ess.

  147. S Graves says:

    “Over March 2003 to July 2012, East and West Antarctica ice mass change was +97±13 and −159±9 Gt/yr, respectively, with accelerations +18±10 and −31±7 Gt/yr2, respectively…”

    Williams, et. al.: Earth and Planetary Science Letters; Volume 385, 1 January 2014, Pages 12–21
    If you understand that 84% of the planet’s ice is in the EAIS and it is gaining ice and the gain was accelerating at +18 Gt/yr , why do you make your nonsense claims?

  148. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Does this article help, or is NASA untrustworthy?

    http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/20100108_Is_Antarctica_Melting.html

  149. S Graves says:

    Not really. It is from 2009 and cites information from older studies. I gave Stoner a current peer reviewed article just below. Now that WILL help.

  150. Michael Stone says:

    It would not help a hair brained idiot who has zero common sense or honest.

  151. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Using recently improved topographic data6 in combination with ice-dynamic simulations, we show here that the removal of a specific coastal ice volume equivalent to less than 80 mm of global sea-level rise at the margin of the Wilkes Basin destabilizes the regional ice flow and leads to a self-sustained discharge of the entire basin and a global sea-level rise of 3–4 m

    This is from the Nature article referenced above.

    So it seems that the fate of the EAIS is dependent upon the margins of the Wilkes Basin.

  152. Michael Stone says:

    Have you seen these articles Gary? How ya doin?

    http://www.washington.edu/news

    EDIT…. Click on the waves in Arctic Ocean story

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/

  153. S Graves says:

    What do you believe this demonstrates? What’s your point in citing this paper?
    The first sentence of the abstract pretty much lays it out; “Changes in ice discharge from Antarctica constitute the largest uncertainty in future sea-level projections, mainly because of the unknown response of its marine basins…”
    Yes…something might happen. It’s all “uncertain”. But don’t let me spoil your point…which is???

  154. Gary Slabaugh says:

    The point is that your cited literature is not conclusive either. The point is what still needs to be studied and measured wrt the EAIS.

    Further up to date reading

    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27465050

  155. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I’m doing fine, thank you for asking. I read the story on the Arctic Ocean waves, but not your first citation. Will check it out now.

    How’s life treating you? We are both from the SW. Northern UT for me. How about you?

  156. Michael Stone says:

    Hi, doin great, celebrating my number 80 birthday. Another new wallet, hat, shirt and socks? LOL. Southeast Arizona, up in the mountains, 6,000 feet up.

  157. Michael Stone says:

    I was speaking of freshwater land ice on the Continent of Antarctica, not sea ice. Are you?

  158. Michael Stone says:

    Liar you could not have read the article in that brief period of time.

  159. Michael Stone says:

    The freshwater ice on land is what I was speaking of rapidly melting, not sea ice. Are you referring to the freshwater ice or sea ice?

  160. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I thank you again for your posts, most importantly for bringing much needed attention to sequestered methane, esp in the Arctic. Sickening that the deniers are true believers that methane will not even contribute to greenhouse effect. I hope to continue to learn through these “debates” and put that knowledge to good use.

    I just turned 57 and have thankfully retired from 30+ years civil service. Appreciating my time more than the extra money which would be available if I continued with the blood, sweat, and tears while feeding at the Federal trough :-/

    Always grateful for you. Keep fighting the good fight.

  161. Swood1000 says:

    Enjoyed your article http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2014/03/the-puzzles-involving-sea-ice-at-the-poles/.

    Climate science doesn’t make predictions.

    What do you mean by this?

    How much of the ice loss in West Antarctica do you think can be attributed to geothermal factors? How about in the Arctic? http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7199/abs/nature07075.html

    There are many different estimates of the variability of the Arctic climate. This one http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/arctic_ice3.php includes the graph below, suggesting that there has been a great deal of variation. Along the same line is this: http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/10/historic-variations-in-arctic-sea-ice-part-ii-1920-1950/

    On the other hand this one states flatly that

    This ice loss appears to be unmatched over at least the last few thousand years and unexplainable by any of the known natural variabilities. http://bprc.osu.edu/geo/publications/polyak_etal_seaice_QSR_10.pdf

    If you conclude that the current Arctic warming cannot be considered anything other than a harbinger of doom, and is not an example of what has been seen before, how do you arrive at that conclusion?

  162. S Graves says:

    YES GS…you got it!!! Then help me here. Why are CAGW climastrologists constantly claiming that any ice loss proves the case?

  163. S Graves says:

    The former. The ice that comprised the EAIS.

  164. S Graves says:

    Answered just above.

  165. S Graves says:

    Yes…I cited the actual paper elsewhere on this thread. Important to read the actual science rather than the BBC story.

  166. S Graves says:

    Yes…the actual peer reviewed work…not the Slate political slant. At your pleasure.

  167. S Graves says:

    Please Stoner….Then how did I know that you were DEAD WRONG about your positon wrt the article? Not only that you were wrong but STUPIDLY wrong.
    If I wasn’t, just provide the evidence wrt 800ky sea ice. You are pitiful. Just admit you were mistaken.

  168. Michael Stone says:

    That’s the largest ice sheet on the planet but is not the only ice sheet on Antarctica…. I stand by what I originally posted which you decided to nit pick argue about.

  169. S Graves says:

    Which was….? Precisely what was your point and what does it mean?

  170. Michael Stone says:

    You sure do know how to make me feel better Gary, Thank you.
    I tried my best but the deniers won, we are vastly outnumbered.

  171. CB says:

    “Let me make a wild guess with 97% certainty….you are a Democrat, or at least hard left leaning”

    Nope.

    Republicans are absolutely suffering from some kind of mental illness! …and I think there is a self-destructive component to it.

    What besides a death wish would compel Republicans to deny climate science that says they’re in danger?

  172. DavidAppell says:

    “I think one would have to be crazy not to acknowledge a connexion between political affiliation and climate science denial.”

    Yes, but that doesn’t make it genetic.

  173. DavidAppell says:

    “Will you apologize for your BS on the death treats to scientists scam that you ran?”

    Do you mean for the death threat that was captured on video?
    http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2011/07/death-threat-captured-on-video.html

  174. CB says:

    Nonsense! They are vastly outnumbered.

    We are vastly under-funded…

    I got trapped in a Disqus spam filter, BTW. I had to abandon my account! I guess this will be my new one… :/

  175. DavidAppell says:

    “>Climate science doesn’t make predictions.
    What do you mean by this?”

    Climate models make projections, not predictions, because no one knows the future. So the exact amount of emissions from now to then is unknown — CO2 emissions, CH4, N2O, etc and aerosol emissions (for which one would need to know the location of the emissions as well). Or what large volcanoes will erupt between now and then, what ENSOs will happen (that appear stochastic), or when ocean cycles like the IPO and AMO will change phases, or what changes will take place with the Sun’s irradiance.

  176. willard says:

    > In short, we need more ideas, more debate, more disagreement if we are to make intelligent progress.

    Hence the need for Junior to popularize his ringtones over and over again, while not forgetting to marginalize the hawks in the same paragraph with the demonization victim card.

    Junior needs to perfect his climate war escapism.

  177. Michael Stone says:

    I dunno; you and I have been on threads where we were outnumbered 50 to 1.. Graves, slop, karbunkus, me-me-moony, common sense none, and a bunch more… LOL.

  178. CB says:

    Lol! Well, yeah, trolling the neofascist fever swamp we might be outnumbered… but even there, the posts are copious, but the commenters are not. Graves himself is responsible for maybe 50% of the posts on any one board… posting over and over again the same idiotic nonsense…

    Go to a site like Mojo and you’ve got a far more diverse pool of people absolutely destroying them from every direction simultaneously.

  179. S Graves says:

    You’re joking…right? The protester was actually threatening Schellnhuber’s life? Is that your claim?

    Yes…LYM is nonsense. Their efforts at the Schellnhuber event to demonstrate that his positions on population control are Bertrend Russellesque were ill advised, at best. The point of the so-called protester was that it is Schellnhuber himself who is the executioner by virtue of these proposed polices on population control. But your response makes it clear that you continue you nonsense.

    But to answer your question…NO…I was addressing the death threats you claimed that were addressed by Chubb; “For the record, there were no alleged death threats except when journalists picked up the story.”

  180. Michael Stone says:

    I must be losing my mind by wasting my time to answer your dumazz comments in replies to me… I’ll try to ignore you from now on.

  181. Michael Stone says:

    Hi CB… I wish to say something jus between you and me. I believe Graves has a valid point that you did err. It is a minor misspeak deal but he keeps harping on it as he stalks you and replies to every post you write.
    To paraphrase you once wrote, there has never been a time in Earth’s history were the polar ice caps withstood an atmospheric CO2 level above 400 pm. you write 34 millions years ago polar ice caps formed when atmospheric CO2 levels were twice as high as they are today. I believe you meant to say never in Earth’s (*recorded*) history have polar ice caps survived with atmospheric CO2 levels above 400 ppm.
    The next time h replies with his crap, just reply and explain you misspoke and meant never in Earth’s (*recorded*) history and never during the past 800,000 years… Shut him off instead of ignoring his rants.

  182. DavidAppell says:

    Everyone knows what a noose means.

  183. CB says:

    I could have been incorrect when I stated the polar ice caps formed at levels of CO₂ between 600 and 700PPM 34 million years ago. Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t. The geological record is not clear enough to pinpoint the level exactly.

    What is clear is that this was a transitional period when CO₂ was dropping precipitously from thousands of PPM to levels under 290PPM. Before the transition, there were no ice caps. After, there were. That, in itself, is significant to me. If Graves wants to focus maniacally on a tiny, transitional period and ignore the rest of Earth’s history, that’s fine, but he needs to provide some kind of peer-reviewed evidence to support his case, and he is simply not interested in doing that… so I will continue to ignore him until he does.

  184. Michael Stone says:

    Well I don’t blame you for ignoring him but thought you might be able to shut hi up, but come to think of it that is not very likely, he’s like a broken record with a solar powered battery.

  185. CB says:

    That looks like a good link!

    …but it doesn’t say what you’re pretending it says. Page 870 says this:

    “Anthropogenic forcings are very likely to have contributed to Arctic sea ice loss since 1979”

    http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter10_FINAL.pdf

    Do you always cite papers that suggest you’re lying?

    Have you any idea how many Climate Deniers behave in this strange fashion?

    If Climate Denialism weren’t a mental disorder, why should this be?

  186. Swood1000 says:

    As that freshwater enters the ocean around the continent of Antarctica it caused more winter sea ice to form than normally does as it is not saline as the ocean water is.

    In response to the above, I provided a reference to this IPCC statement:

    There is low confidence in the scientific understanding of the observed increase in Antarctic sea ice extent since 1979 owing to the incomplete and competing scientific explanations for the causes of change and low confidence in estimates of internal variability.

    Then you provided a quote about the Arctic as if that were relevant to the above. Why? What is the “strange fashion”? And what possible meaning could the following have under any view of the matter:

    If Climate Denialism weren’t a mental disorder, why should this be?

  187. Swood1000 says:

    From AR5 http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter10_FINAL.pdf, page 907:

    A question as recently as 6 years ago was whether the recent Arctic warming and sea ice loss was unique in the instrumental record and whether the observed trend would continue (Serreze et al., 2007). Arctic temperature anomalies in the 1930s were apparently as large as those in the 1990s and 2000s. There is still considerable discussion of the ultimate causes of the warm temperature anomalies that occurred in the Arctic in the 1920s and 1930s (Ahlmann, 1948; Veryard, 1963; Hegerl et al., 2007a, 2007b).

    Can you characterize your level of confidence that the current warming is different in kind from earlier warming (i.e., either that it will not recede as earlier warming did, or that there was no earlier warming similar to this)?

  188. CB says:

    My apologies! I didn’t see anything about Antarctic sea ice on that page. Next time you should probably quote the passage you’re referring to.

    The CO₂ we’ve already emitted has set the planet on a course toward the complete meltdown of Greenland, if Earth’s history is any indication… so why are you nitpicking confidence-levels in explanations for Antarctic sea ice instead of acknowledging the problem?

  189. CB says:

    Lol! Graves is a common attention troll. He feels no compulsion to make a point or an argument of any kind, but merely posts in order to see what kind of reaction he can get.

    These people are best ignored.

  190. Swood1000 says:

    What is the source of that graphic?

  191. Swood1000 says:

    “Therefore, we conclude that the current decadal mean temperature in Greenland has not exceeded the envelope of natural variability over the past 4000 years…” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011GL049444/pdf

    What is the basis for your confidence that the current warming is not similar to what we have seen before?

  192. CB says:

    “What is the basis for your confidence that the current warming is not similar to what we have seen before?”

    Because polar ice caps have never before in Earth’s history been able to withstand levels of CO₂ as high as we are pushing them. Preceding the Quaternary, a spike in CO₂ to just under 400PPM destroyed the ice on Greenland completely:

    http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/researchers-find-3-million-year-old-landscape-beneath-greenland-ice-sheet

  193. CB says:

    “What is the source of that graphic?”

    It’s a paper in Nature called “Convergent Cenozoic CO₂ History”:

    http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v4/n7/full/ngeo1186.html

  194. Swood1000 says:

    Preceding the Quaternary, a spike in CO? to just under 400PPM destroyed the ice on Greenland completely:

    But the link you included with this statement, http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/researchers-find-3-million-year-old-landscape-beneath-greenland-ice-sheet, flatly contradicts this:

    The new discovery indicates that even during the warmest periods since the ice sheet formed, the center of Greenland remained stable. “It’s likely that it did not fully melt at any time,” Bierman said. This allowed a tundra landscape to be locked away, unmodified, under ice through millions of years of global warming and cooling.

    “Some ice sheet models project that the Greenland Ice Sheet completely melted during previous interglacial periods. These data suggest that did not happen,” said co-author Tom Neumann, a cryospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.”

  195. Swood1000 says:

    And you never answered my question as to the Vostok data: if CO₂ was responsible for driving temperature up, then how could temperature fall when CO₂ remained at the same levels that supposedly drove temperature up, unless there were some other driver responsible? And if another driver was overpowering the CO₂ and causing temperature to fall, then why do we assume that the other driver did not cause temperature (and CO₂) to rise in the first place?

  196. OWilson says:

    The debate is over.
    They have abandoned “Global Warming” in favor of “climate change”.
    We can all now agree. The climate DOES change.

  197. CB says:

    “how could temperature fall when CO₂ remained at the same levels that supposedly drove temperature up, unless there were some other driver responsible?”

    There are other drivers, of course! This was never in question.

    The question was whether or not the human-caused increase in atmospheric CO₂ from 290PPM before the industrial revolution to 400PPM today can be overridden by other climate drivers, and the answer to that for any reasonable person is a resounding no!

    Here is 800,000 years of CO₂ concentrations from polar ice caps, going back to the oldest significant ice on Earth:

    ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/epica_domec/edc-co2-2008.txt

    Find me a single point where CO₂ goes over 400PPM.

    If polar ice caps can withstand CO₂ so high, why don’t they record a single instance of CO₂ so high?

    What does the term “multiple lines of converging evidence” mean?

  198. CB says:

    “the link you included to support this statement… flatly contradicts it”

    It might appear that way if you don’t actually read the article. The current Greenland ice sheet formed around 2.7 million years ago because of a drop in CO₂ which briefly peaked to just under 400PPM and then fell again. Their statement is that the ice has been stable since then. You can see the peak in the CO₂ signal which is correlated with an ice-free Greenland in the graph I’ve already given you.

  199. Michael Stone says:

    He must be tied up, hasn’t posted a thing for 2 days… Ya-hooooo ! 🙂

  200. S Graves says:

    Thank gawd.

  201. S Graves says:

    I give MS credit for finally bringing this issue to CB directly. Sky Hamster, though he said she was wrong on ice caps, didn’t have the integrity to do it. Thank you, MS.

    CB said above ” Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t. The geological record is not clear enough to pinpoint the level exactly”. She has just discounted the credibility of her claim. If the record is not clear enough to pinpoint “the level” then she CANNOT MAKE HER CLAIM that it never happened.

    Pearson, et. al, in Nature contradict her claim. I have cited it before. They find the record clear enough, contrary to CB’s unsupported claim.

    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7267/abs/nature08447.html

    “If Graves wants to focus maniacally on a tiny, transitional period and ignore the rest of Earth’s history…”. CB ADMITS once again that ice caps DID…or at least could have existed with relatively high CO2. So her claim “Because polar ice caps have never before in Earth’s history been able to withstand levels of CO₂ as high as we are pushing them.” is contradict once again in her own words. She admits it DID happen but she doesn’t think…in her own world and irrespective of the science…that is was important. Pathetic.
    She could say that it didn’t happen very often, etc., but she doesn’t. Just continues to lie.
    MS…you can just check her new identity and see that she has continued to spam the ice cap nonsense irrespective of her admissions here.

  202. S Graves says:

    MS…I give you credit for bringing the ice cap nonsense directly to CB’s attention. Sky Hamster also stated that she was wrong but didn’t have the integrity to do it.

    CB…you comments here should demonstrate the fallacy of your statement: “Because polar ice caps have never before in Earth’s history been able to withstand levels of CO₂ as high as we are pushing them.”

    First, you challenge the clarity of the “geological record.” You DO understand that if it’s not clear enough challenge your claim, it CANNOT be clear enough to support your claim.

    Next, you admit that ice caps may have formed at relatively high levels of CO2 but you don’t…in your own world…believe they were significant. ” If Graves wants to focus maniacally on a tiny, transitional period and ignore the rest of Earth’s history,” Since you admit they were there, you can’t now claim they didn’t exist just because you don’t like the fact.

    Pearson provides clear peer reviewed support to my position. You have provided ZERO but you own opinion, your irrelevant C Dome citation notwithstanding.

    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7267/abs/nature08447.html

    A second nature piece provides further support wrt the fact that the ice caps lasted for millions of years despite occasional instability.

    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v413/n6857/abs/413719a0.html
    Time to stop the nonsense, CB.

  203. S Graves says:

    As I say in response to CB below, you have demonstrated your sense of integrity by address the ice cap matter to CB directly. Thank you.

    She clearly attempts to further obfuscate and provides NO science…just a graph that she admits is unclear…to support her position. I have cited the Nature pieces to her before. Her claim “…he needs to provide some kind of peer-reviewed evidence to support his case…” is totally w/o merit. These two peer reviewed works clearly provide support to my challenge to her totally unsupported claim.

    Good of you to try to give her an out by virtue of her leaving out a word. She refused to take your generous way out and instead, as I have outlined in my response to here below, tried to obfuscate, accuse me of not providing science, etc. , all disingenuous. Then, in spite of her unqualified claim, she states that the ice caps I suggest may have formed…but they some how don’t count but refused to provide any science.

    Do you see any contradictions in her statements? My point is that if you make the CAGW case, you need to provide evidence for serious claims and not exaggerate. She fails wrt both. At least now you can see the two cases side by side…and the claims to the science. I’d be interested in hers…if she has any.

  204. Gary Slabaugh says:

    The climate scientists are studying TRENDS. One trend is ice loss as measured by mass – from the Antarctica as a whole and the sea ice attached to the continent in shelves, to the Arctic (both the Ocean and Greenland primarily) and from inland mountainous glaciers.

    This trend of ice loss, which is measured quantitatively and using direct measurements, does not rely exclusively on computer modeling.

    This trend of ice loss is evidence (not scientific proof or 100% certainty – which true science does not claim) for global warming with increased concentrations of man-made GHG’s forcing the change.

    Even with more study, more evidence, more exact quantitative analysis from the researchers and a more thorough synthesis of the science… current TRENDS can still be correctly identified.

  205. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I’m not very religious, but sometimes even bible verses are not that shabby.

    Ecclesiastes 9:11 Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.

  206. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Usually good articles will link to the scientific papers, as with the BBC article. If a blog link does not work, I can usually google the context to find the appropriate abstract. After reading several abstracts it’s time to think for oneself. But, as I have asserted elsewhere, the work of synthesis is scientific also – as in science is “a systematic body of knowledge: a systematically organized body of knowledge about a particular subject”

  207. S Graves says:

    Nonsense…but a clear demonstration of your efforts to attempt to fabricate a scary story from limited facts, facts that actually prove the contrary case. Hey…CAGW. You are not an honest broker…and stand guilty as accused. Pathetic.

  208. DavidAppell says:

    The person whose opinion counts the most saw it as a death threat:

    “Anger against scientists involved in the climate debate is reaching dangerous levels and it’s only a matter of time before one is murdered, says leading German physicist Hans Schellnhuber. …

    “While he was opening a recent climate conference in Melbourne, a man in the front row waved a noose at him. “I was confronted with a death threat when I gave my public lecture,” Professor Schellnhuber said.

    ““Somebody got to his feet and showed me a rope with a noose.

    ““He showed me this hangman’s rope and he said: ‘Mr Schellnhuber, welcome to Australia’.”

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/climate-anger-dangerous-says-german-physicist/story-e6frg6nf-1226095587105?nk=058faab6bb364f3ffe533d33b3cc6632

    Q.E.D.

  209. Swood1000 says:

    “What does the term “multiple lines of converging evidence” mean?”

    I think I understand your position to be that the evidence is so powerful that any person who fails to agree that a crisis situation exists must be either irrational, dishonest or ignorant.

    Can you give me your top five facts (or however many you wish) that prove not just warming but a crisis involving imminent catastrophic warming?

  210. S Graves says:

    Thank you for the thoughtful response w/o a single ad hominem.
    Can you point out how much ice there is and how rapidly it is melting? How long have the trends you cite been quantified?

  211. CB says:

    “any person who fails to agree that a crisis situation exists must be either irrational, dishonest or ignorant”

    Climate Deniers are suicidally mentally ill. They are actually trying to destroy the ecology they depend on for survival. It’s not possible for people to be ignorant of facts so plain at this point.

    “Can you give me your top five facts (or however many you wish) that prove not just warming but a crisis involving imminent catastrophic warming?”

    I just did. Scroll up.

    Check out quickly Arctic sea ice has moved towards zero if you want a timeline to disaster:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OBCXWAHo5I

  212. S Graves says:

    I infer that you believe this to be a “good article”.

    From your BBC story; “In the three sectors, this equates to losses of 134 billion tonnes, 3 billion tonnes, and 23 billion tonnes of ice per year, respectively.

    The East had been gaining ice in the previous study period, boosted by some exceptional snowfall, but it is now seen as broadly static in the new survey.”

    Yes, there is melting in the areas of the WAIS and Peninsula. Some 84% of Antarctic ice is in the EAIS. Would it have been a better article if the finding I quoted had been put into context? Should they have discussed error? It’s significant here and provides a statistical significance indistinguishable from zero for the EAIS…84% of all the ice is in the Antarctic.

    My point is that the losses in the Peninsula and WAIS have been going on for many years. The EAIS has been stable or gaining ice for most of that time. You have virtually NO date before the satellite era. If one wishes to make something scary out of that…like CB does…one can do so.

    You say: “science is “a systematic body of knowledge: a systematically organized body of knowledge about a particular subject…” What does the systematic body of knowledge say about polar melting causes and what can you predict. After all, successful prediction is critical in demonstrating a robust hypothesis. I assure you, the systematic body is not pointing in ONE direction. You have to make a leap of faith to believe otherwise.

  213. Swood1000 says:

    “Climate Deniers are suicidally mentally ill.”

    Then why are you here interacting with them? It seems remarkably heartless, like a person who, for his own entertainment, stops periodically to converse with the madman. How do you justify this?

  214. Swood1000 says:

    “Climate Deniers are suicidally mentally ill.”

    So you would say that authors of papers like this one: http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf (estimates a warming of 1.1±0.5 deg C for a doubling of CO₂), are not merely in error but are suicidally mentally ill, as is anyone who, for whatever reason, is caused by such a paper to entertain doubts about how imminent global warming is?

  215. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Generally I find argumentum ad hominem irksome, but I often respond to them in kind.

    The
    studies of loss/gain of ice mass was the main subject of the article in
    “The Behavior Analyst.” From the abstract and the body: “Glaciers
    serve as early indicators of climate change. Over the last
    35 years, our research team has recovered ice-core records of climatic
    and environmental variations from the polar regions and from
    low-latitude high-elevation ice fields from 16 countries… The world’s
    mountain glaciers and ice caps contain less than 4% of the
    world’s ice cover, but they provide invaluable information about changes
    in climate. Because glaciers are smaller and thinner than the polar ice
    sheets, their ratio of surface area to volume is much greater; thus,
    they respond more quickly to temperature changes. In addition, warming
    trends are amplified at higher altitudes where most glaciers are located
    (Bradley, Keimig, Diaz, & Hardy, 2009; Bradley, Vuille, Diaz, & Vergara, 2006).
    Thus, glaciers provide an early warning system of climate change; they
    are our ‘canaries in the coal mine’ …. Mountain glaciers nearly
    everywhere are retreating.”

    Your
    questions about the quantity of ice mass and the rate of ice melt is
    addressed by researching the key words “Ice-sheet balance climate
    change” see
    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v498/n7452/full/nature12238.html
    As for Antarctica Between 2010 and 2013, West Antarctica, East Antarctica, and the
    Antarctic Peninsula changed in mass by −134 ± 27, −3 ± 36, and −23 ± 18
    Gt yr−1, respectively. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL060111/abstract

    How long have the trends been quantified? About as long as the weight and the balance of empirical evidence with respect to man-made GHG’s forcing global warming has been around. The satellite measurements since the 1990’s have been a valuable tool. So too the synthesis of the research carried on by national and international scientific organizations.

  216. Gary Slabaugh says:

    My context of a “good article” (whether in a blog or from a magazine/journal) is that it provides links to the actual scientific papers. I’ll quote from the paper, therefore, instead of the BBC article: “At the continental scale, the most recent estimates of Antarctic ice sheet mass balance are based solely on satellite gravimetry surveys [Barletta and Bordoni, 2013; Velicogna and Wahr, 2013; Williams et al., 2014]. According to these studies, the rate of ice mass loss from Antarctica has increased progressively over the past decade and, between 2010 and 2012, fell in the approximate central range 105 to 130 Gt yr−1. Our survey puts the contemporary rate of Antarctic ice sheet mass loss at 159 ± 48 Gt yr−1, a value that, although larger, is nevertheless consistent given the spread of the gravimetry-based uncertainties (16 to 80 Gt yr−1).

    see http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL060111/full

    Note well that “the rate of ice loss from Antarctica has increased progressively…” This is from a scientific paper – not alarmist, not fanatical. This scientific statement is simply not consistent with your statement from above: “It’s significant here and provides a statistical significance indistinguishable from zero for the EAIS…” It seems to me that IF your claim about statistical significance with specific regard to East Antarctica is scientific or IF you believe that the scientists’ statistical claims are not scientific (that is that a change in mass of −3 ± 36 is statistically insignificant), that you ought to be submitting articles for inclusion in scientific journals, rather than only posting online commentary… not that your commentary is worthless, just not as worthy of consideration when juxtaposed against a scientific paper. You would agree with my assessment about your commentary vs articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, correct? If you disagree, why? Are you qualified to evaluate the statistical analysis and the science correctly? If so, how?

    You wrote “I assure you, the systematic body of knowledge [respecting climate change science I assume] is not pointing in ONE direction.” Your assurance notwithstanding, I will wait for multidisciplinary scientific evidence to be provided that the rate of ice loss is NOT increasing progressively in Antarctica, thereby falsifying the claim in the above scientific paper. The bigger picture answer has to do with global ice loss. What exactly is going on in East Antarctica? “In this study, we describe the causes and magnitude of recent extreme precipitation events along the East Antarctic coast that led to significant regional mass accumulations that partially compensate for some of the recent global ice mass losses that contribute to global sea level rise” see http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL053316/full

    Antarctica is of great interest to all students of climate change. This is true also of how East Antarctica compares and contrasts with ice from other regions. All this change of ice by mass, the increased vs decreased rate of melting, probable sea level rise due to global warming, changes in the ocean’s pH, etc will hopefully continue to be quantified and analyzed. But so far the quantitative analysis by the scientists regarding the East Antarctic ice sheet is both inconclusive and still showing a loss of mass – statistical significance or insignificance being more a layperson’s/amateur’s opinion rather than scientifically relevant. When or if it becomes statistically significant to the layman/amateur depends on many complex and chaotic factors, including scientific and statistical illiteracy. To suggest, however, that 75.5% or so of the earth’s ice is not showing statistically significant loss of mass from the time frame researched in these papers linked above is not the falsification of abrupt global warming (in geological terms) forced by increased concentrations of man-made GHG concentrations that deniers would like to make it out to be. Not that I’m tagging you as a denier or pegging you in declaring that falsification has occurred. In fact, increased precipitation in East Antarctica is predicted by global warming. Surprise! “In fact, parts of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet are thickening, especially deep in the interior, which contrasts strongly with the observed rapid thinning of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Shepherd et al. indicate that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet gained 14 ± 43 gigatonnes between 1992 and 2011. This is because precipitation in the interior increases under a generally warmer global climate.” see http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/antarctica/east-antarctic-ice-sheet/

    If your assertion is correct namely that “the East Antarctic ice sheet has been stable or gaining (mass?) for years (a better time frame would be much more helpful)” you should be able to provide a link to a scientific paper which supports your assertion. The quote you provided was not a link and did not suggest a time frame for the gain in mass. Is this a correct assessment from your perspective?

