This was an eye opener - cont.

[billsreef]

Those quotes might be meaningful if they came from a climate scientist as opposed to a vocal electrical engineer. It's always good to look at the source, and not just the delivery vehicle

 

[ScooterTDI]

Those quotes might be meaningful if they came from a climate scientist as opposed to a vocal electrical engineer. It's always good to look at the source, and not just the delivery vehicle

I personally haven't verified the claims, but does the man's profession mean that he can't be correct? If everything stated was completely accurate, then why does his profession prevent it from being meaningful?

Einstein was a patent clerk at the time of developing special relativity, does his profession make that theory meaningless?

Scott

 

[stugray]

As I have stated before "It is the sun!":

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/SolarCycleLengthandGlobalTemperatureAnomalies1.pdf

Here's a good quote:

"The most recent solar cycle, currently estimated to have reached a minimum in December 2008 based
on a 12 month centered moving average of monthly sunspot numbers, was the longest solar cycle since
1798‐1810, measured trough to trough. The cycle lasted approximately 150 months or 12.5 years, two
full years longer than the 20th century average of 10.5 years."


The sun is CHANGING.


Another:


"Besides the notable trend of cooler global temperatures following longer solar cycles and warmer global
temperatures following shorter solar cycles, the other notable feature of the data is the distinctly higher
temperature anomalies observed during the most recent three solar cycles. A trend line fitted through
the most recent three solar cycles is nearly parallel to a trend line through the previous nine solar cycles,
but is displaced 0.3‐0.4°C higher. If the difference was purely the result of CO2 increases, a steadily
increasing departure from the previous trend would be expected, and not a distinct jump and then a
continuation of the old trend at a warmer temperature level. The timing of the data jump happens to
be the mid‐to‐late 1970s, at a time of a noted global climate shift. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation
changed from a negative to a positive phase at that time, and could explain part of the discrepancy.
Improved ocean temperature estimates began during that time period as a result of satellite
measurements, while at the same time a reduction in the number of land‐based observation stations
has occurred."


And:

"Finally, note that the warm 1996‐2008 period followed the shortest solar cycle during the last 150 years."

So is this "unknown solar change mechanism" accounted for in the IPCC model?

Stu

 

[stugray]

Here is another good source for those of us who dont understand or appreciate how "delicate" the climate models are:

http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=32

Here is a quote:

"I have shown you evidence on why we really do not have much confidence in what the GCMs tell us about temperature, precipitation, clouds and changes in the oceans. By default, I also wish to emphasize that such climate model deficiencies also impact our understanding on how Earth's climate may response to other external forcing agents such as the natural variations of incoming radiant energies and particle fluxes linked to changes in our Sun which we have heard so much about throughout this meeting."



"As scientists, we have to remind ourselves that it is really impossible to have a verified or a fully validated numerical climate model because natural systems like Earth's climate system are never closed."



And I just have to laugh at this quote:

"Detailed analysis by Johnson (1997) suggested that temperature responses of GCMs could suffer from extreme sensitivity to systematic aphysical entropy sources introduced by spurious numerical diffusion, Gibbs oscillations and inadequacy of sub-grid-scale parameterizations"

That HAS to be some of the best techno babble I have ever seen :eek1:

Stu

 

[stugray]

Naaaa.... Couldnt be the sun:

Reply to Lockwood and Fröhlich "“ The persistent role of the Sun in climate forcing
http://www.spacecenter.dk/publications/scientific-report-series/Scient_No._3.pdf

A Critique on the Lockwood/Frochlich Paper in the Royal Society Proceedings
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/sppi_reprint_series/a_critique_on_the_lockwood_frochlich_paper_in_the_royal_society_proceedings.html

Shining More Light on the Solar Factor: A discussion of Problems with the Royal Society
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/sppi_originals/shining_more_light_on_the_solar_factor_a_discussion_of_problems_with_the_royal_society.html

100,000-Year Climate Pattern Linked To Sun's Magnetic Cycles
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/06/020607073439.htm

Another Possible Climate Culprit: the Sun
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE5DB153BF930A1575AC0A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

Basic physics supports solar activity as cause of global warming
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/nov/18/guardianletters.globalwarming

Brightening Sun is Warming Earth
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/11.06/BrighteningSuni.html

Canadian Climatologist Says Sun Causing Global Warming
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/avery070707.htm

Changes In Sun's Intensity Tied To Recurrent Droughts In Maya Region
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/05/010518083117.htm

Climate History and the Sun
http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/90.pdf

