Imagine — a computer predicts our demise just as…
Richard Treadgold | June 9, 2012… our demise occurs!
Here’s an argument against the validity of climate catastrophe, straight out of the “too good to be true” basket. It goes something like this:
“After several centuries of humanity’s meandering technological development, the odds are remote that, at precisely the time of our demise, we developed computer hardware and models sophisticated enough to predict our imminent demise.”
Computers are now sophisticated enough to model our demise but not so sophisticated that they know more than we do. The likelihood of our demise actually being imminent is vanishingly small because:
- We don’t know how the climate works.
- There’s been no warming since 1995, despite a 20% increase in CO2.
- The atmosphere (since 2001) and the ocean (since 2004) have been cooling.
- Models fail hindcasts, thus inspiring no confidence in their forecasts.
- The IPCC, from whom the government takes its advice, is utterly discredited.
- There’s been no alteration in natural rates of sea-level change.
- We don’t know how the climate works.
But don’t believe me – ask any climate scientist (warmist or sceptic) and they’ll tell you we don’t know how the climate works.
h/t – GJB
In terms of the “no warming since …” theme, I used the HadCrut3 dataset to demonstrate this over at HT, but I was accused of cherry-picking, being a “liar” and “despicable person” (the usual stuff you know…)
It was also suggested that both HadCrut3 and HadCrut4 have a “cooling bias” because they don’t include Arctic data where “the most warming has occurred”
Is it correct that GISSTemp etc use infilled data for the Arctic that extrapolates from stations that are geographically very far away?
I am just trying to get to the bottom of my “lies” and general despicableness, you know. What do I tell the children?
Found a couple of WUWT posts by Stephen Goddard:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/18/gistemp-vs-hadcrut/
and…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/20/giss-arctic-trends-disagree-with-satellite-data/
Thanks Mike. There will of course be a “rebuttal” or “debunking” on Skeptical Science to booby trap the unwary.
It’s not nice, is it, no matter how often it happens?
Yes, it’s correct that GISS infills with data from remote stations; I forget the details, except that distances are up to 1200 km, iirc. But what did you actually say? Why did they accuse you of cherry-picking?
I’m not sure a whole lot can be done about your general despicableness.
They accuse me of cherry picking because apparently it is only Hadcrut3 that shows no warming over the last decade.
I am not sure how independent the other datasets are.
But anyway, on the last rather tiresome thread I was accused of “failing climate school” because I stated that warming in the 20th century occurred in two main periods.
When I provided a link to the IPCC to back this up I was accused of trolling and calls were made for me to be banned
It goes downhill from there
HadCRUT3/4 is land/ocean, the ocean component (the larger) of 3 being HadSST2 and 4 HadSST3 (or something).
The problem they have (to create warming) is that HadSST2 has been cooling since 2003/04:-
http://climate4you.com/images/HadSST2%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
It takes some major “adjustments” in the relatively smaller Arctic to offset the globally expansive SST cooling.but then their problem compounds because HadCRUT3, GISS and NCDC already diverge from the satellite series:-
http://climate4you.com/images/AverageSurfaceTempVersusAverageSattelliteTemp%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
This is probably why HadCRUT4 terminates at 2010 at this stage (the divergence is just too obvious if the series was up-to-date).
Their next problem to confront is that SST is more consistent with RSS and UAH than with HadCRUT3/4, GISS and NCDC.
Problems, problems.
BTW, I see almost rapturous euphoria at HT on the prospect of a El Nino developing later this year. Hope they’re not too disappointed if it turns out to be a fizzer.
The impending release of all that pent-up heat doesn’t have a ’98 “look” about it though (doubtful rapid warming).
NOAA Operational Definitions for El Niño and La Niña (Page 21)
Official Probabilistic ENSO Outlook (updated 7 June 2012) (page 25)
CPC/IRI Consensus Probabilistic ENSO Forecast graph being referred to (page 25) shows equal chance of either EN/LN from now through to OND then slightly better chance of EN from OND – JFM. Not much hope there for trend reversing, CO2 correlation restoring, model verifying warming.