    Also, you wrote “You would have to make a leap of faith to believe [the systematic body of knowledge is pointing in one direction].” I believe that the systematic body of knowledge with respect to global warming is very unlikely to proceed smoothly in one direction … (hence the popular success of pseudo-scientific denial while claiming that the authentic science is on their side, the belief in “true believers” in global warming, the charge of “climate change fanaticism”, etc) …when attempting to integrate two highly complex and chaotic systems… namely human behavior (cognitive, habits, ethics, instincts, etc) and climate change (abrupt in geological terms, biogenic, geologic, pre-human historic vs current, etc). I wrote to you in another thread about integrating these two highly complex and chaotic systems, but did not get an appropriate response. Perhaps later. I think it’s probable that whatever integration occurs will go in several directions, science and pseudo-science being only two. I was convinced of this divergence between science and pseudo-science years ago when I read the book “Merchants of Doubt” and how “the same individuals who claim the science of global warming is “not settled” have also denied the truth about studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. ‘Doubt is our product,’ wrote one tobacco executive. These ‘experts’ supplied it.” I think that the leap of doubt for the “benefit” of popular denial of authentic science is well underway.

  217. S Graves says:

    Clearly he can misinterpret anything he wants. There are lots of alarmists who choose to fear things in their environments unjustifiably…especially if there is profit to be made from it…like CAGW fanatics.
    For example, you scare me. Are you actually threatening or am I making it up? I actually think you’re dangerous with your false accusations. According to your logic, I’m the one who counts.

  218. DavidAppell says:

    We disagree. But I don’t need to insult you because of it.

  219. DavidAppell says:

    The planet is now losing over a trillion tonnes of ice a year. The numbers, with sources, are here:

    http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-fast-is-planet-losing-ice.html

  220. S Graves says:

    Have the glaciers in your cited work advanced and receded in the past…w/o CAGW? What caused them to do so? Many glaciers have been receding since the end of the LIA? What did they do during the LIA? Why do we find organic material and even evidence of human habitation UNDER receding glaciers?

    WHAT “…empirical evidence with respect to man-made GHG’s forcing global warming…”? It’s modeling. There has been NO warming for 13-18 years wrt empirical evidence irrespective of the fact CO2 has continued to increase linearly. That’s the empirical fact.

    A paper published in the Journal of Climate finds a significant decrease in longwave infrared radiation from increasing greenhouse gases over the 14 year period 1996-2010 in the US Great Plains. CO2 levels increased ~7% over this period and according to AGW theory, downwelling IR should have instead increased over this
    period. According to the authors,

    “The AERI data record demonstrates that the downwelling infrared radiance is decreasing over this 14-yr period in the winter, summer, and autumn seasons but
    it is increasing in the spring; these trends are statistically significant and are primarily due to long-term change in the cloudiness above the site.”

    Gero, P. et. al, 2011: Long-Term Trends in Downwelling
    Spectral Infrared Radiance over the U.S. Southern Great Plains. J. Climate, 24, 4831–4843.

    The findings contradict the main tenet of AGW theory which states increasing greenhouse gases including the primary greenhouse gas water vapor and clouds will cause an increase of downwelling longwave infrared “back-radiation.”

  221. S Graves says:

    What blatant pandering…directing people to your nonsense blog. No class, Appell.

  222. S Graves says:

    How did I insult you?

  223. CB says:

    We are right out of time for this therapy session.

    Please let me know if I can find you mental health resources in your area.

    Remember, there’s no reason to struggle with suicidal feelings alone and nothing wrong with asking for help if you need it.

  224. CB says:

    “Then why are you here interacting with them?”

    I am interacting with you because you pose a danger to yourself and others, and I would like you to get better!

    I believe allowing you to air your self-destructive ideas in public helps wake you up to your sickness.

    What do you think? Is it helpful for you to express yourself?

    …or did you not realise you were afflicted?

  225. Willo Conner says:

    LOL….well said!

  226. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Did you even read the abstract from the
    paper I cited? No. If so, some of your questions about (1) the age of
    the glaciers and (2) organic and human activity prior to glaciation with
    respect to the current climate conditions and the conditions during the
    “little ice age” would have been answered. But I’ll do some quoting:
    “Ice cores retrieved from shrinking glaciers around the world confirm
    their continuous existence for periods ranging from hundreds of years to
    multiple millennia, suggesting that climatological conditions that
    dominate those regions today are different from those under which these
    ice fields originally accumulated and have been sustained. The current
    warming is therefore unusual when viewed from the millennial perspective
    provided by multiple lines of proxy evidence and the 160-year record of
    direct temperature measurements.” If you would like to contend with the
    author and attempt to falsify his scientific opinion that current
    climatological conditions have no statistical significant difference to
    the “little ice age”, be my guest. (Sarcasm alert) It would be interesting to see if your
    attempts at falsification and failure of a robust hypothesis to be
    predictive would pass muster with peer review of actual scientists with real credentials. A more likely scenario… just read
    the paper and if you can find genuine peer reviewed scientific articles
    published in bona fide scientific journals which contradict his
    conclusions, please cite them.

    Empirical evidence
    (measurements, not only modeling) with respect to man-made GHG emissions
    forcing global warming as follows:
    http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2014/20140717_stateoftheclimate.html
    Climate data from air, land, sea and ice in 2013 reflect trends of a
    warming planet – dated July 17,2014 – “In 2013, the vast majority of
    worldwide climate indicators—greenhouse
    gases, sea levels, global temperatures, etc.—continued to reflect
    trends of a warmer planet, according to the indicators assessed in the State of the Climate in 2013
    report, released online today by the American Meteorological
    Society…. The report uses dozens of climate indicators to track
    patterns,
    changes, and trends of the global climate system, including greenhouse

    gases; temperatures throughout the atmosphere, ocean, and land; cloud
    cover; sea level; ocean salinity; sea ice extent; and snow cover. These
    indicators often reflect many thousands of measurements from multiple
    independent datasets.”

    From
    http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch5s5-2-2-3.html
    “The increase in ocean heat content is much larger than any other store
    of energy in the Earth’s heat balance over the two periods 1961 to 2003
    and 1993 to 2003, and accounts for more than 90% of the possible
    increase in heat content of the Earth system during these periods. Ocean
    heat content variability is thus a critical variable for detecting the
    effects of the observed increase in greenhouse gases in the Earth’s
    atmosphere and for resolving the Earth’s overall energy balance.” You do
    realize that global warming would affect the oceans, right? The oceans
    are the major heat sink and carbon dioxide sink since they make up about
    71% of the Earth’s surface.

    Do you still desire to contend
    that NOAA and the IPCC are not scientific organizations? Do you think
    that they deceive the public about themselves on their respective
    websites? This is from “NOAA Scientific Integrity” – “Science is the
    foundation of all NOAA does. NOAA’s weather forecasts and
    warnings, nautical charts, climate information, fishing regulations,
    coastal management recommendations, and satellites in the sky all
    depend on science. The quality of NOAA science is exemplary, and many
    of NOAA’s scientists are recognized as national and international
    experts in their fields.” Would you like to make some sort of a truth
    claim that the quality of NOAA science is in reality pseudo-scientific,
    political propaganda?

    What about the IPCC? “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for the
    assessment of climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and
    the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
    in 1988 to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the
    current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential
    environmental and socio-economic impacts… The IPCC is a scientific
    body under the auspices of the United Nations
    (UN). It reviews and assesses the most recent scientific, technical
    and socio-economic information produced worldwide relevant to the
    understanding of climate change…Review is an essential part of the
    IPCC process, to ensure an objective and complete
    assessment of current information. IPCC aims to reflect a range of
    views and expertise… Because of its scientific and intergovernmental
    nature, the IPCC embodies a
    unique opportunity to provide rigorous and balanced scientific
    information to
    decision makers.” Are you sure that your stand which you have
    stated “I have a stand. That is to question concepts put forth by true
    believers…where the science warrants…and challenge actual factual
    misstatements” warrants the belief that the IPCC is not a scientific
    body even though “it does not
    conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or
    parameters.”

    Most importantly, I looked up the abstract to
    the paper you cited. The authors of the paper flatly contradict the
    statement when you wrote “The findings contradict the main tenet of AGW
    theory …” when they write in their abstract “Given the decadal
    time span of the dataset, effects from natural
    variability should be considered in drawing broader conclusions.
    Nevertheless, this data set has high value due to the ability to infer
    possible mechanisms for any trends from the observations themselves, and
    to test the performance of climate models.” What exactly are the
    “effects from natural variability” and the “possible mechanisms for any
    trends from the observations” you considered before drawing a broader conclusion? (Sarcasm
    alert, but not an ad hominem) Seeing that you discovered a contradiction
    of the main tenet of anthropogenic global warming warrants a scientific
    paper for sure!

    Also testing the performance of
    climate models is one positive thing from the study you cited. I assumed
    that you disparaged modeling in favor of empirical evidence, yet you
    cite a paper that talks about “the high value of the data set to test
    the performance of climate models.” Hmmm. I guess that you are actually
    in favor of simulation experiments. Good news! The study you cited was
    also cited by Yi Huang. (2013) A Simulated Climatology of Spectrally Decomposed Atmospheric Infrared Radiation. Journal of Climate 26:5, 1702-1715. Online publication date: 1-Mar-2013. http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00438.1 The abstract states “A
    simulation experiment is conducted to inquire into the mean climate
    state and likely trends in atmospheric infrared radiation
    spectra…Tracing the longwave radiation flux vertically and spectrally
    renders
    a dissection of the greenhouse effect of the earth atmosphere and its
    change due to climate forcings and feedbacks. The results show that the
    total outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) at the top of the atmosphere
    (TOA) may be conserved due
    to 1) compensating temperature and opacity effects and 2) contrasting
    temperature changes in troposphere and stratosphere. The tightly coupled
    tropospheric temperature and opacity effects reduce the overall
    tropospheric contribution to OLR change to be comparable to the overall
    stratospheric contribution, which suggests that transient OLR change is
    constrained by the relative strengths of stratospheric and tropospheric
    temperature changes.The total OLR energy, however, is
    redistributed across its spectrum. The earliest detectable global
    climate change signal lies in the CO2 absorption bands, which results from stratospheric cooling and the CO2
    opacity effect. This signal can be detected much sooner than surface
    temperature change and is little affected by achievable instrument
    accuracy. In contrast, both tropospheric temperature
    and opacity effects increase downwelling longwave radiation (DLR), which
    makes DLR a verifiable aspect of global warming. The time it takes to
    detect surface DLR change roughly equals that of surface temperature
    change.” End quote. A verifiable aspect of global warming?! Who would
    have thunk?! “Measuring downwelling radiances at strong water vapor
    lines at the
    tropopause can particularly help monitor stratospheric water vapor.”
    Groovy!

    You are therefore contradicted by both the abstract
    in the work you cited, and also by another scientist who cites the
    paper. Would you care to explain how your broad interpretations of the
    findings do not agree with the findings of the actual researchers
    involved? Are you correct in your statement, but these researchers are wrong?

  227. Swood1000 says:

    Here’s another group of papers that estimates the climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO₂ to be in the neighborhood of or less than 1 deg C. Suicidally mentally ill all, along with anyone who allows these papers to raise the slightest doubt?

    Are these people also afflicted? Should they be told about your new therapy technique? Perhaps following the same approach they should be advised to write more papers, in order to “express” themselves and wake up from their sickness. Agreed?

  228. Swood1000 says:

    We are right out of time for this therapy session.

    I’m sorry I missed the session. However, for the next session could you explain some things to me?

    When I come across numerous studies by erudite scientists that conclude that the climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO₂ is warming of about 1 deg C, and when they say that they reach that conclusion, in part, by observing what the actual result has been of a doubling of CO₂, how do I go about ignoring this?

    And when I read in http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/upload/climate-seminar-transcript.pdf the statement of Dr. William Collins that

    “Now, I am hedging a bet because, to be honest with you, if the hiatus is still going on as of the sixth IPCC report, that report is going to have a large burden on its shoulders walking in the door, because recent literature has shown that the chances of having a hiatus of 20 years are vanishingly small.”

    how do I convince myself that since the existence of a hiatus was contradicted by CB, I must shut my eyes to it if I wish to get well?

  229. Michael Stone says:

    Hi Gary, excellent verse indeed. Here is another good one which would be appropriate for these GW Deniers.

    I Peter 3:10__ If you want to enjoy life and see many happy days, keep your tongue from speaking evil and your lips from telling lies. Turn away from evil and do good, search for peace and work to maintain it.

    In a few more years I suspect a lot of people will get religious.

  230. SkyHunter says:

    Most of your links are broken, but I am willing to discuss any peer-reviewed paper.

    BENGTSSON SCHWARTZ 2013 is an estimate of the lower bounds of climate sensitivity to be 1.16ºK

    I feel fairly confident that you have not read, nor could you comprehend the citations you copied from a dishonest source, but I would be happy to discuss the details with you.

  231. SkyHunter says:

    Schwartz is assuming an equilibrium response of 5 years for a century scale forcing. A more reasonable 15-20 years for equilibrium response yields an estimate closer to 3ºC per doubling.

  232. SkyHunter says:

    If you understand that +18Gt/yr and -31Gt/yr equals -15Gt.yr, why do you make your nonsense claims?

  233. Swood1000 says:

    Does this mean that, unlike CB (to whom the original post was addressed), you conclude that Schwartz is merely in error, and not suicidally mentally ill?

  234. Swood1000 says:

    Schwartz apparently revised it upward to 8.5 ± 2.5 years,

    “…corresponding to an equilibrium temperature increase for doubled CO2 of 1.9 ± 1.0 K, somewhat lower than the central estimate of the sensitivity given in the 2007 assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but consistent within the uncertainties of both estimates.” http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapCommentResponse.pdf

    Still off?

  235. Swood1000 says:

    I fixed the links – shouldn’t have followed each one with a semicolon.

  236. Swood1000 says:

    “the citations you copied from a dishonest source”

    Well, at least we’ve moved up from insane. Is the source dishonest because no honest source could conclude that a finding of a sensitivity of 1 degree C could be arrived at legitimately?

  237. SkyHunter says:

    Schwartz does not conclude that he has the correct climate sensitivity estimate. He simply presented a method of estimating climate sensitivity and published his results. So no, I do not believe he is mentally ill. I believe that the people who use his results, without acknowledging the caveats, are suffering from mental illness.

  238. Swood1000 says:

    I feel fairly confident that you have not read, nor could you comprehend the citations you copied…

    I would very much be interested in learning where these papers err. Is there an error that is common to all (or many) of them?

  239. SkyHunter says:

    Still not a full equilibrium response from the fast feedbacks.

    Here is the thing, he is using a simple zero dimensional energy balance model and assuming equilibrium response to forcing to be less than 10 years. While it is an interesting exercise, it is not a robust estimate of climate sensitivity.

  240. SkyHunter says:

    You obviously copy and pasted those links from an internet source who compiled them as ammunition for an info-war.

    There are a few estimates of climate sensitivity that are low, but none that are less than 1ºC. The Planck response alone is 1.2ºC.

    So pick the one you believe presents the strongest case for low climate sensitivity and I will be happy to discuss it.

  241. SkyHunter says:

    I just showed you that one of them does not conclude that climate sensitivity is lower than 1ºC. It concludes that the lower boundary of the estimate is greater than 1ºC

  242. Swood1000 says:

    “With these data, we obtain best estimates for…equilibrium climate sensitivity [of] 0.54 ± 0.14K…”

    It was 1.16K at the 95% confidence level, and even that was “in the neighborhood of” 1 deg C.

  243. Swood1000 says:

    “Well, at least we’ve moved up from insane.”

    But actually, to CB’s point, wouldn’t you have to say that a person who is being dishonest on this issue, and therefore knows the true nature of the crisis that exists, must be suicidal?

  244. Swood1000 says:

    “Schwartz does not conclude that he has the correct climate sensitivity estimate. He simply presented a method of estimating climate sensitivity…”

    So he is presenting a method of estimating climate sensitivity but we cannot infer that he believes his method arrives at a correct estimate of climate sensitivity?

  245. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Far from religion but very close for comfort is the scientist Stuart Kauffman. Check this out if you have the time and inclination. Peace!http://edge.org/conversation/beyond-reductionism-reinventing-the-sacred

  246. SkyHunter says:

    Obviously you have not read or comprehended the paper you cite. Nor have you read the responses to it.

    Since the various climate responses to forcing vary in lag time from days to centuries, his simple model and single lag constant is not a robust estimate of climate sensitivity.

  247. SkyHunter says:

    Why did you cut it off where you did?

    Are you deliberately obfuscating?

    With these data, we obtain best estimates for transient climate sensitivity 0.3990 ±0.07ºK (W m2) and equilibrium climate sensitivity 0.5490 ±0.14 K (W m2),

    For the transient response, (fast feedbacks with short lag times) they conclude (0.3990ºC x 3.7W/m2 = 1.4763ºC)

    For the equilibrium response it is (0.54ºC x 3.7W/m2 = 1.998ºC)

  248. S Graves says:

    Your Arctic number is bogus.
    That said, if we are loosing 1,000 cubic kilometers of ice per year, how long will it take us to loose 30,000,000?
    How much ice have we lost since the end of the last glaciation…10ky? Has it been good for the planet? Would you prefer the climate of 10-12ky?

  249. S Graves says:

    Is this an insult? Or just your opinion? “No, I don’t trust Chris Mooney, and never have. He writes “opinion journalism,” which isn’t journalism in my book.”

  250. S Graves says:

    GS…thanks for taking the time to post all of this. However, in a format like this one we aren’t going to prove the case one way or another.

    That said, here is why I just can’t combat what you say…because much of it just doesn’t make sense. I cut and pasted your comment below. You state that I didn’t cite a paper to support my positon…but, just above your criticism, YOU CITE the work. You have to know what I said is supported…right? You cite the supporting work.

    Shepherd
    et al. indicate that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet gained 14 ± 43 gigatonnes between 1992 and 2011. This is because precipitation in the interior increases under a generally warmer global climate.” see http://www.antarcticglaciers.o

    If your assertion is correct namely that “the East Antarctic ice sheet has been stable or gaining (mass?) for years (a better time frame would be
    much more helpful)” you should be able to provide a link to a scientific paper which supports your assertion. The quote you provided was not a
    link and did not suggest a time frame for the gain in mass. Is this a correct assessment from your perspective?

  251. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I agree. It’s getting too convoluted. One point is your assertion that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is either stable or gaining mass. But when the paper using CryoSat measurements showed an ice loss, you interpreted (as a layman/amateur) the loss as statistically insignificant. My point was to ask you about your credentials, as to why your conclusion of a slight loss of mass is insignificant has any merit or credibility. Otherwise it appears to be cherry picking data sets. My minor point was that your initial post itself referencing Shepherd et al did not include a link. I found the article without the link, so it’s only a minor quibble. A more serious quibble is the time frame indicated by Shepherd et al vs your ambiguous phrase “for years.” Also you might have included the Shepherd paper along with the CryoSat data if you desired to be truly impartial.

    The most important issue has to do with the stability of Antarctic ice in a globally warming planet. It’s most important to allow the science itself to inform us on whether the entire planet is warming, still in variable equilibrium, or cooling… based, not only on modeling – but also scientific methodology using a wide variety of quantitative measurements and analysis. You continue to assert that the planet is not warming, so I assume that you truly believe that the planet is still in a variable and natural equilibrium in spite of carbon dioxide emissions from modern industrial civilization. Or you truly believe that the planet is cooling. Care to take a stand? Are you neutral? What is the proper standard for coming to a conclusion?

    So… what would it take for you yourself to abandon your true belief and be persuaded by the climate science, climate scientists, and national/international agencies/panels/organizations that your true belief is actually false? What standard of evidence will it take for you to admit that global warming is real, when you truly believe that it is unreal. This is a fair question without ad hominem pettiness, right?

    S.G., at this juncture let’s simply cut to the chase. Okay? I have made several very important and pertinent points. #1 is that geologically abrupt changes in climate pose an existential threat to the biosphere. True or false? Secondly and thirdly, two highly complex and chaotic systems (human behavior and climate) are interactive. This interaction is causing hundreds of theoretical nuances which can be amateurishly objected to. I find the prospect of going through numerous objections mainly motivated by the sake of argument tedious and absurd. So I would simply ask to focus on the main issue, viz is anthropogenic global warming real? If the devil is in the details, are you expecting detailed analysis of every nuanced objection you can find?

    I don’t mind argument either; in fact I rather enjoy it. But not for its own sake. It has a goal, a purpose. My true belief in argumentation is that it is the art of persuasion. Perhaps with some people… perhaps even you… persuasion is simply not possible. This is why I asked you about a standard of evidence that would persuade/influence/convince you that you might be wrong, that you are not authentically testing ideas, that you yourself are not questioning your own true beliefs, that you are not thinking for yourself, that you are not questioning the authority of your subjective assumptions/biases/motivated reasoning. I’m not accusing you of doing this. I’m asking you what would it take for you to be convicted?

    Good luck coming up with something which is mutually beneficial instead of full of logical fallacies. Good luck to me too in any future replies.

  252. S Graves says:

    “The planet is now losing over a trillion tonnes of ice a year.”
    Your graph is clear wrt what the Arctic in “now” loosing. The current mass is above that of the 2010-11 low and probably will not equal it let alone the 12-13 low. You have moved the goal post from “now” to “trend”. Let me ask you, is this the usual thing CAGW advocates do when trying to make a point?

  253. DavidAppell says:

    You are talking about noise. I am talking about trends. (Trends are much more interesting.)

  254. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Proving something or another (if that’s the stated goal) is a Sisyphean task.

    The more realistic goal is to measure the accuracy of the theory in describing reality, or what is plausibly and credibly happening to the vast majority of rational (with a big emphasis on rational) observers.

    I think that from yours and my vantage points that we can agree that we are only observing the science, while it is the scientists themselves (through the epistemology) who are engaged in the authentic debate. This explains the difference of the nature of the scientific debate from the debate in the public square. The debate becomes chaotic when the population understands the meanings of words differently from their scientific context… words like “prove, uncertainty, probability, theory” … which demonstrate the depth and degree of scientific illiteracy among the hoi polloi.

    This has been a much more civil exchange. Thanks for your part.

  255. S Graves says:

    Statistical significance: the error factor was several times greater than the indicated ice loss. In other words, It’s a loss or maybe a significant gain. We don’t know because the methods are do not provide any better resolution. E.g., statistical significance is indistinguishable from zero.
    The planet has warmed since the end of the LIA. What we know is that the AGST does not demonstrate any but minute warming for well over a decade despite the linear increase in CO2. Many scientists, including top climate scientists, have attempted to explain the lack of predicted warming. There are now over different 20 explanations and a score of peer reviewed works. If climate science is to have any credibility, we need to do better. If we don’t know why warming stops…what DO we know?

  256. S Graves says:

    I’m talking about what you actually SAID above. You are attempting to obfuscate and misdirect.

    “The planet is NOW losing over a trillion tonnes of ice a year.” That’s not a TREND. You clearly said “now”. Tons of ice per year NOW is not a trend. You have constrained yourself in your own words to a temporal definition of THIS YEAR. If not, your comment is nonsense. Now losing a trillion tons per year is NOT a trend. Are you actually being serious? Are you really someone other than Appell?

  257. DavidAppell says:

    I disagree. But I don’t need to insult you over it.

  258. S Graves says:

    “The more realistic goal is to measure the accuracy of the theory in describing reality…” Yes, that is done by using your hypothesis to make valid predictions according to the definition of hypothesis. As we know, that has NOT happened wrt climate science, and especially AGW, as the CMIP5 ensemble demonstrates. They fail dismally to predict climate and warming.

    The IPCC briefly discussed the seriousness of the model-observation discrepancy in Chapter 9 of the 2013 report. It reports that over the 1998-2012 interval 111 out of 114 climate model runs over-predicted warming, achieving thereby, as it were, a 97% consensus.

    If your science does not provide robust predictive skill, something’s wrong. So…how do you base significant policy on such science? We need to know MUCH more.

  259. Gary Slabaugh says:

    AGST? Above Ground Storage Tank?

    The lack of predicted warming? Where and how is the heat imbalance or balance distributed? Consider oceans as heat sinks (deep and shallow), surface temps, troposphere, stratosphere, glacial/sea/Antarctic ice mass loss/gain, biomass and post a single peer reviewed scientific paper published in a scientific journal which concludes that the globe is not warming. Try entering the key words ” oceans, heat sink, energy” into your search engine and follow the links.

    As for negative three plus or minus thirty six being statistically indistinguishable from zero, maybe you could provide a reference for this assertion instead of an explanation which you expect to be taken as correct. (Just humor me; I don’t like accepting statistical analysis without references, thanks)

  260. S Graves says:

    If you ARE Appell, I actually complimented you. I think you’re more intellegent than you are pretending to be here.
    Your number of some 1,000 gt loss per year is NOT a trend. What is it you disagree with about that? It is the current annual loss according to your numbers. If I’m wrong, tell me how a single annual number for “now” is a trend. I believe you will need more that a single temporal data point to demonstrate a trend.

  261. S Graves says:

    Average global surface temperature.

    You chastise me for failing to give you citations. So, to make it easy on both of us and considering oceans as heat sinks (deep and shallow), surface temps, troposphere,stratosphere, glacial/sea/Antarctic ice mass loss/gain, biomass and post a single peer reviewed scientific paper published in a scientific journal which concludes all of the above conclude the glove is warming.

    EAIS: ” It remains unclear whether East Antarctica has been gaining or losing ice mass over the past 20 years,”

    Nature; Hanna, Zwally, et. al.; Volume: 498,Pages:51–59; (06 June 2013)

  262. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Hardly a chastening. I admitted quibble. (By the way, do you apply this “stand” of yours to your own misstatements? You challenged me to point out where you had lied. If you had, you wrote that you would admit it and apologize. I pointed it out where you had gone against your word – and demonstrated to you that it was apparent that you had not even read the abstract of the paper I presented – and told you that I expected no apology. I didn’t even receive an admission that you had lied. By your own standards by which you accused me, that makes you a serial liar. I point this out – admitting my motivated reasoning – because it is becoming apparent that you inconsistently apply your stand or standard, but don’t seem to accept it regarding your own behavior. Perhaps I’m wrong. But so far this is the way you are acting. I was also wondering if you think that you are always right? I realize that this is an aside, but it has bearing on the conversation.)

    Does the average global surface temperature when measuring global warming take the oceans as heat sinks into primary consideration? Yes, because the oceans make up a huge volume for heat exchange with the atmosphere. By the way, sometimes I don’t provide links, just as you do not, because, I assume, we both expect each other to do research. Or maybe you do not do research due to already having it all figured out. Do you already have it clearly understood in your own mind that there is still not sufficient evidence for you to make an informed judgment regarding the anthropogenic side of warming? Are you convinced that increasing the pre-industrial concentration of carbon dioxide from a natural variability of between 180 – 280 ppm to the post industrial concentration of over 400 ppm has not disrupted any equilibrium? Is simply what you are advocating is more debate, more study, no existential threat, no heuristics necessary?

    Anyway, to the details of your post. Are you prepared to fundamentally assert that since it is unclear whether the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) has been gaining or losing ice mass, you will remain either skeptical or outright doubtful that anthropogenic global warming is real and is happening? Yes or No? Is the EAIS your standard for evidence? ‘

  263. Gary Slabaugh says:

    The CMIP5 site (or the site I went to to research CMIP5 – I don’t recall) put “predictability” in quotation marks. Why? Maybe it’s because your statement “If your science does not provide robust predictive skill, something’s wrong” is in serious error. Maybe you are confusing the science of living systems (e.g. Gaia or earth systems science) with the science of the inanimate (e.g. Newtonian physics). There is a huge challenge to be predictive when examining highly complex and chaotic systems – even more so when those systems interact. That does not mean that the science studying highly complex and chaotic systems is actually pseudoscience if it’s not “predictive” as you seem to claim. Allow me to explain with a thought experiment. Imagine yourself at the end of the Cretacious. Could you or anyone or even the most intelligent, wise scientist, or Deep Thought – the super computer from the sci fi novel “Hitchhiker’s Guide” – have predicted the biodiversity prior to the advent of this sixth mass extinction? I assert an extremely high probability of an unequivocal answer of NO. Would that inability to predict invalidate the science of evolution via natural and sexual selection? the science of genetics? self organization? emergent complexity?

    You see SG, there are many robust scientific theories that lack the “predictive skill” that you write about that you seem to expect from the science of AGW. What do you think?

    As for “basing significant policy” that’s opening a political can of worms. I’m not interested in going there yet if it’s all the same to you. Maybe much later.

  264. Swood1000 says:

    Mea culpa! The site I got this from listed it on one page at 0.54C and on another page at 2C. I have since sent an inquiry to them asking WTF? Maybe there are some uncorrupted/sane personnel handling some of their web pages. But I have some questions for you.

    First, the charge has been made that the higher climate sensitivity figures would have produced much more warming than has been observed, and they simply hypothesize “aerosols” to the extent necessary to produce the observed warming. What is your response?

    Second, do you recognize the existence of a warming “hiatus” and if so (a) doesn’t this suggest that the models are inadequate, and (b) why shouldn’t we wait and see whether there is any actual warming of the kind predicted?

  265. Swood1000 says:

    How does one account for this? Is Schwartz (a) a simpleton, (b) not trying to demonstrate anything objectively useful, (c) a dupe, (d) insane, (e) corrupt, or (f) making reasonable assumptions, though ones different from the ones you would make?