Cosmic Rays and Climate
http://www.denmark.dk/en/menu/AboutDenmark/ScienceResearch/ResearchAreas/ClimateResearch/CosmicRaysAndClimate/

Cosmic rays and Earth's climate
http://junkscience.com/Greenhouse/Cosmic_rays_and_climate.html

Cosmic Rays Blamed for Global Warming
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/11/warm11.xml

Cosmic Rays 'Linked to Clouds'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2333133.stm

Cosmic Rays Linked To Global Warming
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/07/020731080631.htm

Cosmic Rays may solve global warming problem
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/04/ncosmic04.xml

Cosmoclimatology: A new theory of climate change
http://www.spacecenter.dk/research/sun-climate/cosmoclimatology

Evidence For Sun-climate Link Reported By UMaine Scientists
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050111175828.htm

Evidence of a Significant Solar Imprint in Annual Globally Averaged Temperature Trends - Part 1
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/03/26/evidence-of-a-significant-solar-imprint-in-annual-globally-averaged-temperature-trends-part-1/

Evidence of a Significant Solar Imprint in Annual Globally Averaged Temperature Trends - Part 2
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/03/30/evidence-of-a-significant-solar-imprint-in-annual-globally-averaged-temperature-trends-part-2/

Flares From Sun's Far Side May Affect Space Weather Of Inner Planets
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/geowissenschaften/bericht-6729.html

Fluctuations in the Sun may be changing climate
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article1506033.ece

Ice cores show sun, not humans, controlling Earth's climate
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/avery032506.htm

It's the Sun, Stupid
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,313966,00.html

Holes In Sun's Corona Linked To Atmospheric Temperature Changes On Earth
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/03/000315080417.htm

NASA Finds Sun-Climate Connection in Old Nile Records
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/nilef-20070319.html

NASA Study Finds Increasing Solar Trend That Can Change Climate
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20030320/

Solar Cycles, Not CO2, Determine Climate
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202004/Winter2003-4/global_warming.pdf

Sun to Blame for Global Warming
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA203.html

Sun's Activity Increased in Past Century, Study Confirms
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060926_solar_activity.html

Stu

 

[stugray]

How many peer reviewed papers agree with AGW?

"RE: “The scientific consensus on climate change”

The letter Science Magazine refused to publish"

http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Scienceletter.htm

"RESULTS

The results of my analysis contradict Oreskes' findings and essentially falsify her study:

Of all 1117 abstracts, only 13 (or 1%) explicitly endorse the 'consensus view'."

Stu

 

[stugray]

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR):

"Why Hasn't Earth Warmed as Much as Expected?"

http://www.essl.ucar.edu/events/upload/abstract100643.pdf

"The observed increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) over the industrial era, about 0.8 K, is less than 40% of that expected from observed increases in long-lived greenhouse gases together with the best-estimate equilibrium climate sensitivity given by the 2007 Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

To bad they only posted the abstract

Stu

 

[Dingo44]

Here's a surprising article from the BBC:

"What happened to global warming?"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm

 

[five.five-six]

Here's a surprising article from the BBC:

"What happened to global warming?"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm

interesting

 

[Beaun]

The BBC article is very interesting, but it seems that whenever the topic of climate change comes up is it always short sighted, as far as time is concerned. People continue to talk in years and decades, instead of decades and centuries. The pacific cooling phase is interesting and true, but may have nothing to do with the inevitable warming of the planet. It is a very complex system with many inputs. The pacific cooling may help cool the earth, but at the same time the “cooler” temperatures are still warmer than previous cooler periods.

Yes the earth and sun systems have cycles of warming and cooling, but the question should be is the current cycle different than it has been previously? This pacific cooling phase may just be delaying the continued warming. It would be very short sighted to say that this 10-20 year cooling period that we have known about for a long time means that climate change is not an issue.

 

[five.five-six]

of course there is the other side of the same coin that says that the 30-40 year warming trend was just part of the self same cycle, add to that evidence that other planets in the solar system are going through the same cycles at the same time and the objective mind might look to our star in favor of some negligible gas emissions that magically avoided effecting the troposphere


unfortunately we can not discuss the politics of religion here as that if relevant to this discussion IMO

 

[Versus]

orrrrrr no one really knows the answer and we are just informed according to the media we view and what political parties we consider ourselves a part of .

like i said , global warming will off set its self with a nuclear winter .


I dont know if it effects us 100% im not as smart as some of you guys but I cant imagine burned oil/gas going into the atmosphere has benefits.

