IPCC science
This thread is for discussion of the IPCC and scientific matters.
Climate Conversation Group
Taking the heat out of global warming
For the first time in history, people shouting “the end is nigh” are somehow
For the first time in history, people shouting “the end is nigh” are somehow
the sane ones, while those of us who say it is not are now the lunatics.
Latest climate models v. reality
As the models continue to leave actual temperature readings in their dust, sizeable warming halted about 1995 — although it might resume at any time. It must hasten to have any hope of catching up with the predictions.
If you claim warming continues, we want evidence of continued warming — eminently reasonable. Making us wait for 17 years for that evidence invites us to doubt you.
Claiming that warming hasn't stopped is the same as claiming it has — and both are ridiculous, for nobody knows the future. The best you can do is describe the past.
Click graph for larger version.
The 2009 report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)
Climate Change Reconsidered, was released on Tuesday, June 2, 2009, at a press conference at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, DC, in conjunction with the Third International Conference on Climate Change. Heartland President Joseph Bast, editor of Climate Change Reconsidered, and authors Craig D. Idso Ph.D. and S. Fred Singer Ph.D.
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/2009report.html
NIPCC THREAD (NIPCC Section)
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/open-threads/un/nipcc/
IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5)
http://www.ipcc.ch/
Omitted variable fraud: vast evidence for solar climate driver rates one oblique sentence in AR5
Posted on February 22, 2012 by Alec Rawls
Guest post by Alec Rawls
“Expert review” of the First Order Draft of AR5 closed on the 10th. Here is the first paragraph of my submitted critique:
…
Introduction to the “omitted variable fraud” critique, continued
For the 1750-2010 period examined, two variables correlate strongly with the observed warming (and hence with each other). Solar magnetic activity and atmospheric CO2 were both trending upwards over the period, and both stepped up to much higher levels over the second half of the 20th century. These two correlations with temperature change give rise to the two main competing theories of 20th century warming. Was it driven by rapidly increasing human release of CO2, or by the 80 year “grand maximum” of solar activity that began in the early 1920′s? (“Grand minima and maxima of solar activity: new observational constraints,” Usoskin et al. 2007.)
The empirical evidence in favor of the solar explanation is overwhelming. Dozens of peer-reviewed studies have found a very high degree of correlation (.5 to .8) between solar-magnetic activity and global temperature going back many thousands of years (Bond 2001, Neff 2001, Shaviv 2003, Usoskin 2005, and many others listed below). In other words, solar activity “explains,” in the statistical sense, 50 to 80% of past temperature change.
>>>>>>>
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/22/omitted-variable-fraud-vast-evidence-for-solar-climate-driver-rates-one-oblique-sentence-in-ar5/
…
…
Hard hitting, comprehensive and damning.
But just stating-the-obvious really.
Interesting development for AR5
Climate panel slammed for embracing controversial ‘grey literature’
http://zeenews.india.com/news/rio-summit-2012/climate-panel-slammed-for-embracing-controversial-grey-literature_782787.html
“After the scandals, some called for grey literature to be banished from IPCC assessments. Instead, the meeting embraced it, and set criteria for its use. From now on, for instance, any grey literature used in an IPCC report will have to be put online so that reviewers can assess its quality.”
Climate change: IPCC 2014 draft report insights
* Jenner & Block
* E. Lynn Grayson
* Global
*
* April 22 2013
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is working on its Fifth Assessment Report on climate change to be released in 2014. Interim drafts of certain portions of the report released by one of the three working groups suggest that things are not as bad as predicted in the IPCC’s 2007 report. Emerging insights are good news for the environment but pose greater uncertainty for the scientific community challenged to understand overall climate change impacts.
The new IPCC draft report suggests two key findings:
1. actual global warming measurements do not match IPCC model predictions in the IPCC 2007 report; and
2. global temperatures overall have leveled off since the 1998-1999 timeframe.
Whether or not rising temperatures resulting in global warming have stopped altogether is unclear. What we do know is that the slowed progress of global warming, as indicated by the last ten years of global temperature data, means less immediate and perhaps more mitigated climate change-related impacts.
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=8791ec6c-49da-419e-8428-bfb4bd9693bd
Lexology is an innovative, web-based service that provides company law departments and law firms with a depth of free practical know-how that would be impossible to produce internally. By collaborating with the world’s leading commercial law firms, Lexology is able to deliver fully tailored intelligence to the desktops of business lawyers worldwide on a daily basis.