  266. S Graves says:

    GS…you have resumed you “quibbling” hyperbole. It’s just too boring at this point.

    This might be interesting wrt the state of measurement of ocean heat content.

    http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/21/ocean-heat-content-uncertainties/

    Note that Pielke Sr. has advocated a more nuanced approach to AGW than just relying upon surfact warming, i.e., UHI, aerosols, land use changes, . He has been roundly attacked by the climate science insiders…Trenberth and others…for his views. All are now advocating more or less his expansive view, i.e., CO2 is only a factor. Pielke; “As I have summarized on the Climate Science weblog, humans activities do significantly alter the heat content of the climate system, although, based on the latest understanding, the radiative effect of CO2 has contributed, at most, only about 28% to the human-caused warming up to the present. The other 72% is still a result of human activities!”

    The condition of the EAIS simply serves as a standard example of the extent to which the blind followers of CAGW will go to spin the actual science. The behavior of ice is nuanced and not as simple as claiming that CAGW is melting it. The case of Kilimanjaro ice is an interesting example.

    It is quite clear that the EAIS is losing little if any ice…and may be gaining ice. Simply look at the error bars. The investigators are telling you something with the numbers, i.e., it’s not at all clear.

    I understand the science to be highly nuanced, as Pielke Sr. has found, if you read it…rather than it’s interpretations in biased sources.
    Our differences seem to lie in the fact that you believe and I question what “news” sources interpret the science to be.

  267. S Graves says:

    So much hyperbole. However, this is important. “”If your science does not provide robust predictive skill, something’s wrong” is in serious error.”

    You show no references to support your opinion that I am in error wrt the need for verifiable predictions. The need for predictive skill is inherent in the scientific method and the definition of scientific theory.

    From Wiki; “Any useful hypothesis will enable predictions, by reasoning including deductive reasoning. …
    If the predictions are not accessible by observation or experience, the hypothesis is not yet testable and so will remain to that extent unscientific in a strict sense.”

    This might help you further. From the definition of the SM from Live Science; “Form a hypothesis — a tentative description of what’s been observed, and make predictions based on that hypothesis.

    Test the hypothesis and predictions in an experiment that can be reproduced.”

    http://www.livescience.com/20896-science-scientific-method.html

    If we can get the basics straight, maybe we can proceed. But you are correct, I think, in your determination that the state of climate science does not rise to the level of a theory…or is definable under the scientific method. Lots of guesswork.

  268. Swood1000 says:

    I believe that the people who use his results, without acknowledging the caveats, are suffering from mental illness.

    Can you point me to his caveats?

  269. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I’m sorry if my quibbling about you lying is hyperbole to you.

    I am also sorry for asking you so many direct questions from which you are free to cherry pick. I apologize for expecting more honesty from you.

    Thanks for the link to Curry again. Again It’s not surprising that you have honed in on “the wicked problem” of uncertainty – both scientific uncertainty and its interpretation by the hoi polloi.

    I have also advocated a more nuanced approach re chaotic and complex systems. So I seem to be aligned with Pielke Sr wrt looking at more than carbon dioxide.

    If the EAIS is some standard for CAGW fanaticism, and you have me pegged as one of those fanatics or true believers… I would be more than content to limit all future discussion to the EAIS. Your true belief in CAGW fanaticism, what I see as a double standard plus your refusal to admit to it, and your past dishonesty makes the prospect of discussing “wicked problems” or “the devil in the details” wholly less than appealing.

    Also our differences seem to hone in on how the science is being interpreted by scientists. You make it out to what I believe in the “news” (whereas you question) but I believe it is about the science itself and your tendency to cherry pick the questions. That’s a pity.

    As we are agreed, an internet forum is not going to prove anything. What I am trying to do is see how the theory describes reality. If this is not good enough for you, you are not my problem.

  270. S Graves says:

    Since your first paragraph resorted to such blatant condescension, I didn’t bother to read the rest.

  271. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I think you seriously misunderstand the term “robust predictive skill” when it applies to highly complex and chaotic systems. If my thought experiment was too much “hyperbole” for you, to me it simply demonstrates your lack of imagination respecting the science. This is another issue that is not going to be resolved via internet debate.

    But I’ll work on it and get back to you. It may be that I don’t know, and I’m not afraid to admit it.

    There just seems to be something paradoxical about being able to have “robust predictive skill” where chaos, uncertainty, complexity create many nuanced arguments. The same seems to be true for evolution.

    If you want a link, here is something that may be of interest to one who has a passion for uncertainty – that wicked problem, that devilishly detailed undetermined causality/randomness/contingency. Oh well, no doubt this attempt will be casually dismissed as well.

    As I said, I will get back to you over the important issue of “robust predictive analytics.”

    Here is the link; let me know what you think from three point of view of impartial uncertainty if you please. Thanks in advance. http://edge.org/conversation/beyond-reductionism-reinventing-the-sacred

    Speaking of opacity, have you read any of Nassim N. Taleb? “Antifragile” might be worth a gander. Or not. Whatever your personal inclination, intentions, volition. Later

    PS – in my opinion the experiment is what human civilization has been, is, and will continue to do until civilization collapses. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.”

    Later x2

  272. SkyHunter says:

    Aerosols are element that add the most uncertainty to estimates of climate sensitivity. I believe human aerosol emissions are a negative forcing, and explain the radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere fairly well, but are only a small element in the overall system.

    The “hiatus” is in the GMST (global mean surface temperature) and lower troposphere. The TOA imbalance is still about 0.5W/m2, the ice is still melting and the oceans are still warming. A slowing in the GMST trend of less than 30 years is statistically insignificant, since the bulk (<90%) of the climates heat is in the oceans.

  273. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Your loss

  274. SkyHunter says:

    This is how science is done. Even though his estimate is not robust, he had an idea and he followed through. The community evaluated it and found it lacking. But that doesn’t mean that it was not worth the exercise. It was a intriguing way of looking at climate sensitivity, and is helpful if for no other reason that it demonstrates the limitations of the methodology.

  275. SkyHunter says:

    Here an initial attempt is made to determine climate sensitivity through energy balance considerations that are based on the time dependence of GMST and ocean heat content over the period for which instrumental measurements are available

    A potential concern with evaluating global ocean heat capacity as (dH/dt)/(dTs/dt) that is manifested in Figure 2 arises from the relatively large fluctuation in ocean heat content compared to that in the temperature anomaly data series.

    And his margin of error is only one sigma instead of two, not a very robust finding.

    He is attempting to refine the estimate of climate sensitivity. So far he has not succeeded, but I see no reason to poo poo his efforts, or to taut them as proof of low climate sensitivity.

  276. Gary Slabaugh says:

    How can I be condescending, Oh morally & intellectually superior & integrous one? You already truly believe you are better than me and have backed up your authentic belief with your incorruptible words. Do you want your quote with an approximate date from disqus notices? Too bad. Look it up yourself, Oh accusing one 🙂

    This was with my sarcasm (as now) notwithstanding, remember?

    Lighten up, SG! Sincerely, GS

  277. Swood1000 says:

    “A slowing in the GMST trend of less than 30 years is statistically insignificant…”

    Is it 17 or 20 or 30?

    “Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.” – B. D. Santer, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011JD016263/abstract

    “Now, I am hedging a bet because, to be honest with you, if the hiatus is still going on as of the sixth IPCC report, that report is going to have a large burden on its shoulders walking in the door, because recent literature has shown that the chances of having a hiatus of 20 years are vanishingly small.” William Collins, director of the Center at LBNL for Integrative Modeling of the Earth System (CLIMES) at the Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory, and a Lead Author on the Fourth and Fifth Assessment of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/upload/climate-seminar-transcript.pdf, page 92.

  278. Swood1000 says:

    The “hiatus” is in the GMST (global mean surface temperature) and lower troposphere. The TOA imbalance is still about 0.5W/m2, the ice is still melting and the oceans are still warming.

    But why do we have confidence in the models if the predictions they make are shown to be not reliable?

  279. S Graves says:

    “…to me it simply demonstrates your lack of imagination respecting the science…”. Again, so condescending and self-centered.

    “There just seems to be something paradoxical about being able to have “robust predictive skill” where chaos, uncertainty, complexity create many nuanced arguments.”
    PRECISELY, GS! Greedy reductionism. CO2 as the cause of CAGW and all but discounting other forcings fits the definition. The blind followers of CAGW that we see on these boards believe just that and are obsessed with CO2.

  280. S Graves says:

    What’s the loss of nothing?

  281. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Obviously you’ll never know Mr Know-It-All 😉

  282. Swood1000 says:

    “…and the oceans are still warming…”

    But the predicted heat that did not materialize did not go into the ocean, right?www.pas.rochester.edu/~douglass/papers/KD_InPress_final.pdf

  283. Swood1000 says:

    “the ice is still melting”

    Yes in the Arctic but not Antarctic sea ice and not in East Antarctica. Since the models predicted that the warming would affect the Polar regions the most you can surely appreciate how this might lead some to wonder whether the models are ready for prime time.

  284. S Graves says:

    You pose and entertaining logical fallacy. If I know it all…I already know it. But you know that.

  285. Swood1000 says:

    ”Aerosols are element that add the most uncertainty to estimates of climate sensitivity.”

    Don’t you think it’s natural that articles like the following would cause the average person to conclude that the question of climate sensitivity is not quite the closed issue that some would suggest?

    According to current best estimates of climate sensitivity, the amount of CO2 and other heat-trapping gases added to Earth’s atmosphere since humanity began burning fossil fuels on a significant scale during the industrial period would be expected to result in a mean global temperature rise of 3.8°F-well more than the 1.4°F increase that has been observed for this time span. Schwartz’s analysis attributes the reasons for this discrepancy to a possible mix of two major factors: 1) Earth’s climate may be less sensitive to rising greenhouse gases than currently assumed and/or 2) reflection of sunlight by haze particles in the atmosphere may be offsetting some of the expected warming.

    “Because of present uncertainties in climate sensitivity and the enhanced reflectivity of haze particles,” said Schwartz, “it is impossible to accurately assign weights to the relative contributions of these two factors. This has major implications for understanding of Earth’s climate and how the world will meet its future energy needs.” http://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=11067

  286. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Many people might lack imagination – or artistic talent for that matter. Consider this quote: “Do you realize that people don’t know how to read Kafka simply because
    they want to decipher him? Instead of letting themselves be carried away
    by his unequaled imagination, they look for allegories — and come up
    with nothing but clichés: life is absurd (or it is not absurd), God is
    beyond reach (or within reach), etc. You can understand nothing about
    art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination
    is a value in itself.”


    Milan Kundera

    So I got something precisely correct when writing about paradox, predictive analytics, chaos, uncertainty, nuanced argument. OK. But then why the straw man response, namely that those who accept the scientific interpretation of the science that AGW is real are reductionists, catastophists, blind followers, obsessed?? Why, oh why??? The irony!! the incongruity!!! [expression of mock horror]

    Lighten up SG.

    I read up on Roger A. Pielke, Sr (a meteorologist, not climatologist – but what the heck) who wrote: “As I have summarized on the Climate Science weblog, humans activities
    do significantly alter the heat content of the climate system,
    although, based on the latest understanding, the radiative effect of CO2
    has contributed, at most, only about 28% to the human-caused warming up
    to the present. The other 72% is still a result of human activities!”

    What is your evidence for carbon dioxide as the one and only forcing being discussed by the obsessed? What is your evidence that the other forcings are all but being discounted? If there are other forcings that predominate man-made carbon dioxide emissions from industrial civilization, by all means, identify them and discuss them. (I have read a little about methane from raising cattle for milk and for slaughter. How predominant is this form of methane as a forcing and also produced by human agribusiness? Greater than CO2? Less than? What is the number one human-caused warming forcing? /s Not the sun!) If you wish to discuss other forcings that still account for the other 72% of anthropogenic warming (according to Pielke Sr) up to the present… let’s go for it. I’m game!!

    Later SG, Yours truly GS

    PS. I eliminated some snarky comments, but decided to include this one. Please don’t take it personally, as you dismiss many other of my commentary:
    Maybe you DO suffer from a lack of imagination. Nothing self-centered
    or condescending on my part about a possible, probable or very low
    uncertainty of you having this problem. Just goading you again. Is this
    unprofessional? I have not admitted to being or acting professionally.
    On the contrary I have consistently portrayed myself as an amateur and
    layman who is not above using ridicule. So what?! You do too, correct?
    Lighten up.

  287. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I think you meant “logical paradox” instead of “logical fallacy” – but since you already knew this I must assume that you are only testing me, like a cat playing with a mouse Oh Megalopsychos

  288. SkyHunter says:

    Santer et. al. analyze 32 years of satellite data and determine that they can identify an AGW signal in the lower troposphere with a minimum 17 years of data of the data.

    1) The lower troposphere is heated primarily by sea surface emission. Which means that it is a secondary line of evidence.

    2) Many ocean cycles are 30, 60, or even 100 year cycles.

    3) The past is no predictor of the future, since the last time the oceans warmed this fast was at the beginning of the Holocene.

    There is still a clear warming trend in the GMST. This past June was the hottest June ever, the first half of this year is tied with 2002 as the third warmest six month period,and there is an 80% chance of an El Nino event this fall. This year and the next will make that trend even clearer.

    The oceans are the climates thermal mass. And the oceans are gaining a lot of heat.

    http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content2000m.png

  289. SkyHunter says:

    They can’t predict what the conditions will be in the future, but they can reproduce the past when fed historical numbers. That they could not predict the extended negative cycle in the ENSO index is no reflection on their skill. They were never intended to predict ENSO cycles.

    Instead of randomly generated values for things like volcanic eruptions, and periodic ocean cycles such as ENSO, AMO, and PDO, use the historical values and the models perform with great skill. Recently a team did just that and reproduced the “hiatus.”

  290. SkyHunter says:

    Now you have touched on the heart of why Schwartz’s efforts, while falling short, are still quite fruitful. The question of climate sensitivity is still open.

    A 3.8ºF rise in temperature would indicate a climate sensitivity of 4.11ºC/doubling That is at the high end of the estimate. He must be exaggerating, using hyperbole, not very science like.

  291. SkyHunter says:

    The sea ice is a very tiny portion of the cryosphere, and the extent is an even less robust measure of sea ice than mass.

    Antarctica’s sea ice is growing because the land ice is melting, freshening the surrounding ocean, making it more susceptible to freezing.

    Many models predicted Antarctica’s ice mass balance to increase, instead it is decreasing, faster than any model predicted. The Antarctic climate is also being effected by the loss of ozone from CFC transported chlorine. No ozone, no stratospheric heating, no tropopause, weird stuff happening down there, hard to predict.

    The AGW theory is premised on well understood physics. Models are mathematical tools. Computers just allow us to run the calculations faster with greater accuracy.

  292. SkyHunter says:

    That paper was debunked before it was ever published.

    They cherry picked the data (top 700 meters). They estimate the flux imbalance from 2002-2008 to be 0.036W/m2, when the five year running mean shows a 0.30W/m2, an order of magnitude greater than their estimate.

    You will need something better than that to challenge NOAA’s data.

  293. S Graves says:

    Roger A. Pielke, Sr. (born October 22, 1946) is an American meteorologist with interests in climate variability and climate change, environmental vulnerability, numerical modeling, atmospheric dynamics, land/ocean – atmosphere interactions, and large eddy/turbulent boundary layer modeling. He particularly focuses on mesoscale weather and climate processes but also investigates on the global, regional, and microscale. Pielke is an ISI Highly Cited Researcher.

    I suppose a meteorologist who specializes in matters climate is a as good as a chemist or astrophysicist who dabbles in climate science.

    “… the radiative effect of CO2
    has contributed, at most, only about 28% to the human-caused warming up
    to the present.” You quoted this. Do you think it makes sense? If anywhere near correct it would mean the CO2 accounts for no more than about 0.3C in the last 150 years. Not much to worry about. So all is good…right?
    Ridicule? No…actually I’m bored with it now.

  294. S Graves says:

    Tautology.

  295. Gary Slabaugh says:

    No. I agree about three boring part when you really didn’t respond to the post very effectively. You really didn’t reply well, did you AT? These types of responses on your part, I agree, are uninspiring. Not on your usual form, Oh Magnanimous One? 🙂

    I actually quoted Pielke Sr from the same article you probably quoted from about him. Better to discuss what he’s said, right SG? It’s more substantial. What about the other human caused effects forcing warming? I’m not being a CO2 fanatic obsessed with it being the one & only forcing. Come on, SG, I want to discuss the more predominant forcing than CO2 as a GHG!! Why don’t you?

  296. Gary Slabaugh says:

    [breaks out in song] You say toe-MAY-ta, I say ta-MAH-toe; I say pa-TAY-toe, you say pa-TAH-toe…

  297. S Graves says:

    Yes…so we agree. CO2 is a false gawd for the true believers to hang their hats on. I think we’ve settled it.

  298. S Graves says:

    Yes…so I think we’re done now. So we can wander off.

  299. Gary Slabaugh says:

    But you withdraw from the other human effects (other than the CO2 idol) forcing human caused warming (as explained by Pielke Sr)… declaring it’s settled. This is insipid. I expected better. Mea culpa

  300. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Later SG, Sincerely GS

  301. S Graves says:

    But you have agreed. Now you’re back to your obsessive goading in hopes of keeping yourself somehow relevant. But you aren’t…because I’m going somewhere interesting.

  302. Gary Slabaugh says:

    More obfuscation and disingenuous replies. You have lost any relevance re Pielke. I did expect better of you following up on Pielke Sr’s remarks. Alas. Such is life when having unrealistic expectations of one’s betters, Oh Magnificent Souled One.

    /s My bad again, putting you on a pedestal up there with omnipotent CO2 🙂

  303. Gary Slabaugh says:

    http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2310.html

    Giving you a link is probably a waste of time. Within chaotic and complex systems there will always be a degree of uncertainty. Karl Popper wrote that science was a quest for truth not certainty. Regarding the complex and chaotic system of human cognitive behavior, there will always be those “outliers” who are convinced by fallacy and paradox the certainty of their uncertainty.

    I doubt that this dialogue will go on much longer.

  304. Swood1000 says:

    ”A slowing in the GMST trend of less than 30 years is statistically insignificant…”

    Just to clarify, this is contradicted by the statement of Dr. Collins, correct?

  305. Swood1000 says:

    Antarctica’s sea ice is growing because the land ice is melting, freshening the surrounding ocean, making it more susceptible to freezing.

    Possible, but the IPCC has “low confidence” in that explanation.

    “Overall we conclude that there is low confidence in the scientific understanding of the observed increase in Antarctic sea ice extent since 1979, due the larger differences between sea-ice simulations from CMIP5 models and to the incomplete and competing scientific explanations for the causes of change and low confidence in estimates of internal variability.” http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter10_FINAL.pdf, page 870.

  306. Swood1000 says:

    but they can reproduce the past when fed historical numbers

    I thought that they were unable to reproduce the “Medieval Warm Period” or the “Little Ice Age.”

  307. Swood1000 says:

    “That they could not predict the extended negative cycle in the ENSO index is no reflection on their skill. They were never intended to predict ENSO cycles.”

    So, climate is too complicated for anyone to expect that models could predict ENSO, AMO and PDO cycles but the models accurately predict and take into consideration every other important variable. Is that your position?

  308. Swood1000 says:

    “They can’t predict what the conditions will be in the future…”

    Those who doubt do so for this reason.

  309. SkyHunter says:

    The models are to predict what will happen given a certain scenario. If the scenario is not the same, the projection will not be the same.

  310. SkyHunter says:

    Why do you think that?

    We don’t have the same amount of historical data that far back, but the models can hindcast quite well. In fact that is how they are tuned and their skill measured.

  311. SkyHunter says:

    Very little research at the time of publication, the trend was very small until the last few years. The confidence is growing with more research that the surface waters around Antarctica are freshening. Fresher water freezes at a higher temperature.

  312. SkyHunter says:

    No. Dr. Collins was able to detect the AGW signal in 17 years out of 32, but that does not mean he could so it with a longer dataset.

    So while it is possible, the last 17 years is statistically insignificant, since the margin of error is greater than the signal.

  313. Swood1000 says:

    “Over the MCA alone, however, the effect of forcing is only detectable in about half of the reconstructions considered, and the response to forcing in the models cannot explain the warm conditions around 1000 CE seen in some reconstructions.” – Mann et al., http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00826.1?af=R

  314. Swood1000 says:

    No, Dr. Collins is the one who made the statement about the hiatus going on for 20 years.

    “Now, I am hedging a bet because, to be honest with you, if the hiatus is still going on as of the sixth IPCC report, that report is going to have a large burden on its shoulders walking in the door, because recent literature has shown that the chances of having a hiatus of 20 years are vanishingly small.” William Collins, director of the Center at LBNL for Integrative Modeling of the Earth System (CLIMES) at the Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory, and a Lead Author on the Fourth and Fifth Assessment of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/upload/climate-seminar-transcript.pdf, page 92.

  315. Swood1000 says:

    Here’s one (January, 2014) that says it’s due to wind:
    http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00139.1

    What makes you believe that confidence is growing that it is caused by melting land ice?

  316. Swood1000 says:

    But isn’t that the crux of the problem? Whether we call it a “scenario” or future “conditions,” that we have no way of predicting what the scenario will be, so we cannot make accurate predictions?

  317. Swood1000 says:

    “A 3.8ºF rise in temperature would indicate a climate sensitivity of 4.11ºC/doubling”

    How do you arrive at that? 3.8ºF is 2.1ºC. If we’ve had the equivalent of an 85% increase in CO₂ then that is a climate sensitivity of 2.48ºC/doubling. No?

  318. SkyHunter says:

    By using the standard radiative forcing and climate sensitivity equations. That is how.

    dF = 5.35 ln(C/Co) — to get the value for radiative forcing at the tropopause.

    F = RF at tropopause 5.35 is the value from Myhre 1998. C is present day CO2, Co is preindustrial.

    dT = λ*dF — to get the surface temperature response to the forcing.

    T is temperature F is RF and λ is climate sensitivity in degrees Celsius per W/m2.

    If Co is 280ppm, and C is 400, the forcing at the tropopause is 1.90821095007, or 1.91W/m2.

    Climate sensitivity of 3ºC/doubling is 0.81ºC per 1W/m2 (3/3.7= 0.81)

    So 1.91 x 0.81 = 1.5471ºC or 2.78478ºF

    I just worked backwards.

    3.81.8=2.11ºC
    2.11C/1.91 = 1.1ºC per 1W/m2

    1.1 x 3.7 = 4.09.

  319. SkyHunter says:

    But is it the models, the reconstructions, or a combination of both?

    Mann suggests:

    “The proxy reconstructions tend to show a smaller forced response than is simulated by the models. This discrepancy is shown, at least partly, to be likely associated with the difference in the response to large volcanic eruptions between reconstructions and model simulations.”

  320. SkyHunter says:

    The 20 year trend is 0.109ºC ±0.101ºC/decade at 2 sigma. Would you consider it to be statistically significant?

    The 30 year trend is 0.167ºC ±0.058ºC/decade at 2 sigma.

    That is a clear and statistically significant trend.

  321. SkyHunter says:

    I would beg to differ, Hansen’s early models were quite predictive, even with the higher 4W/m2 forcing for doubled CO2, and a higher climate sensitivity.

  322. Swood1000 says:

    The 20 year trend is 0.109ºC ±0.101ºC/decade at 2 sigma. Would you consider it to be statistically significant?

    My point is that an assertion of statistical insignificance is contradicted by what Dr. Collins said. Maybe he has different numbers in mind, but statistical insignificance would not equate to a “large burden” in the mind of Dr. Collins, don’t you agree?

  323. SkyHunter says:

    I do agree that a 20 year hiatus would be rare, but when the signal is smaller than the margin for error, it is very difficult to argue statistical significance. Therefore, Dr. Collins does not contradict the assertion of 30 years for robust statistical significance. During the last 20 years the trend is about equal to the margin of error, therefore it is not a particularly robust signal. The 25 year trend is 0.152ºC ±0.078ºC/decade, which is statistically significant.

    So while it may be possible to detect the AGW signal in some 17 year periods, a longer dataset reduces the uncertainty. Twenty five years may be sufficient in all cases, but 30 gives one much greater confidence in the results.

  324. Swood1000 says:

    But is it the models, the reconstructions, or a combination of both?

    You mean maybe there really was no Medieval Warm Period?

  325. Swood1000 says:

    Well, clearly your calculations and those of Dr. Collins must be different. Otherwise we are left with Dr. Collins referring to statistical insignificance as a “large burden.” His calculations must result in statistical significance for 20 years, correct?

  326. SkyHunter says:

    Well since we don’t have Dr. Collins calculations… we have no idea what he means by “large burden.”

    I am using a standard calculator and the GISS data, there is not much difference between datasets, but GISS extrapolates to infill under sampled areas with satellite data. I can’t imagine that Dr. Collins is doing anything different.

    There is a new paper just out that attributes the warming in the Atlantic to stronger Trade Winds in Pacific, which could explain why there has been a predominantly negative ENSO cycle.

    http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science/atlantic-warming-turbocharges-pacific-trade-winds-0

  327. SkyHunter says:

    Not at all, just that some reconstructions perhaps over estimate it’s global impact. It is quite visible in the Greenland ice cores, but not very pronounced in the Antarctic cores.

  328. S Graves says:

    Yes, we continue to agree. Wrt climate science, the degree of uncertainty is high.
    I am well aware of the Risbey paper. Curious that Lewandowsky, a psychologist, provided analysis of models and observations. I continue to wonder how Naomi Oreskes, a historian, got in the author line up. Well, she does work in science history. Her bio on TED begins “Naomi Oreskes is a historian of science who uses reason to fight climate change denial…”. No science degree between them. Fascinating. But I digress, as they say.
    What do you think the Risbey paper is telling us?

  329. Swood1000 says:

    Do you agree that if the hiatus is still going on as of the sixth IPCC report, that report is going to have a large burden on its shoulders walking in the door?

  330. Swood1000 says:

    But you will agree that to the extent that there was a Medieval Warm Period, “the models cannot explain the warm conditions”?

  331. SkyHunter says:

    Satellites measure incoming and outgoing radiation at the top of the atmosphere. More is coming in than is going out. The Earth is cooled by emission to space. The slowdown in the GMST trend means less emission.

    That longer the pause, the more heat the planet accumulates. I am confident that should such a scenario come to pass, scientists will have an explanation.

  332. SkyHunter says:

    Some models maybe.

  333. Swood1000 says:

    “A 3.8ºF rise in temperature would indicate a climate sensitivity of 4.11ºC/doubling”

    Schwartz is assuming that the “IPCC best estimate” climate sensitivity of 3K would have produced an increase in GMST of about 2.1K (assuming 70% instead of 85%). Did he miscalculate?

    “The more commonly used measure of climate sensitivity is the so-called CO₂ doubling temperature ΔT₂ₓ, the equilibrium temperature increase that would result from a sustained doubling of atmospheric CO₂. This quantity is related to S as ΔT₂ₓ = F₂ₓS, where F₂ₓ, the forcing by doubled CO₂, is approximately 3.7 W m⁻². Forcing by incremental concentrations of long-lived GHGs over the industrial period (to 2005) is about 2.6 W m⁻² (Fig. 1), which is roughly 70% of F₂ₓ. Such a forcing, together with the IPCC best estimate of ΔT₂ₓ (i.e., 3 K), would thus suggest that the increase in GMST should have been about 2.1 K, well in excess of the observed increase (Solomon et al. 2007) of about 0.8 K (Fig. 2).” http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/SchwartzJClimate10WhyHasnt.pdf,
    page 2454

  334. Gary Slabaugh says:

    No, we do not agree. Climate science is a highly complex and chaotic systems science with SOME areas of high degree of uncertainty. These “some areas” do NOT make climate science, as a whole, a highly uncertain body of knowledge. If you wish to maintain an opinion that the science itself has a high degree of uncertainty and you wish to increase instead of decrease that uncertainty in the minds of those you wish to influence or persuade… your wishes or desires are yours alone. Not mine.

    A multidisciplinary (defined as: combining or involving several academic disciplines or professional specializations in an approach to a topic or problem) approach to my oft referenced assertion about the interaction of two highly complex and chaotic systems OUGHT to be the rule, in my opinion, and not the exception. But I digress also.

    What do I think the Risbey paper is telling us? I think the following quote from the abstract is a good idea. “We present a more appropriate test of models where only those models
    with natural variability (represented by El Niño/Southern Oscillation)
    largely in phase with observations are selected from multi-model
    ensembles for comparison with observations.”

    With respect to models in general, I also asked Sky Hunter and got an excellent reply. As I suggested in another post, you are more than welcome to look up his reply to me. It is also on an open forum that can be referenced through disqus. The one thing, though, that stuck with me from Sky Hunter’s reply was that models tell us more about what they get wrong. I think that is a very cool and groovy idea. Modeling, instead of their predictive (telling the future) value, can demonstrate a better methodology for reducing uncertainty. That seems to be in harmony with the abstract as well.

  335. Swood1000 says:

    I am confident that should such a scenario come to pass, scientists will have an explanation.

    Faith in science is natural. Of course as you know, there are those who feel that, for some people, it has taken on some of the aspects of a religion. http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/2818/Crichton-Environmentalism-is-a-religion.aspx

    But I am having difficulty getting you to answer my question directly. Do you agree with Dr. Collins that, as things stand today, the chances of having a hiatus of 20 years are vanishingly small, or do you disagree with him? It appears that you have been telling me the latter but I would just like to confirm that.