But the sweet thing is maybe we will adapt to it , and develop like sweet armor or somethin like bone armor and wear cool gas masks like the dudes in half life 2 . but then that might suck cause you wouldnt know if it was a guy or a girl sometimes or what they look like when you are out getting a drink. well you couldnt even really drink with a gas mask , unless its one of those fancy ones.

Here is a picture of a kitten in a cup. Do cats come from cups? No , there for the human foot print regardless is not good for the majority of other species which greatly surpasses us in numbers.

 

[stugray]

I dont see how this is helping....


"orrrrrr no one really knows the answer "


that's close to being coherent. ;-)

Stu

 

[Versus]

Sorry I ment Their instead of There , I hope that clears up some things.


Anyway my whole point was , no one knows for sure , but the remains humans leave behind them in their paths is not good for earth as a whole.

As for a warm period or a cool period Record highs are still being set , record lows are still being set . The weather has been getting wacky .

If Chloe still had her hotline up to tell me what the future holds i'd call . But alas tis no more.

Oh yeah

 

[greenbean36191]

Scott, if you're really interested in understanding how models are used in science I suggest you take a course in scientific modeling. Most of the issues you're bringing up will be covered in an introductory course. I obviously don't teach modeling and I don't know how else to explain some of these concepts if they're still not clear to you. It really helps to actually go through the process of designing, building, and ground-truthing some of these things.

Also check out chapter 8 of the IPCC for a discussion of how the models are built and evaluated and discussion of their shortcomings.

I guess we will never agree on this. It just doesn't make any sense to me that you are using accurate modeling of some aspects of emergent phenomenon as a justification for how these climate models must be able to accurately reproduce ANY phenomenon relating to climate.

You cannot say that emergent processes prove that you can accurately reproduce any phenomenon. Emergent processes increase confidence that the functional responses coupling sub-models are accurate. It's hard to get proper dynamics from coupled models if you have the functional responses wrong. Likewise, when emergent phenomena are unrealistic it's a big cue that one or more of the underlying processes are wrong.

They also constrain tuning. If you change a parameter in one part of the model it changes the outcome at all coupled sub-models. If you tune one part of the model to improve the fit, you can improve or reduce the skill at replicating other processes. Obviously tuning an area that decreases the overall skill of the model isn't a good idea.

We are, literally, learning everyday about new things that have been ignored in these models and their significance.

Yes, but they're not game changers. When you build a model you only try to include the most important factors, not all factors. You can add as many additional factors as you want, but you usually reach a point of diminishing returns where the uncertainty increases faster than the skill. Despite all the factors that aren't included in the GCMs, they already have a lot of skill. Adding additional factors is more about increasing resolution than significantly changing predictive skill. When I'm building a model I could care less if it's perfect or if it includes all the factors I can think of. All I care about is if it has enough skill to be useful.

What if it is possible to recreate much of the emergent phenomenon if only submodel A,B, & C are included, but to accurately model the systems that come into play in the case of anthropogenic warming you need submodel D which has, as yet, not been included in the greater climate model? My point is that there exist systems that may not be needed to recreate much of the emergent phenonmenon, but they may play an integral role in the case of anthropogenic warming.

Then your model will have little skill in replicating observations.

In what way are the current climate models based around path B (anthropogenic) when they are validated against and tweaked to fit prehistoric climate proxies?

They're tuned to and validated against modern observations from the anthropogenic era AND paleoclimate proxies, not one or the other.

Again, I disagree. There are a ton of models produced that have little to no basis in reality.

Again, I recommend you take a class in modeling. Models are abstractions of reality by definition. You can alter assumptions and use unrealistic inputs to learn more about the dynamics of the system, but for it to tell you anything about a real system a model has to be based on the reality of that system. This is no different than physical experiments.

String theory is a theory and conceptual model, not a simulation, which is what we've been discussing for the most part.

That turtle model did NOT test the hypothesis. It was useful and insightful, but it did not test the hypothesis. Did the model somehow force nature to obey it's results? The only thing that could test the hypothesis is to actually monitor trends in the turtle population. I don't want to be rude, but you ought to review the tenets of the Scientific Method.

The hypothesis in the turtle experiment was one about the dynamics of the system, not the trajectory or the population. The only real-world test would be to go out and kill a lot of juveniles without killing adults and then kill adults without killing juveniles. That's not practical or ethical. Simply tracking the population trend after regulations are in effect doesn't answer the question about whether the system is more sensitive to juvenile or adult mortality.