Worse, the chance of Neutral returns NDJ and by JFM has equal chance with EN.
Hot Topicers derive their new-found confidence and enthusiasm from the updated (April-May) MEI at +0.71 http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/
But the NOAA definition is in terms of ONI (El Niño +0.5°C,
La Niña -0.5°C). The most recent ONI value (March – May 2012) is -0.3oC (page 22).
All considered, a tempered optimism might be in order for the return of the ‘Christ Child’ and salvation of “the cause”.
“This is probably why HadCRUT4 terminates at 2010 at this stage (the divergence is just too obvious if the series was up-to-date).”
The other reason being of course that Phil Jones is much more amenable to a linear trend ending in warm 2010 El Nino conditions (even some “statistical significance”) than he is to a trend inclusive of a cool double-dip La Nina.
Makes ALL the difference in funding submissions.
Hi Richard. Regarding the following:
‘Yes, it’s correct that GISS infills with data from remote stations; I forget the details, except that distances are up to 1200 km’
For anyone who wants to let others know of this they’re welcome to cut and paste the following:
Go to http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/
Note the ‘smoothing radius’ states 1200km
Click the ‘make map’ button
Observe the red spots which represent warming.
Now return to http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/
Change the ‘smoothing radius’ to 250km
Click the ‘make map’ button
Observe most of the red spots are now missing, replaced by grey areas
Note the statement at the top of the graph that says ‘Gray areas signify missing data.’
The vast majority of warming in the map is a result of stretching known temperatures up to 1200km. This is as ridiculous as trying to judge the temperature in Christchurch from the temperature in Whangarei, and is the stuff of fantasy not science.
Now ret
This is as ridiculous as trying to judge the temperature in Christchurch from the temperature in Whangarei, and is the stuff of fantasy not science
Isn’t that roughly how they constructed the Hokitika temperature series? You know, the one they used to validate the proxy used in Gergis et al?
According to Gergis et al page 5:-
Except Hennessy et al 2007 (AR4 WGII Chap 11) omits “anthropogenically-influenced period” and it’s not West Coast specific but regional:-
Elsewhere in AR4 (Australia and New Zealand) if you follow the references you get to Salinger and Mullin 1998 (I think) and an attribution of the 0.4 to 0.7°C warming to a climate shift i.e. natural variability.
Haven’t got to the calibration/verification yet – so many background issues emerging (as usual it seems) it’s hard to get around to crunching the paper in its entirety.
The confirmation bias positively oozes out of that snippet from Gergis
Gergis makes a big noise about “monotonic warming” coinciding with a “rapid rise in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations” from 1950 to present:-
Except “present” in the study period is 2000.
It would have been useful (and far more interesting) if say, the “monotonic” forced simulation (Blue line, Figure S4.2, Line 1224, Page 66) had been extended to 2012, for which extended period, the monotonic flat observed temperatures are inconsistent with the previous monotonic warming, the continuing rapid rise in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations and probably the forced simulation too.
They could have digressed a little from the period covered because apparently it was “worth noting” that 2000 – 2009 is warmest evaaar:-
The “clear signal” was a doddle 1950 – 2000.
But post 2000, Gergis et al would have to suggest some other “possible mechanism” – much more interesting.
Richard C,
Do you have a link to the Gergis paper?
Yes Andy, at JoNova:-
J. Gergis, R. Neukom, S.J. Phipps, A.J.E. Gallant, and D.J. Karoly, “Evidence of unusual late 20th century warming from an Australasian temperature reconstruction spanning the last millennium”, Journal of Climate, 2012, pp. 120518103842003-. DOI. [ Paper (PDF)]
http://www.smc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/1000-years-of-climate-data-%E2%80%93-manuscript_and_Supplementary_April_2012_final1.pdf
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/06/300000-dollars-and-three-years-to-produce-a-paper-that-lasted-three-weeks-gergis/