  336. Swood1000 says:

    Some models maybe.

    It appears to be models generally.

    “Several of the reconstructions have periods during the LIA that are clearly colder in the reconstructions than in the models; equally, there are several reconstructions that have periods of the MCA which are significantly warmer in the reconstructions than in the model simulations. Neither of these features is present for every reconstruction, however, indicating that there is substantial uncertainty in the level to which the MCA and LIA can be reproduced due to external forcing (see also figure 4b).” http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/ghegerl/Schureretal_JCli.pdf, pp 19-20.

  337. Swood1000 says:

    They estimate the flux imbalance from 2002-2008 to be 0.036W/m2, when the five year running mean shows a 0.30W/m2, an order of magnitude greater than their estimate.

    I have searched for “.036” in the pdf and cannot find it. Can you tell me where you got this number?

  338. Swood1000 says:

    The slowdown in the GMST trend means less emission.

    I don’t follow this. A slowdown in warming would mean greater emission, if emission is responsible, would it not?

    That longer the pause, the more heat the planet accumulates.

    How is this the case? A pause means that the GMST is not increasing. This would be either because (a) not as much heat is getting in through the atmosphere, or (b) more heat is escaping, or (c) the heat is ending up in the ocean. But how can we say: X shows a pause and Y does not. Therefore we know that X is experiencing more heat accumulation than Y.

  339. SkyHunter says:

    If the surface is cooler, it emits less energy. If the incoming energy is the same, there is a greater net accumulation of heat.

    That is not what we are saying. If the surface is emitting less energy, then the troposphere will be cooler. This results in a greater net balance at the top of the atmosphere. Which means that the oceans are taking up the excess energy. This was not one the predicted response, the research data confirms it.

  340. S Graves says:

    SH makes a point. But maybe not what you think. It is clear from the generally failed model outputs that the inputs are in critical error. GIGO.

    It’s difficult if not impossible to craft a skillful model to demonstrate where you might be going when you don’t know where you actually are. So yes…clearly, the models tell us that the current state of the science is not yet adequate.

    Wrt to your answer to my question about what the paper tells us…you DO understand that they cherry picked 4 of some 18 models as demonstrating their findings. The criticisms go something like this; The spatial patterns of warming and cooling in the Pacific are dictated primarily by ENSO processes and climate models still can’t simulate the most basic of ENSO processes. Even if a few of the models created the warning and cooling spatial patterns by some freak occurrence, the models still do not (cannot) properly simulate ENSO processes. In that respect, the findings of Risbey et al. (2014) are pointless.

    Additionally, their claims that the very-small, cherry-picked subset of climate models provides good estimates of the spatial patterns of warming and cooling in the Pacific for the period of 1998-2012 are not supported by the data and model outputs they presented, so Risbey et al. (2014) failed to deliver.
    But after all, they did have a professor of psychology doing the model analysis.

  341. Swood1000 says:

    In Scenario A, Hansen’s predicted temperature increase, from 1988 to 2012, was 0.9ºC, over four times higher than the actual increase of 0.22ºC.

    In Scenario B Hansen’s prediction was 0.75ºC, over three times higher than the actual increase of 0.22ºC.

    Scenario C assumed “a rapid curtailment of trace gas emissions such that the net climate forcing ceases to increase after the year 2000.” http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha02700w.html He was telling us that if we followed his advice this was going to be the good news. The Scenario C prediction was 0.29ºC, only 31% higher than the actual increase of 0.22ºC. So this one came closest to the truth, but of course there was no curtailment whatsoever of trace gas emissions after the year 2000.

    So I’m not sure I would call this “quite predictive.” More to the point is this graphic:

  342. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Or they did a meta-analysis of the models. You say cherry-picking.

  343. SkyHunter says:

    Where did you get a GMST increase of 0.22ºC?

    From 1988 to 2014 the trend has been 0.151ºC/decade, for an average increase of 0.3775ºC since 1988. Hansen’s Scenario B projected a warming trend of 0.26ºC/decade.

    Scenario B is the closest to the actual forcing, which is about 16% less, so actual emissions and temperatures are between B and C. Emissions are closer to Scenario B, while temperatures are closer to Scenario C. Hansen was also using the old estimate of 4W/m2 instead of 3.7W/m2, and climate sensitivity in the 1988 model was 4.2ºC. Considering the state of climate knowledge and the limitations of computational horse-power, Hansen’s model performed extremely well. With the updated estimate of forcing at the tropopause of 3.7W/m2 and a climate sensitivity of 3ºC, he would have been almost spot on. We learned more from what was wrong with Hansen’s model than what was right. That is the nature of science.

    BTW- That is tropical mid-troposphere. Hansen’s model output was GMST.

    The tropics between 20N and 20S includes the ENSO region, which has been on a predominantly negative cycle since the 1998 El Nino. Since the troposphere is heated by surface emission, a cooler tropical ocean surface emits less heat, which results in a cooler mid-troposphere temperature.

    Did you wonder why your source cherry-picked that region?

  344. S Graves says:

    Do you know what they actually did…methods?

  345. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Are you denying the validity of their methodology. If so, provide evidence. Not pulled from the ether, but from credible sources with real credentials that has been peer reviewed.

    Are you denying that they did what they claimed to do?”We present a more appropriate test of models where only those models
    with natural variability (represented by El Niño/Southern Oscillation)
    largely in phase with observations are selected from multi-model
    ensembles for comparison with observations.” Are you denying that this is a good idea for modeling?

  346. Swood1000 says:

    That is not what we are saying. If the surface is emitting less energy, then the troposphere will be cooler. This results in a greater net balance at the top of the atmosphere. Which means that the oceans are taking up the excess energy. This was not only the predicted response, the research data confirms it.

    Can you point me to a study or a discussion on this issue?

  347. Swood1000 says:

    “They cherry picked the data (top 700 meters).”

    The Hansen et al. paper, http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2005/2005_Hansen_etal_1.pdf, presents the NODC OHC data for 0-700 meters, not 0-2000 meters. Was he cherry picking?

    “They estimate the flux imbalance from 2002-2008 to be 0.036W/m2, when the five year running mean shows a 0.30W/m2, an order of magnitude greater than their estimate.”

    What is your source for this?

  348. SkyHunter says:

    We are discussing it.

    There are many facets here, which do you not understand?

    The upper atmosphere is warmed from the top down, primarily from UV absorption by ozone. The lower atmosphere is warmed from the bottom up by greenhouse gas absorption of IR.

  349. SkyHunter says:

    Hansen’s paper was published in 2005, before there was good data for below 700m.

  350. Swood1000 says:

    0.22⁰C for 2012 was arrived at by taking the midpoint between GISTEMP and HADCrut4, as plotted on the RealClimate graphic for 1988, and drawing an arrow to the same midpoint for 2012, and subtracting the (estimated) numbers.
    http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/hansen88.jpg

  351. Swood1000 says:

    They estimate the flux imbalance from 2002-2008 to be 0.036W/m2…

    What is your source for this? Can’t find it in http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~douglass/papers/KD_InPress_final.pdf

  352. SkyHunter says:

    That is a dishonest way of displaying the data. If he were being honest and objective he would have compared trend lines, not annual anomalies. But then, Watts is a famous liar so it is to be expected.

  353. Swood1000 says:

    Interesting. Here’s another discussion:  DotEarth

  354. S Graves says:

    Are you denying that the models cannot predict enso? Are you denying that your quote demonstrates that they cherry picked 4 models from a field of 18 that, e.g., randomly were “in phase” with ENSO?

    Good idea for modeling…yes, of course. Good to have a couple of your key authors w/o science degrees. Especially good to have the one analyzing the climate models a psychologist. Yes…this is the way it should be done and often is in climate science. s/

    Are you asking nonsense questions? I said just what I mean. If you believe this single work proves something for you…excellent! Now here’s one for your consideration:

    From the Abstract; Spatial variability and correlation of the AMO regressed precipitation and SST anomalies in summer and fall indicate that models are not up to the task of simulating the AMO impact on the hydroclimate over the neighboring continents. This is in spite of the fact that the spatial variability and correlations in the SST anomalies improve from CMIP3 to CMIP5 versions in two of the models. However, a multi-model mean from a sample of 14 models whose first ensemble was analyzed indicated there were no improvements in the structure of the SST anomalies of the AMO or associated regional precipitation anomalies in summer and fall from CMIP3 to CMIP5 projects.

    Climate Dynamics December 2013, Volume 41, Issue 11-12, pp 3301-3315

    Date: 05 Jun 2013

  355. SkyHunter says:

    That looks to be a graph comparing model runs with the radiosonde and satellite data for the tropical mid-troposphere.

    My guess is the model output is GMST and your source is deceptively comparing it with the tropical mid-troposphere.

    If you look at the map of the globe, you will notice that most of the area between 20N and 20S is ocean. Since the ENSO index has been predominantly negative since 1998, so one would expect the troposphere in the tropics to be cooler.

    Most models do not reproduce this phenomenon, so even if all those model runs were only of the mid-troposphere in the tropics (highly unlikely), it is not a proxy for global warming.

  356. Swood1000 says:

    trend lines, not annual anomalies

    You make a good point. But even if he had done that the scenario A and B trend lines are significantly greater than the average of the GISTEMP and HadCRUT4 trend lines.

    Watts is a famous liar so it is to be expected

    The graphic was actually done by Ira Glickstein but I have heard this said about Watts many times. Do you have any examples that are not mere differences of interpretation but actual lies?

  357. SkyHunter says:

    You are looking at their first paper from 2010. Try their second attempt, table 1.

  358. SkyHunter says:

    When one consistently misrepresents the truth, like with that graph, one becomes known as a famous liar.

    And actual emission scenarios are between B and C. The point is, the model performed extremely well considering the state of the science. Had he used a 3.7W/m2 forcing and a climate sensitivity of 3ºC, the projection would have been much closer. The mere fact that the temperature continues to rise while solar activity declines should be your first clue that something is different. That something is the opacity of the atmosphere to IR.

  359. SkyHunter says:

    That is a good discussion, balanced and not hyperbolic. The author himself comments that it is just another piece in a larger puzzle.

  360. Swood1000 says:

    And actual emission scenarios are between B and C.

    But much closer to C.

    Had he used a 3.7W/m2 forcing and a climate sensitivity of 3ºC, the projection would have been much closer.

    That is the same as saying that if the errors his model contained had not been so great the model would not have been off by as much as it was.

  361. Swood1000 says:

    That something is the opacity of the atmosphere to IR.

    What about the opacity of the atmosphere to IR?

  362. SkyHunter says:

    No the actual emissions are closer to B, while the temperature trend is closer to C.

    These were not errors in the model, they were incorrect assumptions input into the model. Assumptions that we now know were incorrect. We learned more from what he got wrong, than what he got right. And he got a lot right, particularly the response to the Pinatubo eruption.

  363. Swood1000 says:

    No the actual emissions are closer to B, while the temperature trend is closer to C.

    Not following. The actual emissions, being an average of the GISTEMP and HadCRUT4 points for 2012, are closer to C than to B.

  364. Swood1000 says:

    “there is an 80% chance of an El Nino event this fall”

    Decreased to 65%. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html

  365. SkyHunter says:

    It has increased.

  366. SkyHunter says:

    No. GISS and CRUT are GMST data, not emission and forcing data. The modeler must guess the future emission scenario. Actual emissions are closer to B than C, actual temperatures are closer to C.

  367. SkyHunter says:

    I don’t know the source, looks to me like another misrepresentation of what models do.

  368. SkyHunter says:

    Have you noticed that these graphs are sourced from non-scientific sources?

  369. SkyHunter says:

    The point is the same, 2014 continues the warming trend. When the ENSO goes predominantly positive, the balance of heat in the atmosphere will increase.

  370. Gary Slabaugh says:

    It is not the requirement of models to predict the future. I do not deny that the models cannot predict the future when in comes to ENSO.

    No need to respond to /s

    I’m not expecting proof. I like the idea that models tell us more by what they get wrong, as I wrote to you before. I also think they are valuable tools, not that they are designed to prove anything.

    I think that both our divergent perspectives regarding modeling and our divergent points of view regarding the multidisciplinary approach… neither will be resolved through internet commentary.

    I’m done here.

  371. S Graves says:

    Finally…

  372. Swood1000 says:

    Just an aside.

  373. Swood1000 says:

    “The oceans are the climates thermal mass. And the oceans are gaining a lot of heat.”

    “Direct determination of changes in oceanic heat content over the last 20 years are not in conflict with estimates of the radiative forcing, but the uncertainties remain too large to rationalize e.g., the apparent “pause” in warming.” http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/papersonline/heatcontentchange_26dec2013_ph.pdf

  374. SkyHunter says:

    aside what?

  375. SkyHunter says:

    Unlike past warming trends in Greenland, there is no natural forcing that can explain the modern warming trend. So even though the Arctic may not have exceeded the observed natural variability, it will by mid-century.

    “This conclusion differs somewhat from the result of a recent reconstruction of Arctic summer air temperature over the past 2000 years, which indicates that a long cooling trend over the last 2000 years ended with a pronounced warming during the twentieth century [Kaufman et al., 2009]. Possible reasons for the differences are numerous, and include at a minimum 1) our record is a mean‐annual temperature, not a summer temperature, and variability is minimal in summer but highest in winter [Box, 2002]; 2) differences between air and snow temperature may be influenced by changes in cloud cover and wind speed, which affect the strength of the near‐surface inversion; and 3) our site is not necessarily representative of the whole Arctic, and may respond in opposite ways to annular mode fluctuations.”

  376. SkyHunter says:

    Scientists are skeptical by nature. Wunsch is simply saying that there are too many uncertainties to draw hard conclusions. Which is why he recently published his research on deep ocean warming. Research that supports the hypothesis that the oceans are taking up most of the energy imbalance at the TOA.

  377. Swood1000 says:

    The following is from http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/gjohnson/OHCA_1950_2011_final.pdf although that link appears to be broken. There has been a flat trend since 2003.

    http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/presentation3.jpg

    FIG. 4. Time series of annual average global integrals of upper ocean heat content anomaly (1021 J, or ZJ) for (a) 0-100 m, (b) 0-300 m, (c) 0-700 m, and (d) 0-1800 m. Time series are shown using ZIF estimates relative to both ClimArgo (dashed grey lines) and Clim1950 (dashed black lines). Time series are also shown using REP estimate (black solid lines), which are not affected by shifts in the mean climatology (B11). Thin vertical lines denote when the coverage (Fig. 3) reaches 50% for (a) 0-100 m, (b) 100- 300 m, (c) 300-700 m, and (d) 900-1800 m.

    “The authors regard the REP values as the best ones. The vertical bar in Fig 4 above denotes when the coverage reaches 50%. Note that for measurements to 700 m, 50% coverage was reached in 1984. The three different curves represent 3 climatologies based on different assumptions about under sampled or unsampled regions of the ocean. The two main features that strike me in Fig 4 is the sharp increase from 1995-2003, and then the flat trend since 2003. Also the sharp increase is more evident in the whole layer 0-1800 m than in the shallow layers near the surface, but note that 50% coverage was achieved for the layer 900-1800 m only since 2005.” http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/21/ocean-heat-content-uncertainties/

  378. SkyHunter says:

    JC’s blog is not a credible source.

    http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/

  379. SkyHunter says:

    Just because the GOP changed the term to climate change from global warming, does not mean the globe is not still warming.

    I take it your avatar is a spoof.

  380. Swood1000 says:

    JC’s blog is not a credible source.

    Why not? You mean you don’t trust that the graphs came from the study?

  381. SkyHunter says:

    But you don’t have the study, so I don’t know how the graphs were created.

    NOAA’s data paints a much different picture, and they are a credible source.

  382. Swood1000 says:

    Also this from the same study:

  383. SkyHunter says:

    Where is the study?

    That chart shows a positive energy flux of 0.56W/m2 in the top 1800 meters during the 2004 – 2011 period. How can that be consistent with a flat trend in ocean heat content?

  384. Swood1000 says:

    “Unlike past warming trends in Greenland, there is no natural forcing that can explain the modern warming trend. So even though the Arctic may not have exceeded the observed natural variability, it will by mid-century.”

    We attribute the Medieval Warm Period to internal variability, as we do other warm periods. You’re saying the current warming must be AGW because we don’t know what else could be causing it, but maybe you are not acknowledging the inadequacy of our understanding of climate.

    “The current decadal average surface temperature at the summit is as warm as in the 1930s-1940s (Figure 1, top), and there was another similarly warm period (-29.7 ± 0.6°C) in the 1140s (Figure 1, middle) (Medieval Warm Period), indicating that the present decade is not outside the envelope of variability of the last 1000 years. Excluding the last millennium, there were 72 decades warmer than the present one, in which mean temperatures were 1.0 to 1.5°C warmer, especially in the earlier part of the past 4000 years [Dahl-Jensen et al., 1998; Wanner et al., 2008]. During two intervals (~1300 B.P. and ~3360 B.P.) centennial average temperatures were nearly 1.0°C warmer (-28.9°C, the 97 percentile) than the present decade (Figure 1, bottom). From the above observations, we conclude that the current decadal mean snow temperature in central Greenland has not exceeded the envelope of natural variability of the past 4000 years.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011GL049444/pdf

  385. SkyHunter says:

    Did you read this?

    “In recent years, from 2004 to 2011, while the upper ocean is not warming, the ocean continues to absorb heat at depth (e.g., Levitus et al. 2012; von Schuckman and Le Traon 2011), here estimated at a rate of 0.56 W m-2 470 when integrating over 0–1800m.

    Why would JC misrepresent Lyman and Johnson if she were being honest?

  386. SkyHunter says:

    But the authors predict it exceed it by 2100, a conservative estimate IMO.

    The MWP was amplified in the north Atlantic, having an outsized effect on Greenland. That is not the case this time. The whole globe is warming, the warm current feeding the Arctic ocean is warmer than at any time during the past 2000 years. There is a significant amount of heat going into the Arctic.

    BTW – When they drilled through the ice and into the surface, they found two and a half million year old tundra. The last time CO2 was close to 400ppm, there were no ice sheets on Greenland.

  387. Swood1000 says:

    But it’s a given that high CO₂ is associated with high temperature. The question is one of causation.

  388. Swood1000 says:

    Which statement of hers is a misrepresentation?

  389. SkyHunter says:

    She said that the only dataset to support ocean sequestration of heat is a reanalysis. Lyman and Johnson 2013’s dataset is observational, not a reanalysis. It directly contradicts her.

    “In recent years, from 2004 to 2011, while the upper ocean is not warming, the ocean continues to absorb heat at depth (e.g., Levitus et al. 2012; von Schuckman and Le Traon 2011), here estimated at a rate of 0.56 W m-2 when integrating over 0–1800 m.”

  390. Swood1000 says:

    “The two main features that strike me in Fig 4 is the sharp increase from 1995-2003, and then the flat trend since 2003.”

    So you are disputing that Fig 4 shows a flat trend since 2003?

  391. Swood1000 says:

    Table 1 of Lyman & Johnson shows reductions in the 0 – 300 and 0 -700m levels. How does the heat skip these levels and go directly to the bottom?

  392. Swood1000 says:

    “The last time CO2 was close to 400ppm, there were no ice sheets on Greenland.”

    Leading us to wonder what drove temperature and CO₂ so high.

  393. SkyHunter says:

    Yes, look closely at the time from when they achieved 50% spatial coverage to 1800 meters. There is a clear and steady trend, which they estimate to be 0.57W/m2.

    Figure 4 is scaled to show three different methodologies, not ocean heat content.

    Here is NOAA’s latest chart for objectively looking at ocean heat content.

  394. SkyHunter says:

    Evaporation driven thermohaline circulation. For instance, most of the heat entering the oceans is entering in the tropical Pacific. The Sun is always shining on some part of the tropical Pacific. The trade winds blow the push the warm water west to Indonesia, where it pools, evaporates, and sinks. This happens to all ocean surface water when it is warmed, evaporation increases, and it gets saltier and heavier, so even though warmer, it is heavier than the cooler yet fresher water below.

  395. Swood1000 says:

    Here’s one just showing trend lines. If you accept that there has been a hiatus, and claim that the missing heat is in the deep ocean, then what problem do you have with this graph? They just need to revise their models to put the heat into the ocean instead. http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-20N-20S-MT.png

  396. SkyHunter says:

    That is the same cherry-picked tropical mid-troposphere graph. If Spencer had a real point he would publish it somewhere besides his blog.

  397. Swood1000 says:

    Wunsch and Heimbach concluded that much less heat is being added to the oceans, compared to claims in previous studies:

    “A total change in heat content, top-to-bottom, is found (discussed below) of approximately 4 x 10²² J in 19 years, for a net heating of 0.2 +-0.1 W/m2, smaller than some published values (e.g., Hansen et al., 2005, 0.86+-0.12 W/m2; Lyman et al., 2010, 0.63+-0.28 W/m2; or von Schuckmann and Le Traon, 2011, 0.55+-0.1 W/m2; but note the differing averaging periods), but indistinguishable from the summary Fig. 14 of Abraham et al. (2013). Perhaps coincidentally, it is similar to the 135-year 700 m depth ocean rate of 0.2+-0.1 W/m2 of Roemmich et al. (2012). On multi-year time-scales accessible with a 20-year record, the present estimate is sensitive in the upper ocean to the prior estimates of atmospheric heat transfers. In contrast, the abyssal ocean response to multi-year surface thermodynamic variability is expected to be confined to small convective regions, boundary regions of baroclinic deformation radius width, and near the equator.”

    “Simple calculations show that the ocean responds, and thus remembers, on time scales of seconds out to thousands of years. When interpreting measurements of changes, any assumption that they have been generated by disturbances from the recent past has to be examined and justified.”

    https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/slide19.jpg

  398. Swood1000 says:

    My guess is the model output is GMST and your source is deceptively comparing it with the tropical mid-troposphere.

    Actually, the model output is not GMST. See the discussion in the APS CLIMATE CHANGE
    STATEMENT REVIEW WORKSHOP
    ,
    page 347-8

    DR. CHRISTY: Yes. Oh, I mean, they have the surface temperature in them. I don’t have a surface temperature plotted here. DR. KOONIN: I am asking whether the same models reproduce GMST and the error is in the vertical structure, or they also do a bad job on GMST? DR. CHRISTY: It is not as bad as this on GMST. It looks more like this (indicating slide).

    But how does the graph differ from what you thought the reality was?

  399. Swood1000 says:

    The MWP was amplified in the north Atlantic, having an outsized effect on Greenland. That is not the case this time.

    Don’t you think that this is having an effect: A signal of persistent Atlantic multidecadal variability in Arctic sea ice

  400. SkyHunter says:

    Wunsch 2014 is a study of the abyssal ocean. That graph depicts a warming ocean, just like this one.

    JC is using the deceptive eyeballing technique to distort and misrepresent the figure.

    Here is a letter to the editor of the Australian by Carl Wunsch, taking them to task for misrepresenting their work.

    “Understanding the ocean

    THE article by Graham Lloyd will likely leave a mis-impression with many of your readers concerning the substance of our paper that will appear in the Journal of Physical Oceanography (“Puzzle of deep ocean cooling”, 25/7).

    We never assert that global warming and warming of the oceans are not occurring — we do find an ocean warming, particularly in the upper regions.

    Contrary to the implications of Lloyd’s article, parts of the deep ocean are warming, parts are cooling, and although the global abyssal average is negative, the value is tiny in a global warming context.

    Those parts of the abyss that are warming are most directly linked to the surface (as pointed out by Andy Hogg from the ANU).

    Scientifically, we need to better understand what is going on everywhere, and that is an issue oceanographers must address over the next few years — a challenging observational problem that our paper is intended to raise.

    Carl Wunsch, Harvard University and Massachusetts, Institute of Technology”

    They also state:

    “Nonetheless, as with any least squares fit, it is a current “best estimate,” is not claimed to be “correct” in any absolute sense, and is obviously subject to quantitative change. The present solution, in terms of misfits to all of the data (whose numbers are dominated by the meteorological values, altimetry, and Argo), is deemed adequate for analysis.”

  401. SkyHunter says:

    Effect on what?

  402. Swood1000 says:

    “JC is using the deceptive eyeballing technique to distort and misrepresent the figure.”

    The graph JC showed is from Wunsch, page 54, and I didn’t say that Wunsch didn’t show a warming ocean. I said that he showed it warming less rapidly. But he does not show warming in the 2000 to bottom or 3600 to bottom range, and says that

    “the abyssal ocean response to multi-year surface thermodynamic variability is expected to be confined to small convective regions, boundary regions of baroclinic deformation radius width, and near the equator.”

  403. SkyHunter says:

    If you impose the observed SST, which Christy doesn’t do, the models match observations in the mid-troposphere. Christy even admits he is focusing on this area because it has the signal he is looking for.

  404. SkyHunter says:

    Right, it takes centuries to millennium for the effects of surface warming to show up in the abyssal ocean He also says that everywhere there is a warming trend in the abyssal it is likely coming from surface warming.

    The bottom line is Wunsch’s work confirms that the ocean is still taking up a lot of heat. And since the paper’s focus was on the abyssal ocean, it is, as he pointed out, doubtful his estimate is correct.

  405. Swood1000 says:

    Most models do not reproduce this phenomenon, so…it is not a proxy for global warming.

    Seems like a non sequitur.

    DR. CHRISTY: The reason I do the tropical is that’s where the signal is.

    You disagree with this?

  406. Swood1000 says:

    If you impose the observed SST…

    What do you mean?

    Christy even admits he is focusing on this area because it has the signal he is looking for.

    He is looking for the hot spot signal.

    DR.CHRISTY: This is the tropics. Huge amount of mass right here. If you want to look at something that has a greenhouse signature from model simulations, that would be the place to do it because it has the biggest signal, the most mass. So, now we are talking about the joules, the most joules of energy that are going toaffect the system. And so right there it’s commonly called the tropical hot spot response in climate models.

  407. Swood1000 says:

    Effect on Greenland and the Arctic.

  408. Swood1000 says:

    How about this graph:

  409. SkyHunter says:

    That is the RSS extrapolation of the lower troposphere temperature. One of five global datasets and the only one to show a negative trend.

  410. SkyHunter says:

    Hard to say, it is still a fresh hypothesis. The water going into the Arctic ocean from the Atlantic is warmer than at anytime during the past 2000 years.

    The Fram Strait water temperatures today are about 2.5 degrees F warmer than during the Medieval Warm Period, – See more at: http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2011/01/27/warming-north-atlantic-water-tied-heating-arctic-according-new-study#sthash.PFvXaJCi.dpuf

  411. SkyHunter says:

    He is measuring the tropical mid-troposphere, it is warmed primarily by surface emission from the ocean. If he were looking to test model accuracy, using the historic SST is a better metric of how well the model reproduces mid-tropospheric temperature.

    The hot spot is where the models predict increased latent heat transport will show up. Recent research suggests that there is more lateral transport than the models are capturing. It has no real bearing on Christies argument since if SST are flat, there is no increase in latent heat transport, so he shouldn’t expect to find one.

  412. SkyHunter says:

    Hmmm

  413. Swood1000 says:

    One of five global datasets and the only one to show a negative trend.

    Do you know where I can find the other four?

  414. SkyHunter says:

    Woodfortrees.org has the five global and many other datasets you can analyze.

    SkepticalScience has a temperature trend calculator.

  415. Swood1000 says:

    Awesome!

  416. Swood1000 says:

    If he were looking to test model accuracy, using the historic SST is a better metric of how well the model reproduces mid-tropospheric temperature.

    Not following. Which Wood for Trees graph would you substitute for the circles and squares that Christy used?

  417. SkyHunter says:

    Sorry, for that kind of detailed data you need to access directly. I don’t believe there is anything particularly wrong with Christy’s data. My problem is with his overstating the significance of it.

  418. Swood1000 says:

    He is saying that the significance of it is that it shows that the models have significantly over-estimated the amount of warming that we are experiencing. And you are saying that that is not the case because he compared apples and oranges? The data he compared the models with is not as relevant for that purpose as some other data?

  419. SkyHunter says:

    That may be what he is saying, but it is not what he is demonstrating.

    The tropical mid-troposphere (TMT) is warmed predominantly by ocean surface emission of IR. Since the ENSO cycle has been dominated by La Nina for the past 20 years, he should not expect to find any significant warming in the TMT.

    He is going to where one would expect to find a cooling trend based on the historic ENSO index and finding it. Then he is using that fact to exaggerate model uncertainty.

    It is not that he compared apples to oranges, he used model output of TMT temperature, based on random SST projected by the model and compared the observed TMT temperature. The SST in the model projections were much warmer than the observed SST. When you impose the actual SST, the model output is in line with observations. This is to be expected since the TMT is warmed by surface emission.

    Had Christy been objective, he would have imposed the SST in the model runs and compared those to observations. But he was not being objective, he was manufacturing doubt.

    The models do not over-estimate warming in the TMT. They over-estimated how fast the ocean would take up the heat. They failed to predict ENSO cycles. They failed to predict emissions of aerosols in China and India. They failed to predict solar cycle 24, etc. etc. etc.

    This is not a failure of the model however, since the models were never expected to predict such things.

  420. Swood1000 says:

    The SST in the model projections were much warmer than the observed SST. When you impose the actual SST, the model output is in line with observations.

    The predictions of TMT were off because the predictions of SST were off. You are saying that the failure to be able to predict the ENSO cycle is not indicative of a general failure of the models and that other predictions should be used for that purpose, not predictions dominated by ENSO factors? Which predictions should be used?