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007 (AR4)
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.htm
IPCC Assessment Reports: 2001 (TAR) 1995 (SAR) 1990 (FAR)
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.htm
Radiative Forcing of Climate Change
Chapter 6 Third Assessment Report
(Ramaswamy et al, 2001)
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/pdf/TAR-06.pdf
IPCC SPECIAL REPORTS: TECHNICAL GUIDELINES, ASSESSMENTS and SCENARIOS
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.htm
The IPCC: 5,600 small white lies
For discussion and the “THE CITIZEN AUDIT REPORT” please refer;
“Controversies and Scandal”
Reflected Sunlight Shines On IPCC Deceptions And Gross Inadequacies
The curious incident of the added heat at the surface
IPCC “Consensus” on Solar Influence was Only One Solar Physicist who Agreed with Her Own Paper
IPCC Studies And Reports Have Nothing to Do with Climate Change
Every prediction or projections, as the IPCC evasively call them, have been wrong
Maximum ‘Residence Time’ of Atmospheric CO2
Plot illustrating how the IPCC’s view of long-lived CO2 is an oulier
Peer-Reviewed Studies: Documenting The Evidence That Disproves The IPCC Global Warming Science – C3
IPCC AR4 Climate Model Simulations
AOGCMs participating in the MMD at PCMDI are listed by IPCC identification (ID).
Along with the calendar year (‘vintage’) of the first publication of results from each model.
Also listed are the respective sponsoring institutions,
How to create a crisis graph in 6 simple steps
“circular reasoning” at work.
“One of the main arguments from the IPCC is that essentially, we can’t explain temperature changes any other way than with carbon forcings. This is matched with impressive pink and blue graphs that pose as evidence that carbon is responsible for all the recent warming.
This is argumentum ad ignorantiam — essentially they say: we don’t know what else could have caused that warming, so it must be carbon. It’s a flawed assumption.
It’s easy to create impressive graphs, especially if you actively ignore other possible causes, like for example, changes in cloud cover and solar magnetic effects.”
Thus it’s circular reasoning: decide that carbon is a problem; see its “effect” in this graph; declare carbon must be a problem, and rejoice, the models create what we fed them to start with. The Marvel!
(It’s too easy, and politicians fall for it. Then they give us more money to do more “modelling”.) – Jo Nova
These graphs are very important.
Please Note:
IPCC simulations categories:-
1. Models using only natural forcings.
2. Models using both natural and anthropogenic forcings
Don’t be fooled by this internal IPCC distinction.
1. and 2. simulations are run on the SAME models: SAME formulations; SAME spin-up datasets (just addition or deletion of the ACO2 driver); and, SAME IPCC Radiative Forcing (RF) methodology (i.e. in their own terms).
NIWA uses the “A” module of UKMO’s UM model that is in the IPCC’s 1. and 2. categories.
See – “CLIMATE MODEL PAPERS”
Radiative forcing by well-mixed greenhouse gases:
Estimates from climate models in the IPCC AR4
Collins Et Al 2010
See – Climate Models
NON IPCC and Natural Forcings ONLY
Atmospheric & Environmental Research, Inc.’s (AER)
Radiative Transfer Working Group
The foundation of our research and model development is the validation of line-by-line radiative transfer calculations with accurate high-resolution measurements.
A Strange Problem with the IPCC Numbers
Posted on October 23, 2010 by Willis Eschenbach
ABSTRACT
The IPCC says that the expected change in temperature arising from a change in forcing is equal to the change in forcing times the climate sensitivity. The IPCC provides values we can use to estimate the total human and natural forcing change since 1850. The IPCC also proves estimates for the climate sensitivity. These can be multiplied to provide the IPCC expected temperature change since 1850. The value derived (best estimate per IPCC numbers = 1.4 °C warming since 1850) is twice the observed warming (HadCRUT best estimate = 0.7°C warming since 1850).
The “Missing Heat”
More Oddities with the IPCC Numbers
by Willis Eschenbach
“A number of people have said Hey, in your previous post, the missing forcing is going into the ocean, so it’s still “in the pipeline”. I had considered that, but it didn’t make sense. I’ve taken a closer look, and it still doesn’t make sense.