That is the reality of the situation in lots of scientific disciplines and your idea of what constitutes a test of a hypothesis seems severely skewed by your laboratory science background. In lots of disciplines you simply cannot run controlled experiments. You have to rely on natural experiments, analogs (including models), and in some cases observation.

Again, just because your discipline uses primarily laboratory experiments, that doesn't mean all disciplines work that way. Mine and many others do not and we often don't follow the simple Popperian progression.

I guess I should have said that models do not have to actually be faithful to reality.

Neither do physical experiments except in the sense that you are using tangible objects rather than representations of tangible objects. I could perform a feeding experiment with sharks where I toss an alligator in their tank. Even though it's possible to perform the experiment in reality and get a real outcome governed by real processes it would not tell me anything about a real system because the inputs and assumptions are unrealistic.

At this point I feel like I'm beating my head against a wall on the subject of models being constrained by reality, so I'm pretty much done discussing it.

Lets say that I had a pharmacokinetic model for Penicillin. I am a doctor and I used a pharmacokinetic model to try to determine the effectiveness of using a particular dose regiment on a patient that just came into my office with bronchitis. I calculate the effectiveness using the model and it seems that the normal dose regiment would be effective. So, I go ahead an administer the Penicillin. After recieving the medicine, the patient goes into anaphylactic shock. What went wrong here? My model said the patient should be improving, not getting worse. The problem is that the model didn't include processes or inputs that address the possibility of allergic reactions.

The problem is that you're using a population-based model to try to predict an individual outcome. You're asking the model to do something that it wasn't designed to do. Your pharmicokinetic model can still be very realistic and useful without including factors that don't affect the question you're trying to answer. If you wanted to make a pharmacokinetic model for an individual you would not only include different factors, but build the structure of the model entirely different. If you didn't the model would not be skillful or useful for the intended purpose. This example doesn't illustrate any inherent problem with models, only a problem with how you can misuse them- see your next point.

I personally feel that documentation of the model's shortcomings is inadequate or underemphasized.

Again, I'll point you to chapter 8 of the IPCC.

 

[greenbean36191]

They both say the IPCC estimates are WAY off. I know they are old, but still interesting reads:

The very first response to the first link is by a climatologist who also happens to be a very famous denier. He points out how the method used is fatally flawed. Ask yourself why you still find the argument convincing.

The second article points to the "Svenmark effect" aka the GCR forcing. Again, there are some serious issues with it, including that it hasn't been shown to be real. He then makes an argument and calculation similar to the first link. He goes on to argue that carbon doesn't build up in the atmosphere or get taken up by the ocean as fast as we think it does, despite the fact that we can measure that.

Even if we take their claims of of exaggerated sensitivity at face value, there is the issue of replicability and parsimony. The consensus estimates of 2-4.5 deg C are from multiple different methods and they produce an Earth-like climate in models. Reduced sensitivity makes it very hard to produce Earth-like climates and makes it hard not to induce ice-ages with aerosol production (which was behind the few papers from the 70s projecting cooling).

 

[greenbean36191]

As I have stated before "It is the sun!":

And guess what Stu? It's STILL not the sun. Science works on the principle of parsimony. The best explanation is the one that fits the observations the best without assuming unknowns. "It's the sun" is not the parsimonious explanation.

The warming trend is greater at night than during the day. The stratosphere is cooling as the troposphere warms. Neither of those are consistent with warming due to changes in solar output and both are consistent with greenhouse warming.

CO2 is known to be a greenhouse gas. CO2 is measurably increasing. By known mechanisms, that increase can roughly account for most of the temperature increase observed. Blaming it on the sun does not explain why CO2 is not having the expected effect.

Beyond that, there is no known mechanism by which the small to non-existent secular trend in various solar indexes results in the observed warming.

So for the sun to be the answer you have to assume a mechanism by which the greenhouse effect of increasing CO2 is neutralized, assume a mechanism by which the sun can cause the magnitude of observed warming, and assume a mechanism by which the sun can produce the pattern of observed warming.

The sun is CHANGING.

No Stu, the last solar cycle was longer than average, but still in the normal range. There is no trend towards increasing length.

The timing of the data jump happens to be the mid‐to‐late 1970s, at a time of a noted global climate shift. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation changed from a negative to a positive phase at that time, and could explain part of the discrepancy.Improved ocean temperature estimates began during that time period as a result of satellite measurements.