  421. SkyHunter says:

    Yes. That is exactly what I am saying. If you impose the ENSO index on the models, they reproduce the historic GMST trend very closely.

    http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2310.html

    When ENSO is negative, the warm tropical pacific water is blown westward by the trade winds where it mounds up, evaporates, and sinks. When the ENSO is positive the trade winds weaken and the warm water spreads out over the surface warming the troposphere.

  422. Gary Slabaugh says:

    That the oceans are warming is based on observation. You posted above that ocean cycles can be 30, 60, even 100 year cycles. How uncertain is the knowledge that this current warming is anthropogenic, rather than part of a natural cycle?

  423. Swood1000 says:

    So the modelers made a mistake by allowing it to be understood by the general public that their predictions had a granularity of less than 30 years, or a mistake by making such predictions without a more prominent reference to the fine print of assumptions (these predictions assume the following ENSO characteristics, etc.)

  424. Swood1000 says:

    One of the complaints about the Risbey et al. (2014) paper was that they did not identify the four studies that produced the great results. Perhaps it should be possible to figure it out since they did list the 18 they considered.

    But another complaint was that they picked the four best to show that models do a good job, whereas they could have picked the four worst to show that models do a terrible job. And of the 38 climate models in the CMIP5 archive they picked four, dismissing 89% of the models.

  425. SkyHunter says:

    The natural cycles are internal variability. The oceans are warming overall, not just moving heat around.

  426. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I understand that from the NOAA graphic. Do we have a good idea for how long, say during the Holocene, the oceans have been warming overall? Looking at this link http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleobefore.html helps understand ocean temperatures also? or not?

  427. SkyHunter says:

    Yes, the scientists who run the models are not particularly good at propaganda. I use propaganda in the neutral sense of communicating a message. Their unexpected opposition on the other hand specializes in public relations, IE propaganda. So they take the uncertainty, exaggerate it, and create a specious narrative that the models are wrong and therefore AGW is a hoax, or at least no big deal.

    Communicating complex concepts to a general public with a 4 second attention span is a daunting task. In fact is was even a major topic of discussion at the 2013 AGU conference.

    We don’t need to know what the cycles are to project a trend because these cycles represent internal variability, not external forcing. They only move heat around, they don’t add to the total except through minor feedbacks. Over time they trend to zero.

    The ENSO region has an outsized effect global temperature. The hiatus period coincides with a predominately negative ENSO period.

  428. SkyHunter says:

    They chose the models that most closely matched the historical ENSO index.

    Which is the point they are making. Models that reproduce the historical ENSO record, or have the historical ENSO index imposed, reproduce the GMST with greater skill.

  429. SkyHunter says:

    How good the understanding is is a matter of opinion, there is much we do not know.

    Here is a good article on the latest research.

  430. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Excellent link. Thanks a bunch. I might call you Orion instead of your chosen moniker. Orion… the giant huntsman in Greek mythology whom Zeus placed among the stars.

  431. Swood1000 says:

    “because recent literature has shown that the chances of having a hiatus of 20 years are vanishingly small”

    So Dr. Collins must think that the granularity is 20 years? (I realize that you have not yet gotten over your shock that Dr. Collins could have been so impolitic as to say such a thing with a stenographer present but it’s on the record now and you’re stuck with it.)

  432. Swood1000 says:

    OK, I watched the YouTube video. Frankly, the most striking thing to me about it was the absence of any doubt about what “consensus” means. As you know, the skeptics say that they too are among the “97%,” because they say that the polls that are pointed to, such as Cook, included among the “97%” those who agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that we have experienced warming, and that human activities contribute to that warming. But then, they say, this “consensus” is presented as consensus that there is an imminent catastrophe, which is something quite different.

    Are you aware of a study or poll that found a 97% consensus on catastrophic global warming?

  433. SkyHunter says:

    I don’t disagree with Dr. Collins.

    What is your point?

  434. SkyHunter says:

    CAGW is not a scientific theory, it is a denier meme. First the deniers argued that global warming was an artifact of the urban heat island effect (UHE). When they could no longer deny that the earth was indeed warming, the argument changed to; the warming is natural, human emissions have no effect. Now it is morphing into; The earth is warming, humans may be contributing, but it won’t be catastrophic. The next evolution of the denier argument will be, OK it is catastrophic, but there is nothing to be done about it.

    Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s when I first heard of global warming, my immediate reaction was that it was another killer bee scare, much ado about nothing. I found the UHE to be a plausible explanation. But then I educated myself, studied physics and the history of the theory with an open mind and realized that the deniers are deliberately lying. They lied about CO2 being saturated, they lied about volcanoes, they lied about the hockey stick, they are lying about the HadCRUT emails, and they are lying about the models.

  435. Swood1000 says:

    I don’t disagree with Dr. Collins.

    Well that is a surprise. By “granularity” I mean the period of time long enough to have experienced an entire ENSO and/or other cycle so that it couldn’t be said that we have only had the cold part, etc. So then such factors should be a wash and the underlying model prediction (warming) should be seen.

    I thought you were saying that 30 years or longer would be necessary.

  436. Swood1000 says:

    CAGW is not a scientific theory, it is a denier meme.

    I am not suggesting that it is a theory. I am saying that it is one thing to say that the earth is warming and that man is contributing to this, and it is another thing to say that there is going to be runaway warming, and on which one of these is there 97% consensus?

  437. SkyHunter says:

    I didn’t just say it, I demonstrated it. But that is irrelevant. The reason it takes so long to detect a trend in the GMST record is because the surface and atmosphere represent a tiny portion of the climate’s thermal mass. There are two better metrics that don’t need a temporally large dataset; ocean heat content and radiative flux at the top of the atmosphere. Ocean heat content because the oceans are 90% of the thermal mass, and TOA radiative flux, because it is a direct measure of the energy coming in and going out.

    Since both of those datasets indicate that the earth has been, and still is accumulating 0.6W/m2, there is no doubt the earth is still warming as predicted by physics.

    Just because the signal is not strong in 5% of the thermal mass does not mean that the earth stopped warming. It means that someone is deliberately using a statistically insignificant results to manufacture doubt.

  438. Swood1000 says:

    So Dr. Collins must think that the granularity is not greater than 20 years?

    I don’t disagree with Dr. Collins.

    I thought you were saying that 30 years or longer would be necessary.

    I didn’t just say it, I demonstrated it.

    You said you agreed with Dr. Collins that the granularity is not greater than 20 years, and then said that 30 years would be necessary. It can’t be both.

  439. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Just to interject… by catastrophic are you predicating it by saying that a 3 degree C increase in warming due to a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels WOULD be catastrophic?
    Does your definition of catastrophic rest on climate sensitivity and feedbacks? Anything catastrophic is in the future, correct?
    AGW theory is based on what is happening today; the future is what MAY happen without mitigation.
    Without mitigation (based on present observations) the options will be adaptation and suffering. Is this “adaptation and suffering” what you mean by catastrophic?
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2995507/

  440. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I fully agree. I commend you for taking accountability to thoroughly educate yourself on the subject. You are one of the most balanced and sane voices wrt internet commentary I have come across, not that I’m anyone especially special 🙂

  441. SkyHunter says:

    The 97% consensus is that the earth is warming and human emissions are the primary cause. That is the definition of AGW.

    CAGW is a subjective not an objective metric, which is why it is unscientific.

    What do you mean by runaway warming?

    That the Earth will become like Venus, or just that possible amplification from other carbon stores, like say clathrate gun in the East Siberian sea.

  442. SkyHunter says:

    I agree that the probability of a hiatus in the GMST of longer than 20 years is unlikely. Not impossible as you seem to be implying, but unlikely.

    ENSO is very unpredictable. In light of that and the fact that we have no recent precedents for a climate being forced by anthropogenic emissions, we don’t really know how these past cycles will respond once forced from their steady state. So we must rely on models. As we both know, models can’t capture all the detail, particularly the ENSO cycles.

    It is not outside the realm of possibility that the current trend of a warming Atlantic strengthening the Trade Winds could lead to a long term La Nina dominated ENSO pattern. Remember, during this hiatus period two global temperature records were set.

  443. SkyHunter says:

    Once I grounded myself in science I could observe human behavior. I am fascinated by how we deceive ourselves. Not just the deniers, but everyone, myself included.

    Our bias even affects our math ability. Mathematical solutions that contradict our beliefs are avoided as readily as any other evidence.

  444. Swood1000 says:

    Let’s take Richard Lindzen, for example. He says that we can expect about one degree of warming for each doubling of CO₂, and no horrendous feedbacks. His scenario is that it might be a little bit warmer but there are no huge effects from that. No need for adaptation and suffering. This is what I have in mind for non-catastrophic.

    How much direct warming could there be and still be OK? I don’t know, but I would like a consensus poll that distinguishes between those who don’t see a big problem ahead and those who do.

  445. Swood1000 says:

    The 97% consensus is that the earth is warming and human emissions are the primary cause. That is the definition of AGW.

    But the earth can warm a small amount as a result of human activity without any reason to worry. I would like to know the consensus on whether there is reason to worry.

  446. Swood1000 says:

    clathrate gun in the East Siberian sea.

    The generally-accepted scientific opinion seems to be that the clathrate gun is not something that we need to worry about.

  447. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Instead of a consensus poll, a better approach would be a scientific debunking (or challenge if “debunk” is too loaded of a word for you). Or do you not agree? Would you consider a scientific challenge to Lindzen? This link will also link you to other articles. FWIW, I think it’s great that you are educating yourself and testing the ideas. Absolutely great! http://www.skepticalscience.com/Earth-expected-global-warming.htm

  448. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Interesting. I’m too fascinated by motivated reasoning, cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias… all the way to initial assumptions and epistemic/subjective bias. My interest in the psychology is from a philosophical pov, but sometimes I think philosophizing and/or engaging in sophistry as it’s own form of coping against the hard truths and painful reality of existence. FWIW, I’m trying to balance my grounding myself in science with a critical analysis of science-as-ideology. One of my favorite books just read has been “The Science Delusion” by Curtis White. The book description on amazon doesn’t do the book justice imo.

    Fascinating that self delusion even affects mathematical understanding.

    I may have shared this with you prior. If so forgive the redundancy. From the Persian poet Rumi – “Beyond ideas of right doing and wrong doing there is a field. I will meet you there.” Shall we meet there some day?

  449. Swood1000 says:

    I’m fine with a direct debate, where the two participants respond directly to each other. But if A says that what B says is bunk, with no response from B, then that is less valuable to me.

    I think that a consensus poll is useful. But the procedures that have been used in some instances seem to result in a murky understanding of just where those polled stand on the issue: i.e. whether or not there is an emergency situation.

  450. Gary Slabaugh says:

    It would be good then to look at the consensus position among the experts (the climate scientists and those who have logical/reasonable/rational evaluating and critical analytical skills interpreting the conclusions of the climate scientists) especially and most notably with respect to this: climate sensitivity of 3 degrees C per doubling of atmospheric CO2. Especially if you agree that such a climate sensitivity actually IS very, very bad news for the biosphere.

  451. Swood1000 says:

    And frankly, debates between experts, outside of my area of expertise, have limited usefulness to me. I understand some things but there is much that is just over my head. For example, have you ever looked at the actual ingredients of a climate model? Should those particular ingredients and the way they are put together simulate the climate? Next question.

  452. Swood1000 says:

    “It would be good then to look at the consensus position among the experts (the climate scientists and those who have logical/reasonable/rational evaluating and critical analytical skills interpreting the conclusions of the climate scientists)…”

    But that’s the question. What is the consensus position on the various questions?

  453. Gary Slabaugh says:

    A direct debate about an interpretation of the science is different from other debates though. As an example a two person debate over whether Jesus of Nazareth was a historical person or whether the character of a messiah figure was constructed from pre-existing myths is fine as a debate. A two person debate about the science of a young earth to conform with biblical literalism vs the science of geology is misleading. It allows the audience of the debate to assume equal credence.

    I think that’s why a thorough understanding of science as an epistemology is so very important. It allows the non-scientist to see the science ITSELF as the scientific debate. How the science is interpreted by non-scientists becomes the initial public debate (or maybe even internal debate with oneself comes first). Just the way I see it.

    Thanks for letting me interject. Thanks esp for you thoughtful replies.

  454. SkyHunter says:

    Yes it is, but scientific opinion, conservative as it is, changes with new information.

    The Arctic methane data covered on that link is from the last few days.

  455. Swood1000 says:

    It allows the audience of the debate to assume equal credence.

    I understand that for purposes of mass media that the media sometimes have to take precautions against leaving the impression that a certain point of view is mainstream when it is not. However for myself, I would prefer to be my own guardian. Let two competent people debate on any issue. I would expect the mainstream side to make that fact quite obvious, along with the reasons for it.

  456. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I admit that I do not have a thorough enough understanding of the computer modeling process to really have a good informed opinion. But I’ll give it a shot.

    My limited understanding of climate simulation is that the huge amount of known data which is input (so garbage in, garbage out is an unfair criticism) is questionable… (so it allows genuine skepticism about models ability to predict the future… a tool for which they are not designed… as you said they are a simulation)… questionable compared and contrasted with the huge amount of unknown data. So models must be continually adjusted/improved to add more knowns which theoretically reduces the unknowns. Even climate, as highly complex and chaotic a system as it is, has a limited number of drivers and forcers, right?

    I think the most important thing is that attempts at simulating climate is scientific, in that it is an honest attempt to understand earth systems. Whether or not there is enough computing power to exactly (and I realize that this may be a red herring) simulate something as complex and chaotic as climate is open to question. It may even fall into the realm of artificial intelligence. Your thoughts?

  457. SkyHunter says:

    I have met quite a number of scientists. The majority I would say are motivated by the belief that we do not understand nature of reality. I mean, the scientific frontier would be rather boring if it were not a great unknown.

  458. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I agree. Mystery, even the sense of scientific mystery, is anything but boring. The book by White I mentioned goes into how we human animals see the world metaphorically/symbolically instead of realistically or as you put it, being able to understand the nature of reality. So metaphor becomes a third world picture, in addition to the faith based and the (so called) reality based. Fascinating stuff actually if one is open to questioning the depths of one’s folly.
    This is on my reading list too. Have you heard of it? You probably already understand the premise. Sometimes just reading the book description is good for ideas http://www.amazon.com/dp/0465085970

  459. Swood1000 says:

    And the people at Arctic News don’t help their cause by their seeming quickness to find things alarming that most others do not.

  460. Gary Slabaugh says:

    You wrote: “However for myself, I would prefer to be my own guardian.”
    And that’s what you are doing by questioning authority, testing ideas, questioning yourself about your biases, assumptions, beliefs. I commend you. What is your goal, your end purpose… if I may be so bold as to ask such a personal question?

  461. SkyHunter says:

    But they do help their cause, they bring more and more people to support their cause. Just like lying about volcanoes emitting more CO2 than humans helps the denier cause. Exaggerating and lying might not do anything for their credibility, but it most certainly helps their cause.

    And since perception is reality in politics, they don’t need credibility.

    Don’t confuse alarmists and deniers with the scientific community. That there is a lot of methane under the sea is a fact. That it is being released at an accelerated rate is a fact. That methane is a potent GHG is a fact.

  462. SkyHunter says:

    I don’t have time to read books much anymore and it is not as easy to curl up and get comfortable with a book as when I was younger. I do most of my reading online, often with multiple sources for the same subject open at once so I can compare.

  463. Swood1000 says:

    Just trying to get to the root of the matter.

  464. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I have appreciated reading your dialogues about pastured cattle, the vegan diet, government and economics and (of course) climate science. Is human behavior (ethology and ethics) your favorite subject? What about something more deeply metaphysical and/or historically relative? Time wasters in your opinion.

  465. Swood1000 says:

    Just trying to make headway, inch by inch. SkyHunter is a great resource, despite his occasional crankiness.

  466. Gary Slabaugh says:

    So you consider yourself a radical (from the Latin radix=root), unless I’m taking the etymology of the word to an extreme.
    🙂

  467. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I agree about SH being a great resource. As for headway, you’re lucky. My incremental progress seems to be micron by micron. But I’m assured by good sources that breakthroughs happen

  468. Swood1000 says:

    !!

  469. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Is !! good?

  470. Swood1000 says:

    CAGW is a subjective not an objective metric, which is why it is unscientific.

    Maybe we are using the term differently. To me, AGW includes all warming that is partly caused by human activity. If human activity causes the temperature in the next 100 years to go up by one point this would be AGW, although it’s not something that we want to spend trillions of dollars to try to prevent.

    There is a kind of warming that would be dangerous and destructive, and that we should be willing to spend trillions of dollars to prevent. This is what I think is meant by CAGW.

    Perhaps you believe that there is no such thing as “harmless” AGW because you believe that the effect of the current AGW will be quite severe. But is that belief held by 97% of scientists? That’s my question.

  471. Swood1000 says:

    Remember, during this hiatus period two global temperature records were set.

    Which ones were those?

  472. Swood1000 says:

    !! is for things that exceed the capacity of the language for expression.

  473. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Groovy 🙂

  474. SkyHunter says:

    I am interested in many subjects, but I can’t ignore the fact that I am living through a geologic event that will stand out in the geologic record for all time. Understanding human behavior is the key to changing human behavior. The addict must first understand the nature of addiction before overcoming it.

    I was trained in martial arts in the 1970’s by Dr. Fred Wu. The first Chinese master to teach in the US for money. I can feel Chi, always could. That said, I am an empiricist. I feel something, but I don’t know what it is, I follow methods of the masters, and even though I get results, I have no empirical explanation, and could attribute most results to other possible factors.

    So I don’t dismiss metaphysics, I even practice some professionally, If I can’t qualify and quantify it, it is still a mystery.

  475. SkyHunter says:

    AGW is anthropogenic global warming, IE human induced global warming.

    It is universally known that disturbance is detrimental to existing life. Life has acclimated to the environment. When you change the environment you stress the life present in the environment.

    Any change in climate is going to be catastrophic since it forces un upheaval as the biosphere responds to the changes.

    I don’t have an answer to your question. If you want an answer then conduct a survey.

  476. SkyHunter says:

    2010 and 2005 are the two warmest years on record.

    In fact 9 of the 10 warmest years on record occurred during the 21st century.

    http://assets.climatecentral.org/images/uploads/gallery/climate-matters-GlobalRecapRanking_sm.jpg

  477. Swood1000 says:

    Any change in climate is going to be catastrophic since it forces un upheaval as the biosphere responds to the changes.

    But the climate is constantly changing. It has been warming since the end of the last ice age. The biosphere has been responding to changes for billions of years and the result has not always been catastrophic.

  478. Swood1000 says:

    Definitely a poser.

  479. Swood1000 says:

    Not impossible as you seem to be implying, but unlikely.

    “Vanishingly small” was not my term. If you don’t disagree with Dr. Collins then you don’t disagree with this term.

  480. SkyHunter says:

    The Earth has been generally cooling for the past 5000 years.

    http://www.realclimate.org/images//Marcott.png

    Where have you been?

  481. SkyHunter says:

    That is not a global temperature record. It is an extrapolation of the lower troposphere temperature from satellite data in the microwave spectrum. It represents less than 1% of the climate’s thermal mass. And it is the only global dataset with a negative trend.

    Choosing only the outlier because it supports your belief is cherry picking.

  482. Swood1000 says:

    I use it because it’s the one I have and because I assume that the others, though they might not show zero warming, will be fairly similar. We are talking about a “hiatus” period, after all.

  483. Swood1000 says:

    Where have you been?

    I just stepped out briefly. The image I had in mind was similar to this one, which seems to be a general warming since the end of the last ice age, and accounting for the rise in the oceans since then.

  484. SkyHunter says:

    You are splitting hairs. Vanishingly small is not the same as impossible, in fact, it is very similar to unlikely.

  485. Swood1000 says:

    OK

  486. SkyHunter says:

    Your assumption is incorrect.

    It is the outlier.

  487. SkyHunter says:

    That is a schematic, not a proxy reconstruction. Note how smooth the lines are. It is also from the 1970’s, ancient by climate science standards.

    Technically, we are still in an ice age that began two and a half million years ago when Greenland iced over. Some would argue that we have already set up the conditions that will terminate it. The Little Ice Age is a period where negative forcings aligned. The Maunder and Dalton solar minimums occurred, there was an increase in volcanic activity, and CO2 levels dropped 10ppm as the forests in the America’s recovered after the indigenous people were wiped out by European conquest and disease.

  488. Swood1000 says:

    The dictionary definition

  489. SkyHunter says:

    Somewhere in between I would say. If he were being scientific, not just expressing an opinion, he would have given a probability. Because he did not, people can interpret it to mean different things.

    You are just parsing words in order to score an emotional payoff.

    Judging from the historic ENSO index only, I would put the probability of a 20+ year La Nina dominated ENSO at less than 10%. However the historic ENSO record does not record a period where the climate was forced this strongly. Because in the past 2.5 million years the climate has never been forced this strongly except during glacial termination, which is an entirely different steady state climate than the recent climate state. So with this uncertainty in mind I would increase that probability to 10-15%.

  490. SkyHunter says:

    LOL.

    You probably miss the irony here.

    I’m off to volunteer in the park.

  491. Swood1000 says:

    You are just parsing words in order to score an emotional payoff.

    I think I am simply insisting on the generally understood meaning of the term, a meaning that you are resisting because of what it is being applied to. Actually, I expected you to reply that Dr. Collins has his opinion but it is not shared by most of his peers. Instead you adopted his term but tried to define it away.

  492. Swood1000 says:

    We can debate how much warming is shown by the other charts but they all depict a period referred to as a “hiatus” period, a concept that seems to conflict with the notion of these years being the warmest ever.

  493. Swood1000 says:

    You probably miss the irony here.

    It escaped me completely.

  494. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I’m not sure how Qi and Tao are related, but this geological and biogenic event human animals are both observing and accountable for is described by Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching: “When man interferes with the Tao, the sky becomes filthy, the earth becomes depleted, the equilibrium crumbles, creatures become extinct.”

    As for addiction, it seems to me that too many humans are addicted to all things “cheap”… polluting on the cheap, cheap water, cheap food, cheap toys, cheap energy, cheap answers, including the cheapening of life itself. We lack the appropriate values. I don’t know how values are empirical. Maybe though I’m being too hard on the species. Maybe this paradigm is simply social conditioning and social conditioning can change. The incentive for change needs to be clarified. Maybe that clarified incentive will be an existential struggle for survival. I just don’t know. (Just writing these words distresses my heart, and how empirical is “writing from the heart”?)

    The mystery for me is “And now what? what’s next?”

  495. Swood1000 says:

    The Earth has been generally cooling for the past 5000 years.

    Can we really say that we have a handle on this thing? http://www.news.wisc.edu/23050

  496. SkyHunter says:

    I never adopted his term. You are parsing again.

    What exactly is it you are hoping to achieve?

  497. SkyHunter says:

    You must not quite understand the concept of “hiatus” in this context. The hiatus period is a pause in the GMST trend, in this case a slowing. But this is only the near-surface temperature, a small fraction of the global heat content, with a signal that is overwhelmed by ocean cycles, particularly ENSO. Even though the GMST trend has slowed, it has not stopped. If you use the hybrid dataset that infills under sampled surface areas with satellite data, you get a positive trend of 0.114ºC/decade since 1997.

    Which is why every little El Nino event sets a new GMST record.

  498. SkyHunter says:

    I would believe the proxy evidence over the model assumptions. The Antarctic ice cores, at least before we destroyed the ozone layer, are a good proxy for long term climate trends.

  499. Swood1000 says:

    What’s the correct set of data to use?

  500. SkyHunter says:

    Now you have reduced it to a ten years hiatus.

    Your cherries are getting smaller.

  501. Swood1000 says:

    I agree that this topic has become tedious.

    I never adopted his term.

    When you said that you do not disagree with him, after he used the term “vanishingly small,” then I concluded that you do not disagree with the term “vanishingly small.” Please strike “adopted” and substitute “did not disagree with.”

    What exactly is it you are hoping to achieve?

    Nothing beyond trying to reconcile and understand what you have said. Every time I think I have it you say something that seems to be inconsistent with what you have said before. And when I point that out you bristle and demand to know my motive.

  502. SkyHunter says:

    Bullshit. I spelled out clearly what I meant many comments ago.

  503. SkyHunter says:

    The last hiatus was 30 years long. Matches with the MEI, flat when La Nina is predominant, rises sharply when El Nino is predominant.

    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1941/to:1970/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1941/to:1970/trend

    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1941/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1941/trend

  504. Swood1000 says:

    I have heard it said by representatives of both sides that over the period when we have had the equivalent of a 70% increase in CO₂ we have had an increase in temperature of 0.7⁰C. (a) is that a number you agree with? (b) if this were true, would it be good evidence that the climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO₂ is 1⁰C?

  505. Swood1000 says:

    rises sharply when El Nino is predominant.

    How much of the rise in temperature as the result of an El Niño is attributable to human-induced climate change?

  506. SkyHunter says:

    Since there is still a 0.6W/m2 imbalance at the TOA, the climate is still being forced, so using current temperature data is misleading since the climate is has not yet achieved a steady state response to the forcing. So to your points.

    a) Temperatures have increased on average 0.85ºC since 1880. using a 30 year lag in response to forcing would mean the temperature today is from the forcing in CO2 in 1985, 345ppm.

    (5.35 ln (400/280) = 1.1168382542W/m2

    A climate sensitivity of 3ºC/doubling yields a climate sensitivity of 0.81ºC per 1W/m2.

    (1.1168382542 x 0.81 = 0.904638986ºC

    So in answer to your question, no, it is not good evidence for a climate sensitivity of 1ºC.

  507. SkyHunter says:

    That question makes no sense.

  508. Swood1000 says:

    Do we see an El Niño as an event that suddenly causes all the heat to be displayed in the atmosphere that had heretofore been swept west and then down into the deep ocean?

  509. SkyHunter says:

    Yes. That is exactly what an El Nino is, a weakening of the trade winds, allowing the warmed surface water to remain at the surface, warming the troposphere through increased thermal emission.

  510. Swood1000 says:

    So your calculations are to take into consideration the lag response? If we say that from point A to point B there was a doubling of CO₂, then we could measure the difference in temperatures between which two points in time to discover the climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO₂?

  511. SkyHunter says:

    That has been done in the paleoclimate analysis of climate sensitivity, which is in general agreement with other estimates of 3ºC/doubling.

    In order to measure climate sensitivity for doubling you need to start with a steady state climate, force it with 3.7W/m2 until it again reaches a steady state and then observe the change in temperature.

    Not possible except with climate models.

  512. Swood1000 says:

    “The more commonly used measure of climate sensitivity is the so-called CO₂ doubling temperature ΔT₂ₓ, the equilibrium temperature increase that would result from a sustained doubling of atmospheric CO₂. This quantity is related to S as ΔT₂ₓ = F₂ₓS, where F₂ₓ, the forcing by doubled CO₂, is approximately 3.7 W m⁻². Forcing by incremental concentrations of long-lived GHGs over the industrial period (to 2005) is about 2.6 W m⁻² (Fig. 1), which is roughly 70% of F₂ₓ. Such a forcing, together with the IPCC best estimate of ΔT₂ₓ (i.e., 3 K), would thus suggest that the increase in GMST should have been about 2.1 K, well in excess of the observed increase (Solomon et al. 2007) of about 0.8 K (Fig. 2).” http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/SchwartzJClimate10WhyHasnt.pdf, page 2454

    Schwartz seems to be saying that since the forcing by doubled CO₂ is 3.7 W m⁻², if over a period of time there is an actual forcing of 2.6 W m⁻², since this is 70% of 3.7 W m⁻² one should see 70% of the temperature increase that would be seen on a doubling of CO₂. Am I understanding him correctly?

  513. SkyHunter says:

    No. Look at Figure 1.

    Schwartz is including all LLGHG(long-lived greenhouse gases) in his 2.7W/m2 estimate, CO2, CH4, N2O, and CFC’s. He estimates CO2 forcing as only 1.75W/m2.

    CO2 was ~388ppm when that research was conducted, so using the IPCC forcing equation for CO2 F = 5.35 ln(388/280) solves as 1.74525419W/m2.

  514. Swood1000 says:

    Schwartz is including all LLGHG(long-lived greenhouse gases) in his 2.7W/m2 estimate, CO2, CH4, N2O, and CFC’s. He estimates CO2 forcing as only 1.75W/m2.

    Yes, but isn’t he saying this:

    1. the forcing by doubled CO₂ is 3.7 W m⁻²

    2. as a result of a combination of CO₂ and the other LLGHGs, we have achieved a forcing of 2.6 W m⁻², which is 70% of the forcing by doubling CO₂

    3. Since we have 70% of the forcing that we would have by doubling CO₂ we should have 70% of the temperature increase that we would have by doubling CO₂

    How else does he arrive at this statement:

    “…the increase in GMST should have been about 2.1 K…”

  515. SkyHunter says:

    Look again at Figure 1. The total forcing is 1.7W/m2, not 2.6W/m2. Anthropogenic emissions of aerosols is a negative forcing.

    And again, the climate takes long time to reach equilibrium temperature.

  516. Swood1000 says:

    How does Schwartz reach the figure of “2.1 K” except as follows:

    1. IPCC said that a doubling of CO₂ would result in a 3 K increase in temperature.

    2. We have had 70% of the forcing that would be involved with a doubling of CO₂.

    3. Therefore we should have a warming of 70% of 3 K, or 2.1 K.

  517. SkyHunter says:

    Read the whole paper, that is not what he is saying.