According to the IPCC calculations in that post, about 0.7 W/m2 was missing. Let us assume that it is going into the ocean. Here’s my numbers, please check them. The spreadsheet doing the calculations is here.”
Scafetta on 60 year climate oscillations
George Taylor, former Oregon State climatologist writes:
Nicola Scafetta has published the most decisive indictment of GCM’s I’ve ever read in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics. His analysis is purely phenomenological, but he claims that over half of the warming observed since 1975 can be tied to 20 and 60-year climate oscillations driven by the 12 and 30-year orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn, through their gravitational influence on the Sun, which in turn modulates cosmic radiation.
If he’s correct, then all GCM’s are massively in error because they fail to show any of the observed oscillations.
See “Controversy and scandal”
Global Warming’s Corrupt Science
By Patrick J. Michaels, October 20, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Paper: Sun affects Climate much more than thought
Adding the the recent spate of papers showing that – surprise – the Sun has much, much more to do with climate change than previously thought, the respected German Physics Journal Annalyn der Physik recently published a paper analyzing solar irradiance data from 1905 to 2008 which finds cosmic rays modulated by solar activity cause a large portion of atmospheric aerosols (clouds) with profound effects on climate [see the cosmic ray theory of Svensmark et al]. The paper concludes, “The contribution of the active sun, indirectly via cosmic rays, to global warming appears to be much stronger than the presently accepted [IPCC] upper limit of 1/3.”
Sunday, October 3, 2010
UN IPCC Scientist Asks Tough Questions
Dr. Judith Curry, IPCC scientist and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, asks some tough unanswered questions of climate science and the IPCC in her new blog post What can we learn from climate models? The post begins with a sobering Short answer: I’m not sure.
This is interesting in light of the fact that essentially all of the IPCC ‘consensus,’ conclusions, and predictions are based entirely upon computer models. In addition, the IPCC admits in the fine print that said models have not been validated and that they don’t even know how to validate the models.
Other tough as yet unanswered questions include:
How did they [climate scientists] manage to reach conceptual consensus in spite of persisting scientific gaps, imminent uncertainties and limited means of model validation?
Why, to put the question differently, did scientists develop trust in their delicate model constructions?
Nature hates straight lines
October 25, 2010 by Willis Eschenbach
Forcing is generally taken to mean downward radiation measured at the TOA (top of atmosphere). The IPCC says that when TOA forcing changes, the surface temperature changes linearly with that TOA forcing change. If there is twice the forcing change (twice the change in solar radiation, for example), the IPCC says we’ll see twice the temperature change. The proportionality constant (not a variable but a constant) that the IPCC says linearly relates temperature and TOA forcing is called the “climate sensitivity”.
Today I stumbled across the IPCC justification of this linearity assumption. This is the basis of their claim of the existence of a constant called “climate sensitivity”. I quote it below.
IPCC science: are you willing to take the risk?
11 November 2010 Marc Hendrickx
If IPCC Climate scientists were Physicists:
If IPCC Climate Scientists were engineers:
If IPCC Climate scientists were laser eye surgeons:
If IPCC climate scientists were historians:
If IPCC Climate scientists were climate scientists:
And if IPCC climate scientists were fruit pickers:
TESTIMONY OF PATRICK J. MICHAELS TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT, COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, U.S HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, NOVEMBER 17, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
IPCC Forecasts are Incorrect
Thank you for inviting my testimony. I am a Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies at the Cato Institute and Distinguished Senior Fellow in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University. This testimony represents no official point of view from either of these institutions and is tendered with the traditional protections of academic freedom.
My testimony has four objectives
1) Demonstration that the rate greenhouse-related warming is clearly below the mean of climate forecasts from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that are based upon changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations that are closest to what is actually being observed,
2) demonstration that the Finding of Endangerment from greenhouse gases by the Environmental Protection Agency is based upon a very dubious and critical assumption,
3) demonstration that the definition of science as a public good induces certain biases that substantially devalue efforts to synthesize science, such as those undertaken by the IPCC and the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), and
4) demonstration that there is substantial discontent with governmental and intergovernmental syntheses of climate change and with policies passed by this House of Representatives.
Continues…..