Whether the forcing was solar or greenhouse, the PDO still changed and would still induce a jump. It's no more of an argument for solar forcing than it is for greenhouse.

Also, any guess how we learned about the PDO? It wasn't from satellites. It was fisheries records. Still you go back to the satellites meme despite the fact that ships, including research ships using specialized equipment were taking direct temperature measurements for about 300 years. You honestly think we're so bad at going out and taking a temperature reading with an XBT or even a bucket and thermometer that you can do it significantly better from 200 miles up?

So is this "unknown solar change mechanism" accounted for in the IPCC model?

No because there is no evidence that it exists and the models perform without assuming so. That's how science works.

 

[greenbean36191]

Naaaa.... Couldnt be the sun:..... ad nauseum

Stu, as usual, you're spamming us with links to advocacy sites and think tanks- most of which point right back to Svensmark or GCRs. No matter how many links you post, the argument doesn't get any more convincing.

Besides the points I just made about how the "it's the sun" meme doesn't work in general, let's pretend I haven't already pointed out the problems with Svensmark's work and posted peer-reviewed papers rebutting it. First of all, his "amazing" correlation only works when he uses corrections to the trends which he will not make public. Without his spurious corrections the correlation between cloud cover and GCRs breaks down completely in the early 1990s. The 20 years prior to that GCR trends lag both low clouds and temperatures (which is a problem for GCRs since Earth's temperature is not a factor in the number of GCRs hitting the planet). It's not just a little lag either- it's days to months with no explanation from Svensmark for why that is, other than measurement error. Second, others have been unable to verify his proposed mechanism actually works in practice. Third, GCR flux is greatest at high latitudes, yet that is not where the greatest low cloud trend is seen.

 

[greenbean36191]

The results of my analysis contradict Oreskes' findings and essentially falsify her study:

Of all 1117 abstracts, only 13 (or 1%) explicitly endorse the 'consensus view'."

Again Stu, you're taking claims at face value. That is not skepticism.

Oreskes restricted her search to peer-reviewed articles. Benny didn't. He also included letters and editorials, which aren't peer reviewed. He also originally claimed that he found 34 articles that refuted AGW. He ended up retracting that claim after he posted a list of the articles and people pointed out to him that NONE of them refuted AGW. That raises a big question about his ability to categorize papers. To his credit though, I don't know that Oreskes has posted a list of any of the papers she categorized one way or another.

In any event, lets assume his 13 papers really are the only ones that explicitly agree with AGW. There still aren't any in his study that refute it. What does that mean? Oreskes has a pretty good hypothesis IMO-

"This is a consequence of experts writing for experts: many elements are implicit. If a conclusion is widely accepted, then it is not necessary to reiterate it within the context of expert discussion. This is clearly the case with the largest portion of the papers examined (approximately half of the total)—those dealing with impacts of climate change. The authors evidently accept the premise that climate change is real and want to track, evaluate, and understand its impacts." She goes on to make the comparison elsewhere that it would be silly to expect biologists to explicitly endorse evolution. There is no scientific debate about whether or not it occurs, so when you write for other scientists it's understood that you endorse it.

"Why Hasn't Earth Warmed as Much as Expected?" ... To bad they only posted the abstract

You should read his other papers and look at his other talks. It's not what you think it is. Basically an experimental model with assumptions we (and he) know to be wrong, such as a fixed lag period for both ocean and atmospheric responses.

 

[greenbean36191]

Here's a surprising article from the BBC:

"What happened to global warming?"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm

The only thing that's really surprising is that it made it past the editors. The author is a complete dolt if he thinks he's disseminating facts, or else he's a complete liar. It's concentrated idiocy.

Take for example the very beginning of the story- "But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures." It's the same old denialist meme that global warming stopped in 1998. It's statistically untenable. It's based on cherry picking 1998 as the start point and connecting dots rather than deriving a statistically meaningful trend. See what happens to the trend if you choose 1997 or 1999 as the start point. When the direction of the trend changes based on the start or end point that's an indication right off the bat that the trend is not statistically significant. That however does not mean that there has been no increase. All it means is that for the time interval chosen there is noise masking the trend, which is what IS expected for short time periods. In fact, the decadal trend for the past 10 years is similar to the trends for each of the past 3 decades when there has been a very clear increase.

He then brings up the denialist talking points about PDO and GCRs, which I'm not going to get into again.

And at the end he says Latif expects us to cool for 20-30 years, which is not what he said. He said that there will still be natural variation even during the warming trend such that it's possible to get periods of 20-30 years of apparent cooling.