    The 2.1ºK does not include aerosols.

  518. Swood1000 says:

    The 2.1ºK does not include aerosols.

    I understand that. He is saying that we account for the fact that we don’t see a 2.1 K warming by some combination of (a) aerosols and (b) an error in the climate sensitivity assumptions that led us to the conclusion that a doubling of CO₂ would result in a warming of 3 K.

    But he is saying that without an influence by aerosols, and without an error in our sensitivity assumption, we should see a 2.1 K warming.

    If I am wrong about that, what is the 2.1 K figure for?

  519. SkyHunter says:

    That is what he is saying. But since aerosols are present, there is no reason to expect 2.1ºK warming.

  520. Swood1000 says:

    But since aerosols are present, there is no reason to expect 2.1ºK warming

    Let me rephrase my original question. Do you agree that if, over the period when we have had the equivalent of a 70% increase in CO₂, we have had an increase in temperature of 0.7⁰C, then absent aerosols this would be good evidence that the climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO₂ is 1⁰C?

  521. SkyHunter says:

    But those conditions do not exist, so why are you asking for such speculation?

    Additionally, there is still the thermal inertia of the climate system to consider.

  522. Swood1000 says:

    I am just asking if we agree that if a doubling of CO₂ will result in a warming of X, then 70% of the forcing involved in a doubling of CO₂ will result in a warming of 0.7X.

  523. SkyHunter says:

    Yes, we agree.

  524. Swood1000 says:

    My dog says she has waited long enough and it’s time to go to the dog park now. Talk to you later.

  525. SkyHunter says:

    I am a steward for our local park. Dogs are prohibited but we don’t enforce it.

  526. Swood1000 says:

    (0.7÷2.7=0.259ºC)

    In this equation, 0.7 is the increase in temperature? What are the 2.7 and the 0.259?

  527. SkyHunter says:

    The climate sensitivity equation is: (dT = λ*dF)

    dT is change in temperature ºC or more appropriately ºK, since kelvin is an absolute scale, although for our purpose here it doesn’t matter.

    λ is climate sensitivity in ºK per 1W/m2.

    dF is the change in forcing in W/m2.

    0.7ºK is dT

    2.7W/m2 is dF

    I just reversed it.

    (dT ÷ dF = λ

  528. Swood1000 says:

    In the summertime I take her to an actual local dog park that has a pond and a dock that she can jump off of. She loves it. In the winter I take her to another local park where dogs are supposed to be on leash ($500 fine) but we live dangerously. That’s why I got a Golden Retriever instead of a Doberman – people don’t call the Sheriff’s office when they see her coming.

  529. Swood1000 says:

    Dog park

  530. Swood1000 says:

    There is apparently an issue involving access to the data that supports published papers dealing with climate change. People use the FOIA to try to force access. Steve McIntyre on climateaudit.org is a great raconteur of these stories, particularly as they relate to Michael Mann. Are scientists justified in withholding their data? If so, what is the justification?

  531. SkyHunter says:

    Scientists were not withholding their data.

    Here is a more objective perspective.

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

  532. Swood1000 says:

    Apart from the FOIA issue there have been other instances where scientists were reluctant to disclose their data. Infamously,

    “…We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try to find something wrong with it…” —Dr. Phil Jones, Director of the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University, email to Warwick Hughes, 2004

    Are you not aware of any such reluctance?

  533. SkyHunter says:

    Of course I am aware of it. The denial industry was looking for fodder to feed their misinformation campaign.

    These people are not scientists, they are propagandists.

  534. Swood1000 says:

    Apparently, this is IPCC AR5 Second Draft Figure 1.4 with annotations.

    red squares are 2012 and 2013 (to date) HadCRUT4. The orange wedge illustrates combined AR4 A1B-A1T projections. The yellow arrows show verified confidence intervals in 2005, 2010 and 2015 digitized from the original AR4 diagram (Figure 10.26) for A1B. Observed values have been outside the AR4 envelope for all but one year since publication of AR4. IPCC authors added a grey envelope around the AR4 envelope, presumably to give rhetorical support for their false claim about models and observations; however, this envelope did not occur in AR4 or any peer reviewed literature.

  535. Swood1000 says:

    Another version

  536. Swood1000 says:

    So what’s the bottom line here? Are they justified in refusing to reveal the data if the people requesting it are heathens who are simply trying to undermine it for ignoble purposes? I can see them refusing to spend any time explaining it to anyone but if the data is valid, and is being relied upon for scientific purposes, I don’t understand how the refusal to disclose it can be justified.

    “In 2007 [Jones] told colleagues that, having seen what McIntyre’s Climate Audit blog was doing, UEA had been turning down FOIA requests associated with the blog. The scientists concerned saw such requests as disrupting the time available for their work, and those making them as nitpicking to suit an agenda rather than trying to advance scientific knowledge.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_requests_to_the_Climatic_Research_Unit

  537. SkyHunter says:

    I don’t know what you mean about the error bars, but that graph is improperly baselined.

    The baseline should not be 1990.

  538. Swood1000 says:

    Wasn’t this the issue with Michael Mann’s “hockey stick”? According to his detractors he not only would not divulge the actual original data but would not divulge the details of how he calculated his results.

  539. SkyHunter says:

    Not justified, but understandable. When FOIA requests are part of coordinated effort to disrupt public research, as the commission(s) tasked with investigating the incident found, then it is understandable why the scientists would be reluctant to cooperate with people attempting to destroy their careers because they don’t like the results of their research.

  540. SkyHunter says:

    All of Mann’s work has been released to the public.

    They are still telling lies that the hockey stick has been debunked, when the truth is it has been validated over and over by every global reconstruction since. So I would take what they tell you at CA, WUWT, BT, and JC with a salt mine.

  541. SkyHunter says:

    Here is what you are looking for.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy#McIntyre_and_McKitrick_2003

    McIntyre downloaded datasets for MBH99 from a ftp server, but could not locate the ftp site for MBH98 datasets and on 8 April wrote to Mann to request this information. Following email exchanges, Mann’s assistant sent the information as text files around 23 April 2003.

  542. Swood1000 says:

    One of the favorite charges made against Mann is the “hide the decline” one, which alleges that he cut off one of his proxies in a way that would not be noticed simply because the proxy was not in harmony with the blade of his hockey stick (removed the last part of the gold line below). What is your view of this? If the proxy conflicted with modern temperature records then why assume that the earlier part of it was valid? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BQpciw8suk

  543. Swood1000 says:

    flat when La Nina is predominant, rises sharply when El Nino is predominant

    How do we distinguish between warming caused by El Niño and warming caused by humans?

  544. SkyHunter says:

    Keith Briffa documented the decline in 1997/98. Tree growth, especially at higher latitudes, is a good proxy for temperature. However, something happened in the latter half of the 20th century that caused these proxies to diverge around 1960. He warned that use of these proxies would result in an overestimation of past temperature.

    In order to get around the problem, Mann substituted the instrumental record for the proxy data in his reconstruction. It is the instrumental record which is the blade of the hockey stick.

    Since there is no discrepancy with any of the other proxy data, we know that the problem is only with the tree ring proxies after 1960.

  545. SkyHunter says:

    El Nino does not cause global warming, it just moves heat around, it is internal variability. Internal variability trends to zero over time, which is why the CO2 signal in the GMST takes decades to achieve statistical significance. The oceans, being spatially larger take less time to produce a statistically significant signal.

  546. Swood1000 says:

    If we have an El Niño this year we will experience warming and people will attribute it to global warming. Should the response be that this is not global warming, this is El Niño?

  547. Swood1000 says:

    You referenced a paper by Craig Loehle but he does not appear to be entirely on-board with Mann et al.:

    Craig Loehle | February 23, 2011 at 10:01 am |

    There are multiple issues, not just a choice of how to present a graph:
    1.Subjective choice of trees/sites for sampling
    2.Post-hoc dropping of “non-responders”
    3.Linear response to temp assumption (which is actually known to be false.) which makes the inverse problem undefined.
    4.Ignoring six sigma outliers like Yamal larch which heavily affect the result
    5.Hiding adverse verification statistics (R-sq of 0.05 means you have nada)
    6.Unjustified weighting (bristlecones 400x others)
    7.Proxies different orientations (+ vs – temp indicator) in different time periods of the recon.
    8.Choosing graph baseline to emphasize post-1980 “warm”
    9.End point padding-even worse with instrumental data
    10.Hiding the decline as discussed above
    11.Thick red line for instrumental data to make it look “hot” and to hide lines underneath that are going down.
    12.Repeated use of “robust”, “similar”, “reliable” with no quantification. http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/22/hiding-the-decline/

  548. SkyHunter says:

    Yes Craig Loehle is a denier. The difference is, I referenced his published research, you referenced his opinion.

    One is supported by evidence, the other by personal bias.

  549. Swood1000 says:

    So he’s competent to explain the science underlying the divergence issue but not to evaluate whether Mann handled the issue properly in his study?

  550. SkyHunter says:

    Yes. The CO2 signal is not visible in the internal variation from the mean. The fact that a weak El Nino will set a new global temperature record is the evidence that the mean is changing. Strong La Nina events do not set record cold global temperatures, yet weak El Nino events do.

  551. SkyHunter says:

    He can say whatever it is he believes on JC’s blog. It is just his opinion unsupported by any credible evidence. If he had credible evidence he would publish it in the journals and discredit Mann. Instead he rants and raves on denier blogs, discrediting himself instead.

  552. SkyHunter says:

    BTW – I didn’t say I agreed with him, I just thought it only fair to present the issue objectively.

  553. Swood1000 says:

    just his opinion insuported by any credible evidence

    But that is one of the valuable things about experts: their ability to evaluate facts and give their opinions. His issues 1 through 9 appear to be scientifically based, while issues 11 and 12 seem to depend more on one’s point of view. Do you have a view on his issues 1 – 9?

  554. Swood1000 says:

    Understood, and I appreciate your willingness to be objective.

  555. Swood1000 says:

    And his issue 10 appears to be his evaluation that Mann was not justified in his handling of the proxy in this case.

  556. SkyHunter says:

    He does not prove the accusation 1-9, he just makes them. If he could prove them he would, but he can’t.

    I don’t know what reconstruction he is talking about here, there have been many. All multi-proxy reconstructions have the same shape, whether tree rings are used or not, so his rant about tree rings is irrelevant.

    Science is never correct. Each advancement simply makes us less wrong. I prefer to focus on legitimate criticism that advances science.

  557. SkyHunter says:

    But the fact that he is writing in the comment section of a denier blog, instead of responding to the published research should tell you it is not a robust opinion. Remove the tree ring data and you still get the same results.

  558. Swood1000 says:

    Apparently this issue is not unique to this case.

    Unfortunately, we have since found this poor disclosure of data and methods is not an isolated situation in paleoclimatology. Other studies have an even worse record. Steve has contacted numerous paleoclimatologists in search of their data and has a thick file of excuses, dismissals, and brushoffs, along with a few honorable exceptions. Nor is the situation unique to paleoclimatology. Two economists recently took a 1999 edition of the American Economic Review and tried to replicate the empirical papers, only to find most authors unwilling or unable to share their data and command files in a usable format. http://fakeclimate.com/arquivos/Internacional/RossMcKitrick/Stattered.Consensus.Ch2.pdf

  559. SkyHunter says:

    Perhaps, but it is not evidence of a broad conspiracy, as the denier propagandists would like us to believe.

  560. Swood1000 says:

    it is not a robust opinion

    I agree with you there, but then many journals will not give space to such “denier” opinions.

    Remove the tree ring data and you still get the same results.

    But a scientist is not justified in using compromised data or in reporting his results in a misleading way (if that is what he did) just because his results turn out to be valid.

  561. Swood1000 says:

    it is not evidence of a broad conspiracy

    Not at all. It is evidence that journals need to require that the data supporting a study be made available to those who wish to see if the data really support the conclusion.

  562. SkyHunter says:

    He did not use compromised data, the tree rings proxies do not diverge until humans start altering the ecosystem. The compromised data is tree ring growth after 1960. Mann truncated the proxy data and substituted the more robust instrumental record. He didn’t hide it, he published it in Nature magazine.

  563. SkyHunter says:

    As someone who works both inside and outside of the system, what you are asking is somewhat naive. But I agree that information should all be open source. Some day when we realize that cooperation is better than competition, that will be a no-brainer. As long as we live in a competitive society where hoarding information brings wealth and power, people will continue to hoard information.

  564. Swood1000 says:

    He did not use compromised data, the tree rings proxies do not diverge until humans start altering the ecosystem.

    But the reason for the divergence is all speculation. There is no compelling explanation. That raises both a data integrity issue and a disclosure issue. Can data showing this kind of divergence be relied on? It would seem that Mann should have at least disclosed what he was doing and why.

    The justification for hiding the decline was that somehow there was something different about that data in that time period that made it “bad” data, and so could be dropped. But nothing was ever shown to be the cause, and one can’t simply get rid of data you don’t like without a verified reason. And people can see this clearly. …

    If there is something special about after 1960, why do only some groups of trees show a decline? How do we know which ones will do so –we don’t. http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/22/hiding-the-decline/

  565. Swood1000 says:

    He didn’t hide it

    But that’s the allegation: that he not only removed the end of the proxy in order to hide it but also used improper statistical methods in the process:

    Although Mann and others have regularly described his “Nature” trick as nothing more than plotting both instrumental and reconstruction data in the same graphic, the “trick” was more than that: it was, as shown above, the splicing of instrumental data with proxy data prior to smoothing. On one occasion however, Mann implictly conceded the Climate Audit exegesis of his Nature trick, stating in an inline comment at realclimate as follows:

    In some earlier work though (Mann et al, 1999), the boundary condition for the smoothed curve (at 1980) was determined by padding with the mean of the subsequent data (taken from the instrumental record).

    From the precision of the emulation, it appears certain to me that the padding was by the instrumental data (rather than the mean of the subsequent data), but either method involves padding with instrumental data. http://climateaudit.org/2011/03/29/keiths-science-trick-mikes-nature-trick-and-phils-combo/

  566. Swood1000 says:

    It appears as if Mann wanted a nice flat hockey stick that contrasted with the stark “blade” in the 20th century. And it appears that he wanted to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period because that would suggest that the current warming was not unprecedented.

    I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ …(Briffa, Sep 22, 1999, 0938031546.txt)

    So it appears that he chose his proxies to minimize the MWP.

    One of the consequences of divergence is that past periods warmer than the calibration period can not be reliably estimated-they are suppressed. The the MWP will be underestimated. A second problem is that past responses of trees will be influenced by things like local forest conditions and precip, about which we have not data. This makes them unreliable. http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/22/hiding-the-decline/

  567. Swood1000 says:

    McIntyre and McKitrick published a paper, http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/mcintyre_02.pdf, in which they claim that the hockey stick blade was the result of the inclusion of a single group of bristlecone pine chronologies published by Graybill and Idso in 1993 that the original authors had stressed are not proper climate proxies. Without these proxies there is no blade on the hockey stick and the MWP returns. See image below.

    In addition, they found, on Mann’s FTP site, a folder called “CENSORED” which contained the data without the Graybill and Idso bristlecone pines, showing, they say, that Mann had done this experiment himself and knew that the hockey stick shape depended on that one group. http://a-sceptical-mind.com/Documents/McKitrick-hockeystick.pdf

    Did McIntyre and McKitrick find the smoking gun?

  568. Swood1000 says:

    He didn’t hide it…

    Contrary to claims by various climate scientists, the IPCC Third Assessment Report did not disclose the deletion of the post-1960 values. Nor did it discuss the “divergence problem”. Yes, there had been previous discussion of the problem in the peer-reviewed literature (Briffa et al 1998) – a point made over and over by Gavin Schmidt and others. But not in the IPCC Third Assessment Report. Nor was the deletion of the declining values reported or disclosed in the IPCC Third Assessment Report. http://climateaudit.org/2009/12/10/ipcc-and-the-trick/

  569. Swood1000 says:

    The American Economic Review, at least, now requires it. https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data.php

  570. SkyHunter says:

    I believe you will find most of them have such a policy. But not all data is public domain. Often it is purchased for use under a non-disclosure agreement.

  571. SkyHunter says:

    The data was not deleted, and the TAR discusses and references all the literature available on the subject at the time.

    CA is lying about it because they can. They don’t need credibility to make money.

    Several important caveats must be borne in mind when using tree-ring data for palaeoclimate reconstructions. Not least is the intrinsic sampling bias. Tree-ring information is available only in terrestrial regions, so is not available over substantial regions of the globe, and the climate signals contained in tree-ring density or width data reflect a complex biological response to climate forcing. Non-climatic growth trends must be removed from the tree-ring chronology, making it difficult to resolve time-scales longer than the lengths of the constituent chronologies (Briffa, 2000). Furthermore, the biological response to climate forcing may change over time. There is evidence, for example, that high latitude tree-ring density variations have changed in their response to temperature in recent decades, associated with possible non-climatic factors (Briffa et al., 1998a). By contrast, Vaganov et al. (1999) have presented evidence that such changes may actually be climatic and result from the effects of increasing winter precipitation on the starting date of the growing season (see Section 2.7.2.2). Carbon dioxide fertilization may also have an influence, particularly on high-elevation drought-sensitive tree species, although attempts have been made to correct for this effect where appropriate (Mann et al., 1999). Thus climate reconstructions based entirely on tree-ring data are susceptible to several sources of contamination or non-stationarity of response. For these reasons, investigators have increasingly found tree-ring data most useful when supplemented by other types of proxy information in �multi-proxy� estimates of past temperature change (Overpeck et al., 1997; Jones et al., 1998; Mann et al., 1998; 1999; 2000a; 2000b; Crowley and Lowery, 2000).

    http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/068.htm

    Both charts in the TAR indicate the instrumental record.

    http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/images/fig2-20s.gif

    http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/images/fig2-21s.gif

  572. SkyHunter says:

    Look, I don’t have time to re-hash the Hockey stick controversy.

    It was the early days of the climate denial industry. Everyone is wise to them now, and they have no credibility within the scientific community.

  573. Swood1000 says:

    In your experience, what is the percentage of published studies in which the actual data is made available?

  574. Swood1000 says:

    “This is not a failure of the model however, since the models were never expected to predict such things.”

    “Because ENSO is the dominant mode of climate variability at interannual time scales, the lack of consistency in the model predictions of the response of ENSO to global warming currently limits our confidence in using these predictions to address adaptive societal concerns, such as regional impacts or extremes…” Guilyardi et al. (2009)

    There are those who say that the utter failure of models to be able to simulate sea surface temperature patterns renders them useless. Risbey et al. (2014) found four that seemed to be able to predict the hiatus, and you (and Risbey) suggest that the problem is simply one of being “in phase with observations.” This implies that the models know what they’re doing when they are “in phase with observations.”

    However, Risbey has been criticized on the grounds that even the four models that supposedly were in phase with observations produced sea surface patterns that, while termed “broadly consistent” with the actual patterns, in reality were not similar at all, and the fact that these models seemed to be able to predict the hiatus is considered by some to be just blind luck.

    Since ENSO is one of the primary processes through which heat is distributed from the tropics to the poles, how can we have confidence in models that appear to be only capable of lurching about in the dark?

  575. SkyHunter says:

    I actually agree that the models do a terrible job predicting the climate’s response to forcing. However, I find this disturbing, not evidence that climate change is beneficial or benign.

  576. Swood1000 says:

    However, I find this disturbing, not evidence that climate change is beneficial or benign.

    But how are we supposing that we are going to have climate change at all except from these models? And are they capable of making that determination?

  577. SkyHunter says:

    We know the climate will change from basic physics. The question is not if the climate will change, but how.

  578. Swood1000 says:

    We know the climate will change from basic physics. The question is not if the climate will change, but how.

    Don’t we run our basic physics through these models to determine if and how climate will change?

  579. Swood1000 says:

    Let’s suppose that since the 1960s the 0-2000m layer has warmed 0.06⁰C. Argo. What is the long-term climate change impact?

  580. SkyHunter says:

    Yes. Which is why the uncertainty should be frightening, not reassuring.

    A recently published study explains the switch from the 41,000 year inter-glacial cycle to the 100,000 year cycle about a million years ago. It seems that as the oceans cooled and circulation slowed down, they released less CO2.

    What happened over the last century has already changed that million year old cycle.

  581. SkyHunter says:

    I don’t know.

  582. Swood1000 says:

    What happened over the last century has already changed that million year old cycle.

    I didn’t see this part of it in the press release.

    Which is why the uncertainty should be frightening, not reassuring.

    Not sure what I said to cause you to think I am reassured. What I asked was this: what, besides the models, tells us (a) that there will be climate change, (b) what the magnitude will be, and (c) what it is to be attributed to.

  583. Swood1000 says:

    Does it seem like an alarming statistic?

  584. SkyHunter says:

    The models don’t tell us there will be climate change, the models are our best attempts to understand how the climate will change.

    a) dF = 5.35 ln(C/Co)

    b) dT = λ*dF

    c) CO2

  585. SkyHunter says:

    Not in the short term, if all you are concerned with is your own life and personal gratification, it is irrelevant. But for the future climate, it is a very big deal.

    It changes the median temperature from which the climate oscillates. It has been recently shown, in the prees release I linked earlier, that ocean heat content has an effect on how the climate responds to orbital forcings, enough to change the dominant 41,000 year cycle to a 100,000 year cycle.

  586. Swood1000 says:

    Do you believe that we should assume that any changes to the climate will be cataclysmic and that the burden of proof rests with those who do not agree?

  587. SkyHunter says:

    I don’t believe that any changes will be cataclysmic, but then cataclysmic is a subjective, not objective metric. I believe the changes we have already wrought are going to be of such a magnitude as to be a significant event in the geologic record. Significant events in the geologic record are normally associated with cataclysms, I see no reason to expect this one to be different.

  588. Swood1000 says:

    The models don’t tell us there will be climate change

    But (a) aren’t the forcing numbers determined by a model, and (b) the mere fact that there is a forcing doesn’t tell you that there will be an effect on the climate. There are many interactions and one forcing might be cancelled out by another.

  589. Swood1000 says:

    I believe the changes we have already wrought are going to be of such a magnitude as to be a significant event in the geologic record.

    If we stopped adding CO₂ to the atmosphere today you anticipate how much more warming before the temperature stabilizes?

  590. SkyHunter says:

    Roughly in the range of 0.4C to 1C.

  591. SkyHunter says:

    a) The forcing number is determined by line by line analysis of the radiation codes in the HITRAN database. The radiation codes are empirically determined.

    b) That is why you have the second equation for climate sensitivity.

  592. SkyHunter says:

    I don’t know enough about it yet to have a credible opinion. Generally, geologic events do not occur in decades, but there is a precedent for large carbon pulses occurring over short time scales. The higher levels of CO2 and warming oceans may have already altered a million year old glacial/interglacial cycle.

    Methane levels in the Arctic have recently reached new peaks.

  593. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Unfortunately we might know sooner than we wish to know in order to form a considered opinion :-/

  594. Swood1000 says:

    The higher levels of CO2 and warming oceans may have already altered a million year old glacial/interglacial cycle.

    What leads you to think this?

  595. Swood1000 says:

    Roughly in the range of 0.4C to 1C.

    What do you mean by a “significant event in the geologic record”?

  596. SkyHunter says:

    The radiative forcing from 280 ppm to 400 ppm is 5.35 ln(400/280) = 1.9W/m2. That works out to a 1.5ºC rise in surface temperature at equilibrium. We have seen 0.8C, that leaves another 0.7ºC ignoring all other factors.

    Something interesting, IE different, a change from the norm.

  597. SkyHunter says:

    Two and a half million years ago, CO2 levels dropped well below the 300 – 400 ppm range and Greenland grew a permanent ice sheet. One million years ago, CO2 dropped below 250 – 350 ppm, the Ice sheets got bigger, and the interglacial timing went from 41,000 year intervals to 100,000 year intervals.

    We have primed both ends of the fast carbon cycle, the atmosphere and the ocean, with carbon dioxide. As the oceans warm the the deep carbon rich water will drawn up faster by the stronger currents, emitting carbon dioxide faster. By restoring atmospheric CO2 levels to 400 ppm we have already primed the climate’s carbon and heat pump. if these levels are sustained, The glacial/interglacial cycle of the past million years has been disrupted. It is quite possible, given the carbon feedback from a warmer ocean that Greenland will lose it’s ice sheet, even if we stopped emitting today.

  598. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Yes. Arctic news is good at keeping abreast of changes in this region. The link I sent above links to arctic news I believe. Thanks

  599. Gary Slabaugh says:

    My mistake. It didn’t have an embedded link but I googled the key words from the following quote and it took me to arctic news.

    The study was conducted by researchers Dr. Malcolm P.R. Light, Harold Hensel and Sam Carana and is entitled: ” The Arctic Atmospheric ‘Methane Global Warming Veil’. Its Origin in the Arctic Subsea and Mantle and the Timing of the Global Terminal Extinction Events by 2040 to 2050 – A Review.”

  600. Swood1000 says:

    The forcing number is determined by line by line analysis of the radiation codes in the HITRAN database. The radiation codes are empirically determined.

    But doesn’t the calculation come from models such as MODTRAN (which, amazingly enough, has its computer code available online)? It’s not exactly as if the calculation is without any doubt. In fact, haven’t starkly different conclusions been reached also using the HITRAN database?

  601. Swood1000 says:

    “Because this deposit is small, the methane released by its decomposition would not substantially affect the Earth’s climate…” http://www.nature.com/news/locked-greenhouse-gas-in-arctic-sea-may-be-climate-canary-1.11988

  602. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Assuming that the science is settled, and the area of focus ought to be… that great categorical imperative… human behavior — using fuzzy logic and/or Bayesian probability — can you give a credible opinion on achieving sustainability? Google the pdf using the key words “minimal model human nature interaction” and get back to me at your leisure, but only if your inclination and priorities allow. Keep fighting the good fight. And may your unique epiphaneia, (“manifestation, striking appearance”) experiences of sudden and striking realization continue as well mon ami.

  603. Swood1000 says:

    “In a paper published this week in the journal Science Express, researchers report that the deep ocean currents that move heat around the globe stalled or may have stopped at that time, possibly due to expanding ice cover in the Northern Hemisphere.” http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=131830&WT.mc_id=USNSF_51&WT.mc_ev=click

    The glacial/interglacial cycle of the past million years has been disrupted.

    The paper talks about ocean currents being disrupted by expanding ice cover. I just don’t see the connection between that concept and oceans that have warmed 0.06⁰C since the 1960s.

  604. Swood1000 says:

    It is quite possible, given the carbon feedback from a warmer ocean that Greenland will lose it’s ice sheet, even if we stopped emitting today.

    There is no doubt that Greenland is losing ice mass, and at a recently increased rate. …The observed mass loss should be put into perspective. According to the Byrd Polar Research Center the Greenland Ice Sheet comprises 2.62-2.93 E+6 km3. That is a total mass of about 2.67E+18Kg (uncertainty on volume, and uncertainty on density-firn, moulins, entrained air). A gigaton is E+12Kg. Greenland is estimated to be losing about E+14Kg per year averaged over two decades. At that rate, it would take about (2.67 E+18kg mass/E+14kg average annual mass loss) 27000 years to melt/sluff. Even the recent accelerated rate (if continued) would take over 14000 years.[v] That is longer than it took the great Laurentide Ice Sheet to disappear at the end of the last ice age. If Greenland ever did melt it would raise sea level by 6.7 meters. Even at the faster melt rate this would be (670 cm/140 centuries) 4.8 cm/century of sea- an additional 0.5mm/yr-more adaptation than mitigation.

  605. SkyHunter says:

    Your link is to a simple 2 layer model. A mistake that hasn’t been made in physics since the 1940’s. The atmosphere also emits IR in the frequencies that CO2 absorbs at. The higher the concentration, the shorter the average distance a photon can travel before being absorbed, which means that saturation of all available energy from the surface occurs in a smaller volume of space, raising the temperature. The saturated layer is itself emitting black body radiation that is being absorbed by the ground as well as the atmosphere above. The next layers also saturate, but the distance the average photon can travel is increased until most emitted photons travel unimpeded back into space.

  606. SkyHunter says:

    That is a focused study of a tiny area. here is a more objective quote from the same source.

    “This particular deposit is only modest in size, but the methane trapped in such deposits represents an immense global carbon reservoir”

  607. SkyHunter says:

    The key component is the CO2. When the ice sheets grew, temperatures dropped, even during interglacials. The slowdown in the ocean currents amplified the cooling by not releasing as much CO2. We have reset the climate normal back 2.5 million years. 0.06℃ may not seem like a lot, but remember, the heating is uneven, and it is the differential that drives the currents. a warmer world means increased evaporation which is a key driver of thermohaline circulation.

  608. SkyHunter says:

    There is no reason, given the evidence in the geologic record, to assume that ice sheet disintegration is a linear event. In fact, all the evidence suggests otherwise.

  609. SkyHunter says:

    I estimate the probability is low. A lot of intrenched interests with tremendous resources to protect those interests.

    But I’ve always liked a long shot.

  610. Swood1000 says:

    “This particular deposit is only modest in size, but the methane trapped in such deposits represents an immense global carbon reservoir.”

    Yes there is a huge amount of methane trapped in such deposits, but most of it is not near the surface like in these deposits. The IPCC has “high confidence” that it is “very unlikely” that methane from clathrates will undergo catastrophic release. http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGIAR5_WGI-12Doc2b_FinalDraft_Chapter12.pdf, page 78.