I like this in regard to the “missing heat” that is either in the deep ocean (Trenberth, Renowden) or the troposphere (Santer, Thorne):-
“.An additional and important discrepancy between the models and reality extends into the lower atmosphere as well. In the lower atmosphere, climate models expectations are that the degree of warming with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations should be greater than that experienced at the surface, with the lower atmosphere warming about 1.4 times faster than the average surface temperature. Despite claims that observations and models are in agreement (Santer et al., 2008), new analyses incorporating a large number of both observational datasets as well as climate model projections, clearly and strongly demonstrate that the surface warming (which itself is below the model mean) is significantly outpacing the warming in the lower atmosphere—contrary to climate model expectations. Instead of exhibiting 40% more warming than the surface, the lower atmosphere is warming 25% less—a statistically significant difference (Christy et al., 2010).”
Lawrence Solomon: Has the IPCC discovered the Sun?
The IPCC is investigating the Sun as a driver of global warming
The IPCC for the first time will investigate “in depth” the role of global cosmic rays in climate change, according to a report last week in the Hindustan Times. Many solar and space scientists believe that cosmic rays, whose ability to enter Earth’s atmosphere is regulated by the Sun, are a dominant factor in global warming.
The turnaround in the IPCC position was announced by the chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, in a communication with India’s Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh. The announcement followed the release of a paper by U R Rao, the former chairman of Indian Space Research Organization, that showed cosmic rays alone were responsible for 40% of global warming. These findings by one of Pachauri’s most distinguished countrymen, rebutted IPCC claims that carbon dioxide and other man-made causes were responsible for more than 90% of global warming. ………continues
Read more: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/01/25/lawrence-solomon-has-the-ipcc-discovered-the-sun/#ixzz1C5M1Xzgj
I saw the original paper and I can’t quite make the connection that the IPCC will suddenly change course mid-flight. It would take away their raison d’etre
However, the paper looks interesting
The paper is interesting at least for the reason by Lawrie in this comment:-
Whether Cosmic particles are a major or minor driver in modulating the earths climate is less important than the fact that the Indian scientific community is conducting research into factors other than CO2. Not only are they conducting research they are being supported by their government. Would it not be so here in Australia where government research is limited to CO2 and any scientist not in agreement is derided and ostracized. Many thanks to the Indian scientists who are living in the real world and not the dreamworld of the IPCC.
from: Lawrie
The IPCC is being forced to address just a part of the raft of natural influences on climate. There is nowhere near conclusive understanding of how combinations of solar/lunar/cosmic/celestial factors manifest in climate but the IPCC discounts all but TSI.
If even a small amount of funding was directed to those factors in NZ as compared to $15m over 4 years focussed on GHGs then we would all be a great deal wiser – and the 15 mill could go towards paying off debt instead.
Massive Climate Model Failure: IPCC Models Unable To Predict Pacific Ocean Variability With Any Confidence
Read here. Scientists know that the variability of the northern Pacific has a huge impact on global climate. If IPCC climate models are ever to successfully predict future climate changes, they first need to be able to predict the variability of the northern Pacific ocean. A new study by Furtado et al. confirms what has long been suspected, the IPCC climate models are unable to deal with the Pacific ocean variability.
The North Pacific Decadal Variability (NPDV) is composed of two identified patterns of ocean variability. The first is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the second is the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO), neither of which can be consistently predicted by the IPCC’s models.
http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/08/massive-climate-model-failure-ipcc-models-unable-to-predict-pacific-ocean-variability-with-any-confi.html
A round up of selected background and responses to date, to the A. E. Dessler 2011 [D11] paper “Cloud variations and the Earth’s energy budget”. Keeping in mind that it is still in print and being revised subject to early criticism. Also related is Dessler 2010 [D10]
The D11 paper responds to “On the Misdiagnosis of Climate Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance”, Roy W. Spencer, and William D. Braswell 2011 [SB11] and “On the observational determination of climate sensitivity and its implications”, Richard S. Lindzen, and Yong-Sang Choi 2011 [LC11].