    The experts cannot envision a scenario in which large amounts of it would be released. Carolyn Ruppel, a methane hydrate specialist at the U.S. Geological Survey who authored a review of research on gas hydrates in 2011 called the sudden thawing scenario “unrealistic…I would say it’s nearly impossible.” http://www.livescience.com/38473-arctic-methane-warming-debate.html

    Gavin Schmidt said that if a warming would release catastrophic amounts of Methane into the atmosphere then we would be able to detect that from ice cores taken from the two warm Arctic periods 8,000 and 125,000 years ago but we do not. http://www.livescience.com/38473-arctic-methane-warming-debate.html

    Also there is this article in Nature, which said

    “Catastrophic, widespread dissociation of methane gas hydrates will not be triggered by continued climate warming at contemporary rates (0.2ºC per decade; IPCC 2007) over timescales of a few hundred years. Most of Earth’s gas hydrates occur at low saturations and in sediments at such great depths below the seafloor or onshore permafrost that they will barely be affected by warming over even 10³ yr.” http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/methane-hydrates-and-contemporary-climate-change-24314790

  611. Swood1000 says:

    Let me just say that I do appreciate your explanations, even though I sometimes struggle with them.

    What we were originally talking about, though, was climate models and how reliable they are. I pointed out that Risbey et al. (2014) showed that even the four best models produced results that bore very little resemblance to the actual patterns seen. It appears that these models are also used in coming up with the forcing figures. AR5 says

    “Calculation of ERF requires longer simulations with more complex models than calculation of RF…” http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_ALL_FINAL.pdf

    If ENSO is the dominant mode of climate variability at interannual time scales, and the models do not understand ENSO, what exactly is the value of the models?

  612. Swood1000 says:

    What kind of evidence?

  613. SkyHunter says:

    I was of the same opinion in 2012. Now I am a little more agnostic.

    The link I provided was for recent record methane levels in the Arctic.

    Methane is not the only way that the oceans release carbon, but increased emission of methane is one of the feedbacks to a warming ocean.

  614. SkyHunter says:

    That climate models projections don’t match the actual patterns is not an issue. Nor is it to be expected. Since it is impossible to know the state of the climate at any single point, approximations must be made. Over thousands of iterations even tiny errors accumulate. Models are a means for understanding how the climate is responding.

  615. SkyHunter says:

    The evidence in the citation you provided.

    “That is longer than it took the great Laurentide Ice Sheet to disappear at the end of the last ice age.”

  616. Swood1000 says:

    Why do you say that CO² drives temperature when data such as that from Vostok suggest that warming preceded the rise in CO²? The second graph is an averaging of the first, showing also that high levels of CO² did not prevent the temperature from falling. The third graph is a plot of CO² levels for 600 million years using geologic evidence and shows the current level of 385 ppm is the lowest in the entire record and only equaled by a period between 315 and 270 million years ago.

  617. Swood1000 says:

    Now I am a little more agnostic.

    Because you have come to question whether these deposits really are as inaccessible as they are said to be?

  618. Swood1000 says:

    that leaves another 0.7ºC ignoring all other factors

    But another 0.7ºC will not wreak havoc on the world or on mankind, right?

  619. Swood1000 says:

    Zero feedback with doubled CO2 λ is 0.3°C/(w/m2) http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1990/1990_Cess_etal_1.pdf The rest is proposed feedback in a chaotic system. Estimates are all over the board. How do you arrive at such a level of confidence?

  620. Swood1000 says:

    Is it impossible that ENSO processes could impact the amount of heat that is retained by the earth?

  621. SkyHunter says:

    That seems a short list of climate sensitivity estimates, and each must be evaluated on it’s own merits.
    Climate sensitivity to CO2 of 0.3°C/(w/m2) is 1.11ºC/doubling. So the chart you provided concurs with my estimate.

  622. SkyHunter says:

    Depends on how you define havoc, and how much is outside random probability. But the question is moot since we have not stopped emitting.

  623. SkyHunter says:

    More recent analysis finds the initial lag to be 0 – 200 years, but that CO2 is a feedback to temperature in the climate system was the premise of the AGW argument as first posited in 1896 by Svante Arrhenius paper; On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground.

    The third chart is BS from Geocraft. Ask CB about it.

  624. SkyHunter says:

    Actually two things:

    1) Much of the Arctic that is losing ice every year now is less than 500m deep. There is clear evidence that methane clathrates are destabilizing at this depth. So I there was an underestimate of the shallow reserves. The Laptev and Siberian seabed is loaded with methane.

    The Atlantic current that flows through the Fram Strait and into the Arctic ocean is 1.5℃ warmer than during the MWP.

    Since the Arctic ocean is fresher than the Atlantic, the warm salty water warms the deeper ocean. So I am not convinced that the deeper clathrates are as stable as I once thought.

  625. SkyHunter says:

    ENSO processes definitely impact the amount of heat retained by the earth, only it is La Nina that accumulates heat, and El Nino that sheds it.

  626. Swood1000 says:

    ENSO processes definitely impact the amount of heat retained by the earth, only it is La Nina that accumulates heat, and El Nino that sheds it.

    Then do ENSO processes always net out to zero?

  627. Swood1000 says:

    What information do you have about this graph, apart from general derision?

  628. Swood1000 says:

    And also this one from GEOCARB.

  629. Swood1000 says:

    Just a few more.

  630. Swood1000 says:

    The lower the impact of aerosols the lower the climate sensitivity to CO₂, right?

    “It is concluded that at the sites studied changes in cloud cover rather than anthropogenic aerosols emissions played the major role in determining solar dimming and brightening during the last half century and that there are reasons to suppose that these findings may have wider relevance.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013JD021308/abstract

  631. SkyHunter says:

    Net warming defined how and over what time frame?

  632. Swood1000 says:

    Net warming such that warming caused by ENSO could be termed AGW.

  633. SkyHunter says:

    That is consistent with the findings of this study.

    Here, we provide evidence from observations and numerical modeling of a dramatic aerosol effect on warm clouds. We propose that convective-cloud invigoration by aerosols can be viewed as an extension of the concept of aerosol-limited clouds, where cloud development is limited by the availability of cloud-condensation nuclei. A transition from pristine to slightly polluted atmosphere yields estimated negative forcing of ~15 watts per square meter (cooling), suggesting that a substantial part of this anthropogenic forcing over the oceans occurred at the beginning of the industrial era, when the marine atmosphere experienced such transformation.

    http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6188/1143

    Human aerosol emissions invigorate the cloud formation process, so it is not surprising that this group found a change in cloud cover accompanied an change in aerosols.

  634. Swood1000 says:

    An argument against clean air laws?

  635. SkyHunter says:

    No. ENSO is just internal variability, the long negative pattern is not that unusual.

    Look at the period from 1940 to 1975.

    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei.ext/ext.ts.jpg

    AGW is a century scale forcing. The cool cycles damp the warming signal in the GMST record, but since the heat is still accumulating, cooler surface temperatures equal less radiant heat leaving the planet. The cool cycles actually heat the planet more than the warm cycles.

    Here is the most recent chart that only goes back to 1950.

    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ts.gif

  636. SkyHunter says:

    Not one I would care to make.

  637. Swood1000 says:

    So has it been determined that since 1870 red minus blue equals zero?

  638. SkyHunter says:

    I doubt it. But it will be close. The monthly data from 1950 on is available for download if you want to analyze it yourself.

    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/table.html

  639. Swood1000 says:

    I imported the numbers into an Excel spreadsheet. All the numbers through June of 2014 sum to 19.884. They have another table here: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei.ext/table.ext.html. The numbers on that table are “normalized” so that they have an average of zero and a standard deviation of “1”. And their total in Excel is actually zero. Do you suppose that the first one contains the raw numbers so that there is actually a net positive?

  640. SkyHunter says:

    Very good. You should be able to see now from the method on analysis that ENSO is internal variability, not a climate forcing. The average is set to zero and the standard deviation is one.

    There are no raw numbers, the 1950 – present MEI is normalized over the 1950 – 1993 period.

  641. Swood1000 says:

    If they adjust the numbers so that the average is zero. they’re just artificially forcing red to equal blue?

  642. SkyHunter says:

    They are not adjusting the numbers, they are using a statistical technique to analyze the numbers.

  643. Swood1000 says:

    But in one table Dec-Jan 1950 is -1.018. In the other table that same period is -0.941. In the table you sent, each period from 1950 through 1993 totals to zero. Is there no value in knowing whether the raw numbers actually total to zero?

    And what about the fact that the totals for 1871 through 1938 equal -116.998 and the totals for 1939 through 2005 equal +116.998?

  644. SkyHunter says:

    There are no raw numbers per se, the MEI numbers are all extrapolated.

  645. Swood1000 says:

    So we can’t know from these numbers whether red plus blue for any period equals zero.

  646. Swood1000 says:

    So when the study says

    It is concluded that at the sites studied changes in cloud cover rather than anthropogenic aerosols emissions played the major role in determining solar dimming and brightening…

    are you concluding that when they refer to “anthropogenic aerosols” they are not including those aerosols that may have invigorated the cloud formation process?

  647. Swood1000 says:

    This article relies in part on Cowtan and Way, but in this graphic http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~ed/bloguploads/UPDATED_11-25.png, even if you accept the methods that Cowtan and Way used, there is very little difference between the blue and the black line. The hiatus is still there.

  648. Swood1000 says:

    Is this paper consistent with this statement from AR5?

    It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period.

  649. SkyHunter says:

    But these numbers are for analyzing an oscillation, red plus blue is supposed to equal zero.

    El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most important coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon to cause global climate variability on interannual time scales. Here we attempt to monitor ENSO by basing the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) on the six main observed variables over the tropical Pacific. These six variables are: sea-level pressure (P), zonal (U) and meridional (V) components of the surface wind, sea surface temperature (S), surface air temperature (A), and total cloudiness fraction of the sky (C). These observations have been collected and published in ICOADS for many years. The MEI is computed separately for each of twelve sliding bi-monthly seasons (Dec/Jan, Jan/Feb,…, Nov/Dec). After spatially filtering the individual fields into clusters (Wolter, 1987), the MEI is calculated as the first unrotated Principal Component (PC) of all six observed fields combined. This is accomplished by normalizing the total variance of each field first, and then performing the extraction of the first PC on the co-variance matrix of the combined fields (Wolter and Timlin, 1993). In order to keep the MEI comparable, all seasonal values are standardized with respect to each season and to the 1950-93 reference period.

    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/

  650. SkyHunter says:

    They found that change in cloud cover resulted in solar dimming.

    The study I cited concludes that changes in cloud cover were driven by anthropogenic emissions of aerosols.

  651. Swood1000 says:

    They found that change in cloud cover resulted in solar dimming.

    A change in cloud cover “rather than” by the effects of anthropogenic aerosols. And you are proposing that they are only including the direct effects of aerosols and not the indirect effects.

  652. SkyHunter says:

    Didn’t say it wasn’t there. A new paper by Huber & Knutti has found that from 1998 to 2012, ocean cycles caused about 0.06°C global surface cooling, the sun caused 0.04°C, and volcanoes caused 0.035°C cooling. Add that to the 0.17ºC found in C&W and you have 0.305ºC warming trend, consistent with a 3ºC/doubling climate sensitivity. Internal variability means we will have periods where it warms slower than average, and periods where it warms faster than average. But the average trend over time is consistent.

  653. SkyHunter says:

    Yes.

  654. Swood1000 says:

    I took the table from this location: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/rank.html where they ranked each period, with a 1 being the strongest La Niña and 64-65 being the strongest El Niño. I converted them into a zero-based system by subtracting 32 from each number. The years 1950 through 1981 totaled -1234.5. The years 1982 through 2013 totaled 1786.5. More El Niños in recent years?

  655. SkyHunter says:

    I am not going to purchase their paper, so yes, I am concluding from the abstract that they did not include convective cloud invigoration from aerosols in their study.

  656. SkyHunter says:

    These are rankings, not actual indices.

  657. Swood1000 says:

    Yes, but the lower the rank the colder that period? If one year averaged a one and another year averaged a 64 you could say that the second year was warmer?

  658. SkyHunter says:

    Well for starters, you have all positive numbers, so simply subtracting 32 normalizes to 1 not zero.

    But irregardless, what is it you are trying to discover?

    The ENSO process increases ocean heat uptake during cool phases, not warm phases. Since the 1998 El Nino, the ENSO cycle has been cool.

  659. Swood1000 says:

    But irregardless, what is it you are trying to discover?

    Whether there has been more red since 1982 and more blue before.

  660. SkyHunter says:

    You are looking for a trend in detrended data.

    You need to use this data, since it is normalized over the entire 135 years. Compare 1953- 1982 with 1983-2012.

    And note also that both periods show positive warming trends.

  661. Swood1000 says:

    Do you have a response to this comment by Dr. Richard Betts?

    “Everyone** agrees that we can’t predict the long-term response of the climate to ongoing CO2 rise with great accuracy. It could be large, it could be small. We don’t know.” http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/8/22/its-the-atlantic-wot-dunnit.html

  662. SkyHunter says:

    Who does he mean by “everyone?”

    I agree that 1.5℃ – 4.5℃ is not great accuracy, but the most probable equilibrium response will be 3℃.

    It appears he is exaggerating the uncertainty in order to create doubt. Essentially a red herring fallacy.

  663. Swood1000 says:

    That data only went up to 2005 so I compared 1952-1978 (total -30.831) with 1979-2005 (total 145.522).

    You are looking for a trend in detrended data.

    But in the data that contains rankings suppose we found, for example, that 1950-1981 contained all the lowest rankings (the La Niñas) and that 1982-2013 contained all the highest rankings (the El Niños). Couldn’t we deduce something interesting from that?

  664. Swood1000 says:

    It appears he is exaggerating the uncertainty in order to create doubt.

    But he appears to be in your camp. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8451756.stm, http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/people/richard-betts

  665. SkyHunter says:

    You are assuming that I have a camp and that said camp cares about the opinions expressed by it’s hypothetical members.

  666. Swood1000 says:

    It’s the “97%” camp. This fellow is going to find out, as did Judith Curry and Roger Pielke, Jr., what comes from expressions showing less than full adherence to the party line. At the very least, saying that the long-term climate response “could be small,” without defining that, will be considered an inexcusable providing of ammunition to the enemy, if not a joining of the enemy.

    As MIchael Mann put it in Email 255,

    It seems to me that this “Kinne” character’s words are disingenuous, and he probably supports what De Freitas is trying to do. It seems clear we have to go above him. I think that the community should, as Mike H has previously suggested in this eventuality, terminate its involvement with this journal at all levels–reviewing, editing, and
    submitting, and leave it to wither way into oblivion and disrepute,
    Thanks,
    mike

    “They are making scientific progress more difficult now,” says Willie Soon, a physicist, astronomer and climate researcher at the solar and stellar physics division of the Harvard University-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “This is a shameful, dark day for science,” he said in an interview with FoxNews.com. http://www.foxnews.com/story/2009/12/01/global-warming-scandal-makes-scientific-progress-more-difficult-experts-say/

    Do you agree with some journals that “skeptic” articles should not be accepted because such articles inherently and of necessity lack credibility?

  667. SkyHunter says:

    Now you are just making a specious argument. That mainstream scientists started pushing back against those employed by the Western Fuels Association is not evidence of scientific misconduct. The fact that Soon’s hypothesis’ have been thoroughly debunked and revealed to be nonsense is not evidence of a scientific conspiracy against deniers.

    It is the logical and predicted outcome as the scientific method exposes the errors and outright fraud from the denier camp.

    All good scientists are skeptics. Deniers are not skeptics, they uncritically accept any evidence that supports their position, and uncritically reject any evidence to the contrary. They are not skeptics, they are deniers, because they must deny the bulk of the evidence in order to maintain their position.

    Research should be accepted on it’s merits only. Some very bad and completely meritless papers are published in marginal science journals all the time. Some even make it into the main science journals.

  668. SkyHunter says:

    Well we can deduce that El Ninos are associated with warm global temperatures and La Ninas with cool global temperatures, and that ENSO trends reflect GMST trends over short time frames.

  669. Swood1000 says:

    And if one span of 31 years had only La Niñas and another span had only El Niños you wouldn’t use that information to explain why one span of years was warmer than the other?

  670. SkyHunter says:

    That explanation ignores the underlying trend. It warmed during La Niñas and it warmed faster during El Niños.

  671. Swood1000 says:

    Suppose the underlying trend would cause the second period to be 0.2C⁰ warmer but we find that the second period is 0⁰ warmer. If the second period contained only La Niñas and the first only El Niños then we would have a possible explanation, right?

  672. Swood1000 says:

    Deniers are not skeptics, they uncritically accept any evidence that supports their position, and uncritically reject any evidence to the contrary.

    Is it possible to be sceptical of global warming and not be a “denier”?

  673. SkyHunter says:

    Yes. The next step though is to quantify the differences. How much heat is fluctuating in the atmosphere from changing SST in the tropics, and how much is needed to close the heat budget.

  674. SkyHunter says:

    Absolutely. But when they repeat denier talking points on their blogs, they self-identify with the science denial industry. And it is an industry, one that is well documented and pre-dates the AGW issue.

  675. Swood1000 says:

    they uncritically accept any evidence that supports their position, and uncritically reject any evidence to the contrary

    Most true believers, especially those who see themselves in a war with the infidels, are prejudiced to some degree toward their own position. They have heretofore found their own position to be believable, and contrary information creates cognitive dissonance that is uncomfortable. Those on both sides are guilty of excesses, including rejecting contrary information uncritically.

    What percentage of these scientists would you characterize as deniers?

  676. Swood1000 says:

    So if we look at a ranking of years and find that one period contained more of the high rankings for La Niñas and the other period contained more of the high rankings for El Niños then that would explain at least part of the temperature difference between the two periods?

  677. SkyHunter says:

    Yes.

  678. Swood1000 says:

    Actually, I made an error in this calculation. When I corrected it and subtracted 33 from each number I got -1618.5 for 1950-81, and 1402.5 for 82-05. For the hiatus period and the one just before it:

    1982 211.5
    1983 247.5
    1984 -39
    1985 -117
    1986 114
    1987 337
    1988 -120
    1989 -168
    1990 112
    1991 225
    1992 264
    1993 276
    1994 202
    1995 54
    1996 -110
    1997 234
    Total 1723

    1998 89
    1999 -254.5
    2000 -152
    2001 -50
    2002 163
    2003 114
    2004 110
    2005 97
    2006 78
    2007 -99
    2008 -189
    2009 93
    2010 -74
    2011 -234
    2012 44
    2013 -56
    Total -320.5

  679. Swood1000 says:

    those employed by the Western Fuels Association

    This, of course, is an ad hominem argument: Soon’s argument should fail because he is a bad person.

    And doesn’t it cut both ways? The more that global warming alarm is stoked, the more federal funds will be available for various studies.

  680. SkyHunter says:

    Soon’s argument fails on it’s own merits.

    That does not change the fact that Willie Soon’s opinion is bought and paid for by fossil fuel interests.

  681. SkyHunter says:

    These people are not climate scientists. And their statements are climate denier talking points, not scientific arguments, so yes, I would consider them to be climate science deniers.

  682. Swood1000 says:

    I’m having trouble distinguishing between the legitimate sceptic and the denier. It seem that if a person says that the urgency of global warming alarmism has not been demonstrated to him you say that he is repeating “denier talking points” and that makes him a denier. Maybe the key is that they “self-identify with the science denial industry.” Where can I find out more about the science denial industry?

  683. Swood1000 says:

    People motivated by money do not generally become scientists.

    People nevertheless are strongly motivated to become scientists, and conducting studies is a big part of that. It order to conduct a study they need grant money. Studies that find that global warming is a grave national emergency cause more federal grant money to be available. Putting a global warming component into a study will make it eligible for these funds.

  684. Swood1000 says:

    Willie Soon’s opinion is bought and paid for by fossil fuel interests.

    Is every scientist’s opinion bought and paid for by the interests of those who provide his funding?

  685. SkyHunter says:

    Not really, and it means the scientist would have to research something other than what they are passionate about. It is just not a prime motivating factor.

  686. SkyHunter says:

    No, but you can trace every prominent one in the media back to industry think tanks and PR organizations.

  687. Swood1000 says:

    How do we know that X’s opinion is bought and paid for and that Y’s opinion is not?

  688. Swood1000 says:

    If there is a great deal of grant money available for studying X, and even more grant money becomes available when there is a finding that X is true, and if there is very little available to study Y, then scientists who are interested in both X and Y will be drawn to X, and encouraged to find that X is true.

  689. Swood1000 says:

    I’ll read this.

  690. SkyHunter says:

    It is a moot point. A bought and paid for opinion could still be a robust opinion. To the scientifically literate though, it is easy to spot an invalid opinion.

    Like for instance; “Natural variability means it will take 150 years to statistically prove AGW.”

    That is nonsense to anyone with more than a casual understanding of statistics. So that person’s opinion is obviously not well grounded in reality. When you couple that with speaking fees and other promotions from the fossil fuel funded PR industry, and it becomes clear that the person is trading their credibility for money.

  691. SkyHunter says:

    But that is pure conjecture. There is plenty of evidence for the fossil fuel funding of denial. None for your hypothesis.

    Here is the thing. If a scientists says X is true and it turns out X is false, they lose credibility and future funding. The motivation in science is to discover something that no one else has. There is no greater sin in science than being overconfident in tenuous results.

  692. SkyHunter says:

    One thing that I would like to point out.

    Research grants are not the same as speaking fees and other public relations fees. That is the major difference between actively researching scientists and the public relations personas like Curry and Pielke Jr.

    What they are doing is public relations propaganda, not science.

  693. Swood1000 says:

    Like for instance; “Natural variability means it will take 150 years to statistically prove AGW.”

    Dr. Collins believes that a burdensome case against AGW can be made after only 20 years.

  694. Swood1000 says:

    But if a scientist suddenly finds himself offered large sums to speak are you saying that the refusal to turn that down proves that his motives are not honorable?

    I heard Richard Lindzen say once that he does public speaking in part because he enjoys it, and enjoys the give and take of it. And I am sure he also enjoys the money, and what’s wrong with that?

  695. Swood1000 says:

    If a scientists says X is true and it turns out X is false, they lose credibility and future funding.

    But if a scientist only says that he proposes to find out if X is true then he does not lose credibility if X turns out not to be true. If, however, by finding that X is true he receives much recognition and acclaim and further funding, then that is a motivation for studying X and for finding that X is true.

    None for your hypothesis.

    But my hypothesis relies only on human nature and common sense. Scientists need funding. They are motivated to do the things necessary to acquire funding. You say that the “denier” scientists are willing to sacrifice their honor for funding but the non-denier scientists are not. I just don’t see how you are able to make that distinction.

  696. SkyHunter says:

    Are you referring to William Collins at Berkeley?

    When did he say a burdensome case could be made against AGW in 20 years?

    “Now, I am hedging a bet because, to be honest with you, if the hiatus is still going on as of the sixth IPCC report, that report is going to have a large burden on its shoulders walking in the door, because recent literature has shown that the chances of having a hiatus of 20 years are vanishingly small.”

    The even more recent literature however suggests that the recent climate, which provides the empirical observations, was still in a somewhat unforced state, still overcoming the inertia. As the system becomes more energetic, it is likely to exhibit unpredictable behavior.

    The hedges Dr. Collins made were, (1) statistically the odds favor a less than 20 year hiatus (1999 – 2018), (2) It is already an area of intense interest, so the burden of explanation would be carried by the published research.

  697. SkyHunter says:

    Nothing. But scientists like Lindzen are working for money, not science. Lindzen also helped attack the science showing a link between lung cancer and cigarette smoking.

    http://www.desmogblog.com/richard-lindzen

  698. SkyHunter says:

    The deniers are not after funding for research, that would mean a lot of hard work. They don’t have to prove a null-hypothesis, just create doubt for the propaganda market.

    The distinction is very clear. One group is still driven by need to know, the other is clearly not.

    Which is why one group is actively doing research, while the other is doing PR work.

  699. Swood1000 says:

    When did he say a burdensome case could be made against AGW in 20 years?

    Yes, he said that in this quote. And your view is either (a) that more recent literature has satisfied the burden, or (b) that you disagree that it should be considered a burden, or (c) that you consider the burden to be slight.

  700. Swood1000 says:

    My understanding is that Lindzen was attacking the connection between secondhand smoke and lung cancer. Can you refer me to any statement in which he questioned the connection between lung cancer and the person smoking?

    But scientists like Lindzen are working for money, not science.

    And we know that how?

  701. Swood1000 says:

    the hockey stick is the shape of the data, no matter what global proxies or methodology is used.

    As long as the data does not contain a Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age. But then in a later study, which we already talked about, he acknowledged the existence of a MWP, so I’m not sure what’s going on there. It is alleged that he chose his proxies, and chose his statistical procedures, to eliminate the MWP.

    coincidentally threatened the wealth of some of the most wealthy and powerful private interests that the world has ever known.

    I assume this will be covered in that link you sent me earlier.

  702. Swood1000 says:

    The deniers are not after funding for research, that would mean a lot of hard work.

    Well, either this is true or their scientific work is bought and paid for by the forces of darkness, but not both.

  703. SkyHunter says:

    Mann never denied the existence of either the LIA or the MWP. They are both evident in his reconstructions.

  704. SkyHunter says:

    You are right, he didn’t join the PR industry until after the industry lost the fight to deny a link between smoking and lung cancer.

  705. Swood1000 says:

    He just denied that the temperature during the MWP or LIA would be significantly different from the temperatures of the surrounding periods?

  706. Swood1000 says:

    The American Physical Society invited Christy, Curry and Lindzen to participate in their Climate Change Statement Review Workshop. If these are really just corrupt hacks, as you insist, then how could the APS be fooled so badly?

    There could be no question that they wanted no repetition of the resignations that happened after their last statement, such as this one from Harold Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara:

    “It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.”

    But how do you explain that they were willing to sully the name of their august organization with the likes of these people? Is it possible that they are not actually held in low esteem by their peers?

  707. SkyHunter says:

    I don’t believe the hiatus will last that long, but if it does (a) it will not be outside of probability and (b) it will be explained by observations.

  708. SkyHunter says:

    The APS society invited them because they are the most prestigious skeptics available, and they wanted as full a perspective as possible.

    They don’t care about individual members throwing hissy fits like Lewis. Including three high profile deniers with actual scientific credentials does not tarnish their image, it enhances it. When they basically leave their AGW position statement unchanged, no one can say they ignored the skeptics in their deliberations.

  709. Swood1000 says:

    Yes but you say that denying AGW is like denying gravity, and is a symptom of mental imbalance. The APS must not agree because they certainly would not invite in experts to provide the viewpoint that gravity does not exist.

  710. Swood1000 says:

    The third chart is BS from Geocraft. Ask CB about it.

    I asked CB about it but she did not respond. Is GEOCARB III not a good source?

  711. Swood1000 says:

    However another guy responded with this graph and said that the GEOCARB III values could lie anywhere inside the yellow shaded area.

  712. Swood1000 says:

    OK, CB responded. Let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this.

  713. SkyHunter says:

    They don’t have any scientific work to speak of. It is their opinions that are bought and paid for, they don’t need to do research, just manufacture doubt.

  714. SkyHunter says:

    If you listen very carefully to what they say professionally, they don’t deny AGW. They reserve that for their blogs and op-eds in the Wall Street Journal.

    The give the APS review process credibility with the deniersphere, even though they used quotes from the workshop to make specious arguments.

  715. Gary Slabaugh says:

    You have the patience of Job to explain a host of questions so thoroughly. Cudos

  716. Swood1000 says:

    If you listen very carefully to what they say professionally, they don’t deny AGW.

    This is where we run into the distinction between AGW and CAGW. Lindzen agrees with AGW but says that it is nothing to worry about and may actually be beneficial. He denies CAGW, which is what the issue is about.

    give the APS review process credibility with the deniersphere,

    Why do they need credibility with the deniersphere? This is a premier scientific organization. Are you saying that they are bringing in people they know to be hucksters to advise them on their policy statement? I don’t see them bringing in people who think that the earth was created 6000 years ago to advise them on geological issues even though there appears to be a substantial and vocal group of people out there of that persuasion.

  717. Swood1000 says:

    Is any scientific work that draws a non-alarmist conclusion by definition of no value?

  718. SkyHunter says:

    Lindzen has always had a contrary opinion on a multitude of issues and propagated that opinion loudly. But like much of his research, his opinions have been consistently in error.

    Including the most prominent skeptics is just good science. The more rigorous the challenge, the more robust the conclusion. You are making a false equivalency. The flat-earth society and the creationists are not members of the APS. Nor are their any policy issues at stake over whether or not the earth is 6000 years old. The APS I don’t believe has a position statement on creation vs evolution, but if the do, I am sure they would have included creationists in the review process.

    How could one conduct a thorough review with reviewing all the elements?

    When AGW became a POLIcy issue. It automatically became a POLItical issue. The APS is not immune from political fallout. By having three credentialed figures who are prominent in the deniersphere as part of the review process will also help to diffuse some of the inevitable political blowback when the APS position statement remains relatively unchanged.

    Politics and policy are inseparable. Once in order to understand the politics, you need to understand the policy goals of the vested interests.

    If one or two members of the World’s second largest organization of physicists resign over that… I think the other 50,000 members will get over it.

    RPJR has a doctorate in political science. Here is what the late Stephen Schneider had to say about him.

    Thanks Paul, I guess, never any fun dealing with Roger Jr. I can’t figure him out, except that one consistent pattern emerges-he is a self-aggrandizer who sets up straw men, knocks them down, and takes credit for being the honest broker to explain the mess-and in fact usually adds little new social science to his analysis. I saw him do it at AAAS four years ago and called him on it afterward and he walked off steamed when I told him he just made assertions and that good scientists show empirical evidence. He is not worth arguing about, frankly.

  719. SkyHunter says:

    I had a conversation with our friend at PopTech a few years ago.

    Most of those papers at PopTech do not dispute the consensus position. Those that do are not credible or peer-reviewed.

    And as for his standard for what constitutes a peer-reviewed journal… One of the papers he listed was actually published in dog astrology journal.

  720. Swood1000 says:

    Most of those papers at PopTech do not dispute the consensus position.

    Is it the consensus position that global warming disaster is imminent?

  721. SkyHunter says:

    CAGW is a red herring. Most of the species alive today, including humans, evolved during a much colder climate. I believe the consensus position is that global warming disaster is already underway.

  722. Swood1000 says:

    Wasn’t it also Stephen Schneider who said:

    “On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”

  723. SkyHunter says:

    What do you take away from that?

    I see him quite clearly laying out that when politics and science collide, science must be communicated in a nonscientific manner, because you need broad support to effect policy.

    While he is concerned about the balance between communicating effectively and remaining honest, RPJR, as a political scientist, is only interested in being effective, he has no regard for the truth.

  724. Swood1000 says:

    I prefer the news on one page and the editorials on another. On the news page I just want the facts, without modification or embellishment. Certainly opinions can be stated as news. “Dr. X said that in his opinion…” but it must be presented as an opinion.

    If a scientist, in an attempt to influence public policy, communicates a skewed version of the facts or findings, how can the result be anything other than a loss of credibility for himself and for scientists in general?

    When Schneider says “make little mention of any doubts we might have” he is saying that a scientist is justified in delivering, as fact, only the part of the facts that he believes will cause the reader to have the same opinion as he himself has. He is talking about editorializing the news page.

    At the bottom, Schneider thinks that scientists should control public policy. Inconveniently, the voters control public policy, so Schneider feels justified in making the public policy decision but in a stealth way.

    “Therefore, what you’re talking about as a scientist is risk: what can happen multiplied times the odds of it happening. That’s an expert judgment. The average person is not really competent to make such a judgment.” https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=28859

    It is a cornerstone of our society that the average person is competent to sit in a jury and listen to competing arguments and make a decision. Usually it is enough, in a technical case, to be shown the opinion of highly-regarded experts. But let’s have the decision be made on that basis rather than by limiting the information to be given to the jury.

  725. Swood1000 says:

    RPJR, as a political scientist, is only interested in being effective, he has no regard for the truth.

    Is this just another way of saying that you profoundly disagree with him, or do you have an example of him showing disregard for the truth?

  726. SkyHunter says:

    That is a very naive perspective of how the court of public opinion works. That is not even how a jury trial works. There are rules of disclosure for evidence, and even certain lines of argument that are not allowed to proceed.

    RPJR and Lindzen both decry that climate science as corrupted by politics. And rightfully so, since they are the ones corrupting science with politics. Then they claim victimhood when called out on it.

    The average person lacks the scientific background to even understand the arguments, let alone decide which is likely correct.

  727. SkyHunter says:

    Here is a perfect example of him disregarding the truth.

    He is not interested in communicating the truth here. He is interested in disparaging Hansen.

    He knew that emission scenarios did not begin to diverge significantly until 2000, so there is only a slight difference in forcing from one to the other.

    The real information is in the comments.

  728. Swood1000 says:

    There are rules of disclosure of evidence, and even lines of argument that are allowed to proceed.

    The purpose of the rules of evidence is to keep irrelevant evidence from being introduced in an attempt to get the jury to make a decision for reasons that are not relevant. It is well known that a person can be influenced by inflaming his passions, for example, or by confusing him with a fallacious argument. The role of the judge is to prevent lawyers from using these methods. But there are no rules of evidence that prohibit the introduction of relevant facts that don’t also involve compromising the fact-finding process.

    The average person lacks the scientific background to even understand the arguments, let alone decide which is likely correct.

    Well, does the average person understand the economic and military questions that are at stake in the election of a president or member of congress? Not even slightly. So how do we choose these people?

    As far a public policy scientific questions are concerned, my position is that it is not necessary for people to understand the low-level scientific details. I can support funding for a Center for Disease Control without knowing the first thing about disease. There are people who do know about disease. Let me hear from them about what the risks are, what the costs will be, and what is the likely outcome if we do nothing and if we do something. If there are two experts who disagree let me hear them debate each other. What is your alternative?

  729. SkyHunter says:

    Scientific arguments are very technical and the details are incredibly boring for 99.99% of people.

    If you don’t know any better, and I explain to you the scientific fact that all the energy emitted from the surface of the earth that can be absorbed by CO2 is absorbed in the first 10 meters of the atmosphere, so therefore it is impossible for CO2 to raise the temperature at the surface, because the bandwidth it is active in is already saturated, what are you Joe Public supposed to think?

  730. Swood1000 says:

    In the first place, Joe Public doesn’t need to be told any of those details.

    Suppose you’re told that the county engineer recommends a tax increase to pay for upgrades to the sewer system. And let’s suppose you know nothing about how a public sewer system works. You don’t want to know the details. You just want to know why he is recommending this. How serious is the problem he foresees? How likely is it? How expensive is his solution? Will his solution actually solve the problem he is worried about? Do other experts in this area agree? If not, you want to hear their reasons for disagreeing and his responses.

    How else should this situation be handled?Just because a person has technical expertise doesn’t mean that he is more competent to make public policy decisions.

  731. Swood1000 says:

    CAGW is a red herring.

    global warming disaster is already underway

    These two statements are contradictory according to my understanding of these terms. CAGW is global warming disaster.

    What is the nature of the disaster about which there is consensus?

  732. SkyHunter says:

    How is it possible for CO2 to warm the atmosphere if the bandwidth is already saturated in less that 30 feet?

  733. SkyHunter says:

    CAGW is denier meme intended to shift the position from AGW isn’t happening, to it won’t be bad.

    Sea levels continuing to rise, droughts and floods intensifying, crop yields falling, ocean acidifying, Not to mention the general stress climate disruption puts on entire ecosystems.

    I can’t think of a single scientist not working for the denier industry in some capacity who believes climate disruption to be benign.

  734. Swood1000 says:

    If that is true, and if it is dispositive of the issue, then you will not be faced with any opposition that you could not brush aside easily. Standing on your side of the stage would be a dazzling array of scientists with impeccable credentials and on the other side of the stage would be a rag-tag group whose opinions you could impeach easily. What’s the problem?

  735. SkyHunter says:

    It is true. All of the energy emitted from the surface that can be absorbed by CO2 is absorbed in the first 10 meters. This is a scientific fact.

    How can adding more CO2 possibly make any difference?

  736. Swood1000 says:

    Well, I read your article. Actually, by “science denial industry” I expected to find more evidence for a conspiracy or at least for these people being on the payroll of the evildoers. Here they were just presented as wrong-headed liars with connections to the oil industry. Also, whenever I read an article that has this tone, no matter who is writing it, I usually assume that much of it is exaggerated or one-sided. I operate the same way when reading any vituperative article, whether or not I support the writer’s position. It’s like listening to a politician talking about the other party. It might be comforting to hear if you support his position but realistically you realize that you’re only hearing one side, that others would describe these events much differently, and that you have to take it with a grain of salt.

  737. Swood1000 says:

    How can adding more CO2 possibly make any difference?

    I thought we were talking about whether Joe Public has a role in formulating public policy in an area dominated by technical details. You seem to be saying that, just as a judge will not permit a jury to reach an illogical conclusion neither should Joe Public be presented with a choice where one of the options is impossible or illogical. I agree with that. I do not agree, however, that global warming public policy must be decided by climate scientists just because they are the only ones who understand the underlying science.

    My impression is that you would prefer to decide global warming public policy at a high level by experts, thinking of it as analogous to just solving math equations that could not logically be solved any other way. You would prefer a powerful central authority to establish the “correct” public policy. This authority would severely rein in free enterprise and capitalism, and would impose heavy taxes where necessary to force individuals and companies into certain behaviors deemed necessary. And you would prefer that this be done with little or no input from Joe Public, because you don’t trust Joe Public to understand what is in his best interests.

    But I believe that Joe Public is competent to hear the arguments made by both sides and to correctly decide public policy questions. I have a greater fear of those who would try to exclude Joe Public on the grounds that they know what is good for Joe Public better than he does.

  738. Swood1000 says:

    CAGW is denier meme intended to shift the position from AGW isn’t happening, to it won’t be bad.

    You do recognize, don’t you, that there are many people who believe that there is warming going on, and that man has played a significant roll in that, but who believe that it is nothing to worry about?

    And if you lump those people together with the people who believe that severe consequences are in store for us if we don’t change our ways, and then characterize the entire group as believing that severe consequences are in store for us, then that is deceptive.

    I just don’t understand your refusal to see a practical distinction between those who think there is something to worry about and those who don’t.

  739. SkyHunter says:

    Of course I recognize it. I have been studying deniers and the evolution of their arguments for over a decade. Initially, global warming was an artifact of the urban heat island effect, and one volcanic eruption dwarfs human emissions. The denier arguments have evolved, now they admit it is happening but believe it won’t be bad.

    There is no practical distinction. Suicide is suicide.

  740. SkyHunter says:

    Can you answer the question?

    If all the energy emitted from the surface that can be absorbed is absorbed in the first 30 feet, how can adding more make a difference?

    Answer the question, then we will discuss policy decisions.

  741. Gary Slabaugh says:

    As for one who is trying also to get to the root (radix, radical) of the matter… the most important focus ought to be assessing cautionary and precautionary risk and selective fitness.

    I learned as an undergrad back in the mid 70’s that two natural cycles (carbon and phosphorus) were becoming imbalanced due to human economic and agricultural activities. Trade and farming are prehistoric activities so, it seems to me, they are inherently interconnected with both risk and fitness… in short… survival.

    If you want to get radical, focus on survival, imo and fwiw.

  742. SkyHunter says:

    It isn’t patience. It is contentment. I am content to teach and learn. You don’t really understand something until you can explain it to someone. Explaining is a very important step in the learning process.

  743. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Truth. Thanks for the clarification. I’m glad that the teaching and the learning contribute to your joie de vivre.

  744. Swood1000 says:

    There is no practical distinction. Suicide is suicide.

    This is the fallacy of equivocation, where I use “distinction” to refer to the difference in the beliefs of two people and you use it to refer to what you believe the result of their actions will be.

    The charge is made that “alarmists” are being intentionally deceptive when they engage in another fallacy of equivocation. They say that 97% of scientists are on-board with AGW, knowing that many of those are not on-board that it is dangerous (or at least have not stated so). But the “alarmists” intentionally use “AGW” in a different sense that includes impending catastrophe, expecting people to think that there is much more support for this than has really been demonstrated.

    I can think of no other reason why you would object to a distinction between AGW and CAGW.

  745. Swood1000 says:

    I see. You are saying that only those people who can answer this question are competent to have a voice in the formulation of global warming public policy.

    But that is ridiculous. The experts are experts on the probability and the magnitude of the harm that will come about if we don’t change our GHG policies. But the experts are not unanimous about the probability and magnitude. And they are not experts on the costs. Who is to evaluate whether a proposed solution to a proposed problem is equal to the proposed cost?

    Furthermore, scientists, even when they agree strongly with each, can be wrong. The mainstream climate scientists agreed strongly that there would not be a hiatus but there was one. It is not unreasonable for Joe Public to want to wait and see if these predictions are likely to be valid, given the extreme cost.

  746. Swood1000 says:

    I have not yet gotten to the point where I believe that our survival is imperiled.

  747. Swood1000 says:

    If there is more CO2, the energy is absorbed closer to the source.

  748. SkyHunter says:

    Yes, but it is an infinitesimal difference and cannot account for observations. AGW must be a scientific hoax.

  749. Swood1000 says:

    Few people claim that AGW is a hoax. It’s CAGW that they’re talking about.

  750. SkyHunter says:

    CAGW is a denier meme. The latest evolution of denial.

    Besides,I just provided with proof AGW is fake.

  751. Swood1000 says:

    Frankly, I don’t really follow your point. Could you make it in a more simplified way?

  752. SkyHunter says:

    Since all the energy that can be absorbed by CO2 is absorbed in the first ten meters, and Knut Angstrom proved in 1901 that the CO2 bandwidth was saturated, therefore AGW is a hoax.

  753. Swood1000 says:

    Even more simplified, please. Is somebody making this argument?

  754. Swood1000 says:

    I see. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument
    But what is your point? Is this the principal “denier” argument?

  755. SkyHunter says:

    The point is, the general public is not scientifically literate enough to defend themselves against disinformation.

    You had to turn to Michael Mann’s blog to find the answer. That should tell you something.

  756. Swood1000 says:

    I like that blog. Good explanations of stuff. And I especially like Gavin’s responses. Why do you think that Joe Public won’t turn to that blog for his information?

    the general public is not scientifically literate enough to defend themselves against disinformation

    Wrong! Within 5 minutes I was reading about Miskolczi and then from Roy Spencer’s blog and Judith Curry’s blog how it was all crap. I don’t need to understand the underlying science. I just need to (a) find somebody who does understand it and can explain it to me, and (b) evaluate that person’s bias, expertise, and believability. For purposes of (b) my approach is to see what critics that person has and what they say.

    What’s wrong with that approach? What is the alternative?

  757. Swood1000 says:

    Furthermore, if a scientist says that X will happen and X doesn’t happen Joe Public doesn’t need to understand the details of X in order to justifiably lose confidence in that scientist.

  758. SkyHunter says:

    So when Judith Curry says things like:

    Ideas linking changes in the polar vortex to global warming are not supported by any evidence that I find convincing.

    an obvious lie, you no longer trust anything she says right?

    Or when she keeps misrepresenting the IPCC probability distribution.
    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/08/ipcc-attribution-statements-redux-a-response-to-judith-curry/comment-page-1/

    The argument evolves, but the goal remains the same. Do nothing so Exxon Mobil can keep making money.

  759. SkyHunter says:

    I find it quite ironic that the first AGW denier was a Koch.

    Knut Ångström, asked an assistant, Herr J. Koch, to do a simple experiment. He sent infrared radiation through a tube filled with carbon dioxide, containing somewhat less gas in total then would be found in a column of air reaching to the top of the atmosphere. That’s not much, since the concentration in air is only a few hundred parts per million. Herr Koch did his experiments in a 30cm long tube, though 250cm would have been closer to the right length to use to represent the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Herr Koch reported that when he cut the amount of gas in the tube by one-third, the amount of radiation that got through scarcely changed. The American meteorological community was alerted to Ångström’s result in a commentary appearing in the June, 1901 issue of Monthly Weather Review, which used the result to caution “geologists” against adhering to Arrhenius’ wild ideas. – See more at: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument#sthash.VyDqTI31.dpuf

  760. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I realize that survival/fitness is not in the forefront of most human animals’ consciousness.

    You are probably aware of extinction level events of the geological past and the current Holocene extinction. You are probably also aware of the collapse of complex societies in the historical past.

    I assume you are aware of the psychological concepts of psychic numbing, being inured to existential threats, and truth/reality being sometimes too hard or painful to bear.

    And then there is the general rule to reserve judgement until sufficient evidence to infer a conclusion is available… but in the case of collapse or extinction most of the time the evidence is after the fact and not based on prescience.

  761. SkyHunter says:

    Yeah it was, until a few years ago. Now the new meme is CAGW.

  762. Gary Slabaugh says:

    The CAGW meme? Does this line of doubt go something like: a climate sensitivity of 3 degrees Celsius per doubling of CO2 is or is not cause for genuine alarm? Or does the meme flatly deny the above climate sensitivity? Or does the meme have more variety than I’m mentioning?

  763. Swood1000 says:

    The point is, the general public is not scientifically literate enough to defend themselves against disinformation.

    Would you be kind enough to lay out your proposed solution?

  764. SkyHunter says:

    Scientific literacy.

  765. SkyHunter says:

    Most deniers use a combination, along with all the old talking points as well. Whatever the argument, the result is the same. Keep burning fossil fuels like there is no tomorrow.

  766. Swood1000 says:

    Can you spell it out? Many members of congress do not have scientific literacy so they will be excluded from participation in the formulation of global warming public policy?

  767. Swood1000 says:

    I am also aware that the history of science is replete with examples of mistakes and blunders.

  768. Swood1000 says:

    Do you think that capitalism is a defective system that needs to be replaced?

  769. SkyHunter says:

    All institutions must grow or become obsolete.

  770. SkyHunter says:

    That is what we elect Congress for is to establish policies governed by laws. Otherwise there is no stability.

    When I answered scientific literacy to your question, I was addressing how to not be susceptible to rhetorical bullshit.

  771. Swood1000 says:

    an obvious lie

    So the lie is that in fact it is supported by evidence that she finds convincing?

    Or when she keeps misrepresenting the IPCC probability distribution.

    “Misrepresent” of course refers again to a lie. So are you saying that this is not a difference of opinion but that she knows what the truth and is intentionally telling a lie?

  772. Swood1000 says:

    So you are not saying that those without scientific literacy should be excluded from participation in the formulation of global warming public policy?

  773. Swood1000 says:

    And how should capitalism grow?

  774. Gary Slabaugh says:

    So you are remaining skeptical of AGW theory based on the mistakes and blunders of the past?

  775. SkyHunter says:

    The very physics that creates the polar vortex is the evidence for it’s weakening from global warming.

    She is manufacturing doubt where none exists. Deliberately, on purpose, for money.

  776. Gary Slabaugh says:

    As you have posted prior, the deniers pose the most destructive threat to our survival (or something to that effect; my apologies if I took too much liberty paraphrasing). The result of the continued merchandizing of doubt will in all likelihood be the status quo remaining perforce.

    To change the subject a bit from the direction of ethology to mythology… what do you think of this conjecture from John N. Gray in The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths

    Modern myths are myths of salvation stated in secular terms. What both kinds of myths have in common is that they answer to a need for meaning that cannot be denied. In order to survive, humans have invented science. Pursued consistently, scientific inquiry acts to undermine myth. But life without myth is impossible, so science has become a channel for myths – chief among them, a myth of salvation through science. When truth is at odds with meaning, it is meaning that wins. Why this should be so is a delicate question. Why is meaning so important? Why do humans need a reason to live? Is it because they could not endure life if they did not believe it contained hidden significance? Or does the demand for meaning come from attaching too much sense to language – from thinking that our lives are books we have not yet learnt to read?

    If this is a conversation going sideways that you would not rather have, that’s fine. Just food for thought and rhetorical questions.

  777. Swood1000 says:

    That’s what keeps me from signing on before I see evidence that is distinct from what looks same as past climate variability.

  778. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Specifically why is Judith Curry’s blog credible? Her credentials are in research submitted for peer review. Her blog reveals her personal opinions. Could she be trading her scientific credentials for personal credibility? Of course she could. So how do we get to the root of the the question Why? To gain a cult following? Is she channeling Ayn Rand?

    The link you sent me has Judith Curry stating the following:

    I argued [in a ‘debate’ with Kevin Trenberth] that there are very few facts [with regards to climate science], and that most of what passes for facts in the public debate (emphasis mine) on climate change is: inference from incomplete, inadequate and ambiguous observations; climate models that have been demonstrated not to be useful for most of the applications that they are used for; and theories and hypotheses that are competing with alternative theories and hypotheses.

    J Curry is being disingenuous by deliberately confusing the scientific debate with the political one. The scientific epistemic IS the debate and HAS dealt with and IS continually dealing with a plethora of facts, real data, empirical observations. To imply otherwise is the worst sort of scientific un-professionalism. Shame on her.

    Second, how plausible is it that AGW theory falls into the general category of “this marvelous story of scientific error and breakthrough”? If you are going to be a radical skeptic… it means walking that line between doubt and belief. It means being questioning, seeking, inquiring. It doesn’t mean seizing onto the uncertainty that is inherent in the scientific model. Are you really looking at plausibility skeptically? Only you can know for yourself.

    Finally J Curry winds up her blog post with the implication that Mann ought to be a “good loser” in his defense of the hockey stick. Really?! I mean REALLY?! “The hockey stick graph was further extended and confirmed by Marcott, et al 2013 which used seafloor and lake bed sediment proxies to reconstruct global temperatures over the past 11,300 yrs.” Marcott, S.A.; Shakun, J. D.; Clark, P. U.; Mix, A. C. (8 March 2013), “A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years”, Science 339 (6124): 1198– 1201, doi:10.1126/science.1228026, PMID 23471405

  779. Gary Slabaugh says:

    OK… what sort of “past climate variability” is good enough for you? For approx 800,000 years, up until man-made CO2 emissions from the burning of fossilized/sequestered organic carbon, there has been a natural variability of between 180 and 280 ppm concentration of atmospheric CO2. Now CO2 is at 400 ppm and growing. That CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas and a multiplier of the most potent and predominant greenhouse gas, i.e. water vapor, is good science. Carbon dioxide is a known forcer for climate change based on physics and climate systems science. Or are these facts not in evidence or disputable?

    What sort of evidence is going to be enough for you make a distinction between now and say… when Greenland was ice free? Using that example, are you waiting for an ice free Greenland to be observed by human eyes?

  780. Swood1000 says:

    Specifically why is Judith Curry’s blog credible?

    The link I sent you did not require credibility. It was only for the purpose of discussing scientific blunders.

    J Curry is being disingenuous by deliberately confusing the scientific debate with the political one.

    Will you distinguish the scientific and the public debate for me?

    Really?! I mean REALLY?! “The hockey stick graph was further extended and confirmed by Marcott, et al 2013

    Does Marcott show a flat hockey stick with no warm or cold periods? Do you believe that there were no warm or cold periods?

  781. Swood1000 says:

    By “climate variability” I was not referring to CO2 variability. I was referring to temperature variability.

    Carbon dioxide is a known forcer for climate change based on physics and climate systems science. Or are these facts not in evidence or disputable?

    That CO2 is a greenhouse gas is not disputable. The dispute concerns what the effect of added CO2 will be on our climate. Will it be minor and benign, or will it be catastrophic?

  782. Swood1000 says:

    What sort of evidence is going to be enough for you make a distinction between now and say… when Greenland was ice free?

    Something different from the natural variation we have seen before. And model predictions that come true.

  783. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Wait. You link to a blog that you consider neither credible nor lacks credibility? Next time, to avoid confusion, you might link to a direct source (like the book) instead of commentary on a book referencing climate science skepticism (J Curry’s blog). Unless of course you are a fan of Curry.

    The distinguishing feature of the scientific debate and the public debate is at least three fold. First has to do with scientific credentials. Credentials are much more important to scientists than the public grants to itself. Scientific Credentials are earned through hard work and academic scholarship.

  784. Swood1000 says:

    She is manufacturing doubt where none exists. Deliberately, on purpose, for money.

    Is this guy doing the same thing? It appears that you believe that sceptics fall into one of only two categories: misled as a result of scientific illiteracy or intentionally dishonest. Is there any other possibility?

    Award-winning Princeton University Physicist Dr. Will Happer rejected the media and some scientists claims that the record U.S. cold is due to man-made global warming. Happer, explained the science in an exclusive interview with Climate Depot. “Polar vortices have been around forever. They have almost nothing to do with more CO2 in the atmosphere,” Happer said in an exclusive interview with Climate Depot. http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/01/07/princeton-physicist-dr-will-happer-refutes-claims-that-global-warming-is-causing-record-cold-polar-vortices-have-been-around-forever-they-have-almost-nothing-to-do-with-more-co2-in-the-atmosphere/

  785. SkyHunter says:

    Happer’s argument is a strawman. Of course polar vortices have been around forever. They are caused by differential in atmospheric height and corrialis effect.

    Do you see how scientific literacy allows me see through his BS?

    Climatedepot is a propaganda outlet, not a scientific resource.

  786. Swood1000 says:

    So, since Dr. William Happer does not lack scientific literacy the only other option is moral degeneracy?

  787. Swood1000 says:

    Wait. You link to a blog that you consider neither credible nor lacks credibility?

    I said that the link did not require credibility. I did not say that it was not credible. If I had linked to it in order to prove the scientific truth of an assertion then the link would need to be credible. I did not provide the link to prove the truth of anything that I thought you might dispute. Do you dispute that there have been scientific blunders?

  788. Swood1000 says:

    I’m assuming it was from Marcott

    No, that graph was not from Marcott. It simply shows the warm and cold periods that were absent from the Mann hockey stick. I asked you if they were also missing in the Marcott study. Are you sceptical of the warm and cold periods?

  789. Swood1000 says:

    Third, and most importantly, the scientific epistemic IS the debate.

    I don’t see “epistemic” listed anywhere as a noun. Could you define it?

  790. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I believe that you misunderstand the nature and purpose of mathematical and computer models. Has not this been explained prior? Or do you just believe the explanation to be uncertain and/or unreliable? Do you believe that computer modeling is supposed to be so reliable as to be able to foretell specific future events/happenings? Specifically what model projections/trends are not coming true. http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models-intermediate.htm

    Again, you are going to have to send a link with the graph. Even though a picture is worth a thousand words… I still need the words and the reference to go along with the picture. Thanks. Additionally do you think facts are unreliable? Do you believe scientists make huge mistakes/blunders while interpreting the facts, the data, the empirical observations associated with climate change? Is it a fact that Greenland is losing ice mass? Has Greenland lost ice mass prior? How is the rate of decline of ice mass different then as compared to now? How do you personally explain natural variation as opposed to anthropogenic variation?

    Did you not post this image to CB or Sky Hunter? Did you get an explanation sufficient for your understanding, or no?

  791. Swood1000 says:

    J Curry is being disingenuous by deliberately confusing the scientific debate with the political one.

    Could you clarify how she confuses the scientific and the public debate?

  792. SkyHunter says:

    Why should you assume either/or?

  793. Swood1000 says:

    That’s the question I am asking. What are the other options? (But I will agree that a person can be scientifically illiterate and morally degenerate at the same time, if that is your point.)

  794. Gary Slabaugh says:

    When you look at temperature variability are you only looking at GMST, or are you also considering the thermal mass of the oceans?

    Adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. OK. Are you convinced that it will result in warming? cooling? neither warming nor cooling? If you are convinced that the climate system will experience warming will the warming be minor, major, disastrous seems to be your line of questioning.

    Do you think that the science is correct that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 results in a climate sensitivity of approx +3 degrees Celsius? or do you think that this calculation is a major mistake/ blunder? or are you uncertain/undecided?

    Again, I need a link to the graph. Even a picture needs to be put into context.

  795. SkyHunter says:

    The world is not black and white. Happer could very well believe what he says, and be scientifically literate. Scientists are not immune to confirmation bias, Happer got his degree in 1964. He is admittedly out of his field, and has no published climate research.

    Scientific literacy helps one dispel BS from the outside, but the BS we tell ourselves is like a super virus. It takes extra effort to expose the deception we perpetrate upon ourselves!

  796. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Obviously there are ideas expressed in Judith Curry’s blog which are scientifically disputable. Just as obvious, simply because you did not say the link was not credible, does not necessarily conclude that you believe Judith Curry is a credible source for ideas. I would simply prefer straight-forward honesty, not double talk. Do you believe Judith Curry’s blog to be a credible source for ideas about climate science? or do you believe that the blog is not a credible source? or are you neutral? Linking to a source implies that you consider it a credible source, no? Otherwise you would link to a direct source, such as a direct link to the book itself about scientific blunders. The short rule is “Consider the source.”

    I do not dispute that there have been scientific errors of judgement and poor hypothesizing by individual scientists. But the beauty and simplicity of the scientific method is that it’s self correcting. That’s why science is such a massive success story when it comes to progressive knowledge.

    I dispute the idea that scientists participate in “group think.” I have full confidence that those people who make a truth claim that scientists (specifically climate scientists) are engaged in “group think” … those people who make that unjust accusation are themselves engaged in pseudo-science and have motivated reasons to merchandize political or religious doubt about the validity of the scientific methodology itself.

    In fact I consider pseudo-science one of humanity’s most self destructive modern memes. And I consider denial of AGW theory not only suicidally self-destructive, but denial in the guise of skepticism to be pseudo-science. FWIW

  797. Swood1000 says:

    I would simply prefer straight-forward honesty, not double talk.

    I’m done interacting with people who must be abusive in order to express themselves. Take care.

  798. Gary Slabaugh says:

    I need some background information first before I can thoroughly answer your question.

    How do YOU understand the difference between the scientific debate and the public debate?

    How do you believe a scientist with the standing and credentials of Judith Curry would understand “most of what passes for facts in the public debate
    (emphasis mine) on climate change” contrasted with empirical facts as interpreted by qualified and credentialed scientists within the scientific debate?

    Do you believe that you have a solid understanding of how science as an epistemology works? If you believe you have such an understanding, how would you demonstrate that knowledge apart from being a scientist yourself?

  799. Gary Slabaugh says:

    My mistake. Sometimes I use epistemic as a noun when I ought to use epistemics (functioning as singular) . So the corrected version ought to read “Third, and most importantly, the scientific epistemics IS the debate.” http://www.thefreedictionary.com/epistemics