Background
Background on the SB11 paper:-
Climate models get energy balance wrong, make too hot forecast of global warming – Spencer/Gentry
Background on the LC11 paper:-
New Paper By Lindzen & Choi On Climate Sensitivity – Anthony Watts
Hatchet Job On John Christy and Roy Spencer :-
Opinion: The damaging impact of Roy Spencer’s science – Kevin Trenberth, John Abraham and Peter Gleick
Hatchet Job on Spencer, Braswell, Soon and Baliunas
Resignations, retractions and the process of science – Gavin Schmidt
Hatchet job on Lindzen and Choi 2009 (rectified by LC11 – silence from RealClimate since)
Lindzen and Choi Unraveled – Fasullo, Trenberth and O’Dell
D11 press release
Texas A&M prof says study shows that clouds don’t cause climate change
Summary as to what the controversy is all about.
A Primer on Our Claim that Clouds Cause Temperature Change …and Why Dessler, Trenberth, and the IPCC are Wrong – Roy Spencer
SCORE: IPCC :1 Scientific Progress: 0
Editor-in-Chief of Remote Sensing Resigns from Fallout Over Our Paper – Roy spencer
A radiative accumulation of energy leads to a temperature maximum…later
Rise of the 1st Law Deniers – Roy Spencer
Re IPCC usual suspects dissing SB11
Fallout from Our Paper: The Empire Strikes Back – Roy Spencer
Responses re D11
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: My Initial Comments on the New Dessler 2011 Study – Roy Spencer
More Thoughts on the War Being Waged Against Us – Roy Spencer
The Stone in Trenberth’s Shoe – Steve McIntyre
The Spencer-Braswell & Dessler papers – Anthony Watts
Spencer & Braswell: Part III – Judith Curry
Andrew Dessler: clouds don’t reflect light – Lubos Motl
Responses re D10
CERES and the Shortwave Cloud Feedback – Troy CA at Lucia’s
More on Dessler 2010 – Steve McIntye
———————————————————————
My favourites from Steve McIntyre:-
Re D11
Re D10
It seems the Team have a problem now that the hatchet is in different hands (and I don’t think it will be buried either).
Have I missed any good science oriented responses?
Politically related posts here
Bombshell at Tallblokes:-
Bill Illis: Clouds account for most of the variability in net radiation at TOA
Over on the Spencer Good, Bad and Ugly response to Dessler 2011 thread on WUWT, Bill Illis quietly drops this little bombshell:
Bill Illis says:
September 10, 2011 at 10:11 am
“I’m getting Cloud variability being a very large part of the variability in the total Global Net Radiation Budget – anywhere from 65% to 100% (with R^2 between 0.29 and 0.77).”
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/09/10/bill-illis-clouds-account-for-most-of-the-variability-in-net-radiation-at-toa/
Using Dessler’s own data!
Or as Tallbloke puts it – holy moley!
Also at WUWT:- http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/11/bill-illis-clouds-account-for-most-of-the-variability-in-net-radiation-at-the-top-of-the-atmosphere/
From what I can gather, Dessler 2011 (D11) basically restates Dessler 2010 and Trenberth et al 2010 in lines 79 – 95. All D11 has done is put the focus back on the former papers and as the results and comments of McIntyre, Illis, Spencer and many others now show early on – the Team has a problem.
The two previous papers:-
“A Determination of the Cloud Feedback from Climate Variations over the Past Decade”
A. E. Dessler, 2010 (D10)
“Relationships between tropical sea surface temperature and top‐of‐atmosphere radiation”
Trenberth et al, 2010 (T10)
Obviously there’s some oddities in D11 (“THE BAD” etc) but there’s 3 interlinked papers in question that are the big picture: D11, D10 and T10 that must be read and dissected in conjunction because they all hang together (consistent as D11 says Line 92). If the D10 – T10 “consistency” is shown to be non-existent by errors in either paper, then the Team will be at loggerheads with each other – and they can’t let that happen.
SB11 addresses D10 but is there a paper that similarly addresses T10?
There’s a lot a stake, have I got this right?
More background from Spencer’s blog.
New Results on Climate Sensitivity: Models vs. Observations
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/01/new-results-on-climate-sensitivity-models-vs-observations/
1) RADIATIVE ENERGY ACCUMULATES DURING WARMING IN ADVANCE OF THE TEMPERATURE PEAK
2) RADIATIVE ENERGY IS LOST DURING COOLING AFTER THE TEMPERATURE PEAK
Dessler 2010 only addressed ZERO time lag.
And this:-
In his paper [D10], Dessler dismissed all of the evidence we presented with a single claim: that since (1) the global temperature variations which occurred during the satellite record (2000-2010) were mostly caused by El Nino and La Nina, and (2) no one has ever demonstrated that “clouds cause El Nino”, then there could not be a clouds-causing-temperature-change contamination of his cloud feedback estimate.
But we now have clear evidence that El Nino and La Nina temperature variations are indeed caused in large measure by changes in clouds, with the cloud changes coming months in advance of the temperature changes.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/04/on-recent-criticisms-of-my-research/
And this:-
Dick Lindzen has chimed in on my side in recent days, but Andy [Dessler] continues to claim that – at least during the 2000-2010 period in question — I have provided no evidence that clouds cause climate variations.
This is remarkably similar to how Kevin Trenberth rebutted my last congressional testimony…”clouds don’t cause climate change”, is approximately what I recall Kevin saying.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/01/dessler-spencer-cloud-feedback-debate-update/
Commentary (in their inimitable style) from C3 Headlines:-
Spencer Cloud Research Uses IPCC Gold-Standard HadCRUT Data, But New Dessler Study Avoids Gold-Standard Benchmark
New research published today by Andy Dessler, an IPCC Climategate scientist, appears to have major shortcomings. His new study was greased, like goose leavings, through the peer reviewed process in just a few weeks, which may have contributed to the work’s shoddiness.
Supposedly, Dessler’s new research was to be a refutation of the Spencer and Braswell 2011 study that revealed clouds were likely to be a negative climate feedback. Instead of doing an apple-to-apple comparison though, Dessler chose a different temperature dataset (a non-consensus dataset avoided by the IPCC) than the Spencer research.
Unfortunately, the choice of non-HadCRUT, non-IPCC dataset, reflects the unbridled cherry-picking temptation that the Dessler research fell victim to. If the HadCRUT dataset is the IPCC benchmark that Spencer research followed, then Dessler should have met the scientific challenge by using the same best-of-breed data that the IPCC demands.
It now seems obvious that Dessler knew his research would falter if based on the gold-standard of the IPCC. If this wasn’t the case, why not use the gold-standard?
Even with his cherry-picking of the dataset, Dessler research does not hold up to the statistical scrutiny that Steve McIntyre brings to the table. It didn’t take long for Steve to ascertain that the positive cloud feedback that Dessler claims might not be so “positive.”
>>>>>>>>>
“non-IPCC dataset” – ironic.
Perhaps the editor of Science will send a written apology to Kevin Trenberth
He he!
Trenberth gets a rebuttal to Spencer and Braswell published: turnaround 1 day
Posted on September 16, 2011 by Anthony Watts
Turbo Peer Review is the new normal it seems. Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit writes:
Bishop Hill draws attention to the publication of Trenberth’s comment on Spencer and Braswell 2011 in Remote Sensing. Unlike Trenberth’s presentation to the American Meteorological Society earlier this year (see here here here), Trenberth et al 2011 was not plagiarized.
The review process for Trenberth was, shall we say, totally different than the review process for O’Donnell et al 2010 or the comment by Ross and me on Santer et al 2008. The Trenberth article was accepted on the day that it was submitted:
CA readers are well aware of long-term obstruction by the Team not simply regarding details of methodology, but even data. Trenberth objects to incompleteness of methodological description in Spencer and Braswell 2011 as follows:
Obviously these are principles that have been advocated at Climate Audit for years.I’ve urged the archiving of both data and code for articles at the time of publication to avoid such problems. However, these suggestions have, all too often, been resolutely opposed by the Team. Even supporting data, all to often, remains unavailable. I haven’t had time to fully parse Spencer and Braswell as to reproducibility but note that Spencer promptly provided supporting data to me when requested (as did Dessler.) In my opinion, Spencer and Braswell should have archived data as used and source code concurrent with publication, as I’ve urged others to do. However, their failure to do so is hardly unique within the field. That Trenberth was able to carry out a sensitivity study as quickly as he did suggests to me that their methodology was substantially reproducibile, but, as I noted above, I haven’t parsed the article.
Trenberth observes that “minor changes” in assumptions yielded “major changes” in results, concluding that the claims in Lindzen and Choi 2009 were not robust:
read the rest here: More Hypocrisy from the Team [Climate Audit link]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/16/trenberth-gets-a-rebuttal-to-spencer-and-braswell-published-turnaround-1-day/
The Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology study focuses on LOW cloud but the Spencer – Braswell vs Dessler – Trenberth argument is about the NETT effect of all clouds.
The argument however is being couched in warmist terms by Team cheerleaders i.e in a “warming world” blah-de-blah, see this Live Science article: Clouds: The Wild Card of Climate Change”:-
And,
Therefore, the controversy is in five parts:
1) The cause of cloud variation
2) The sign of the feedback from the nett effect (CLD) of the variation.
3) Relationship between CLD forcing and temperature
4) Difference between models and observations
5) Climate change
Opposing positions:-
Team says 1) is caused by temperature only,
Others say 1) is caused by a solar-cosmic dynamic.
Team says 2) is positive only (Dessler 0.54 w/m2/K)
Others say 2) is weakly negative (McIntyre -0.96 w/m2/K)
Team says 3) is temperature >>> clouds only
Spencer-Braswell says 3) is temperature >>> <<< clouds
Team says 4) is agreement using instantaneous relationship
Others say 4) is no agreement using lagged relationship that is more significant than instantaneous
Team say climate warms only
Others say climate warms and cools
[I'll need to check 2) and 4) at some stage]
An increase in LOW cloud (see Carnegie study) caused by 1) is this action in 1), 2), 3), 4) and 5) depending on other (e.g. high cloud) variations:-
Team: temperature >>> + CLD >>> temperature increase >>> disagreement >>> climate warms
Others: solar-cosmic >>> – or + CLD >>> temperature decrease or increase >>> disagreement >>> climate cools or warms
Obviously the Team say there is agreement in models vs observations but Dessler neglects the bigger picture.
Obvious also is that the cause of evaporation in the Carnegie study (let alone an increase) and low cloud formation as a result of it is very complex in 1) for both Team and Others and we need to know as much about the process as possible.
More from Live Science, this time by Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer:-
The El Niño/La Niña cycles seem to be a point-of-difference for the Team but I can’t yet get my head around how this fits into the controversy given the deficiency in Dessler’s paper (lag vs instantaneous CLD forcing – temperature relationship).
I think a key difference is that D10 contends that clouds can only produce feedbacks – and cannot provide the initial forcing.
D11 says that the temp changes Spencer saw were the result of ENSO, not clouds. ie the cloud behaviour was a reaction.
Spencer seems to say that the ENSO was itself driven by clouds. ie the cloud behaviour was the prime mover.
The El Niño/La Niña point-of-difference.
Spencer responds to this:-
With this:-
And this:-
So,
Dessler says: El Niño/La Niña “not caused by clouds”
Spencer says: El Niño/La Niña “caused in large measure by changes in clouds, with the cloud changes coming months in advance of the temperature changes
And Dessler refuses SB10 and SB11 as demonstrations of El Niño/La Niña being caused by changes in clouds.
Now Trenberth has a comment on SB11 in Remote Sensing (linked at CA) that is the subject of this article by Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit:-
“More Hypocrisy from the Team”
http://climateaudit.org/2011/09/16/more-hypocrisy-from-the-team/
See also more background here:-
“More Thoughts on the War Being Waged Against Us” by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/09/more-thoughts-on-the-war-being-waged-against-us/
I’ve Looked at Clouds from Both Sides Now -and Before
October 8th, 2011 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
…sometimes, the most powerful evidence is right in front of your face…..
I never dreamed that anyone would dispute the claim that cloud changes can cause “cloud radiative forcing” of the climate system, in addition to their role as responding to surface temperature changes (“cloud radiative feedback”). (NOTE: “Cloud radiative forcing” traditionally has multiple meanings. Caveat emptor.)
But that’s exactly what has happened. Andy Dessler’s 2010 and 2011 papers have claimed, both implicitly and explicitly, that in the context of climate, with very few exceptions, cloud changes must be the result of temperature change only.
Shortly after we became aware of Andy’s latest paper, which finally appeared in GRL on October 1, I realized the most obvious and most powerful evidence of the existence of cloud radiative forcing was staring us in the face. We had actually alluded to this in our previous papers, but there are so many ways to approach the issue that it’s easy to get sidetracked by details, and forget about the Big Picture.
Well, the following graph is the Big Picture……..
[See plot and details]
What this graph shows is very simple, but also very powerful: The radiative variations CERES measures look nothing like what the radiative feedback should look like. You can put in any feedback parameter you want (the IPCC models range from 0.91 to 1.87…I think it could be more like 3 to 6 in the real climate system), and you will come to the same conclusion.
And if CERES is measuring something very different from radiative feedback, it must — by definition — be radiative forcing (for the detail-oriented folks, forcing = Net + feedback…where Net is very close to the negative of [LW+SW]).
The above chart makes it clear that radiative feedback is only a small portion of what CERES measures. There is no way around this conclusion.
[...]
I just wanted to put this evidence out there for people to see and understand in advance. It will be indeed part of our response to Dessler 2011, but Danny Braswell and I have so many things to say about that paper, it’s going to take time to address all of the ways in which (we think) Dessler is wrong, misused our model, and misrepresented our position.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/10/ive-looked-at-clouds-from-both-sides-now-and-before/
Our GRL Response to Dessler Takes Shape, and the Evidence Keeps Mounting
October 12th, 2011 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
I will be revealing some of the evidence we will be submitting to Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) in response to Dessler’s paper claiming to refute our view of the forcing role of clouds in the climate system.
To whet your appetite, here is a draft version of one of the illustrations (click for the large version). It clearly shows the large discrepancy which exists between the IPCC climate models and satellite observations in the way they show the Earth shedding excess radiant energy in response to warming. This is central to question of how much warming can be expected from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, because the less radiant energy the model’s shed per degree of warming, the more the models continue to warm.
>>>>>>>>
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/10/our-grl-response-to-dessler-takes-shape-and-the-evidence-keeps-mounting/
The Law of “it”
If it is settled it is not science.
If it is science it is not settled.
Therefore IPCC Climate Science is NOT science, it is HIWTYL BS.
HIWTYL….Heads I Win Tails You Lose.
BS………….Bureaucratic Science (Akin to what a bull does)
Prominent Chinese Climate Scientists Conclude IPCC Is Worthless: “restricted by its political tendencies”
Global warming agenda of elites becomes a major fail…empirical evidence does not support CO2 climate change hypothesis.
Read here. The world’s science community is slowly but surely coming to the same conclusion as global warming skeptics: the UN’s IPCC is nothing more than political propaganda devoted to the anti-empirical science of big green special interest groups/lobbyists.
The team of climate researchers, Fang et al., came to the following conclusions after an exhaustive review of the IPCC’s “consensus” climate science:
(1) “it remains unclear how the human and natural factors, especially the aerosols, affect the global temperature change,”
(2) “over the past century, the temperature change has not always been consistent with the change of CO2 concentration,” since “for several periods, global temperatures decreased or were stable while the atmospheric CO2 concentration continuously increased,”
(3) “there is no significant correlation between the annual increment of the atmospheric CO2 concentration and the annual anomaly of annual mean temperature,” and
(4) “the observed significant increase of the atmospheric CO2 concentration may not be totally attributable to anthropogenic emissions because there are great uncertainties in the sources of CO2 concentration in [the] atmosphere.” [JingYun Fang, JiangLing Zhu, ShaoPeng Wang, Chao Yue and HaiHua Shen 2011: Science China Earth Sciences]
Unfortunately, the establishment apparatchiks are still wasting their time and untold billions on a political agenda, based on a failed global warming theory and climate change denial of reality, while real problems go unresolved.
http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/11/prominent-chinese-climate-scientists-conclude-ipcc-is-worthless-restricted-by-its-political-tendenci.html
Great to see Earth Scientists stating the obvious – although the reaction to this coming from China is predictable.
Just read ‘Chivers on cosmoclimatology’ at Bishop Hill:-
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/2/11/chivers-on-cosmoclimatology.html
AM says:-
The IPCC Sinks to a New Low
Roger Pielke, Jr.
Back in May, Chris Field, co-chair of IPCC Working Group II emailed me with a request:
As my request to Field was informal, and not one I ever expected to see action on, this initiation of contact with me seemed to me like the IPCC was turning a corner, and taking seriously scientific accuracy on disasters and climate change. So I prepared a concise and specific reply to Field’s request. Today I heard back from the IPCC. The response is laughable, and indicates that the IPCC is more interested in playing games than in scientific accuracy. Nothing below is complicated or nuanced.
Here are the details from the response that the IPCC sent to me today, annotated with my comments. In the material below the four passages under “Text from Roger Pielke, Jr.” is that which I provided to Chris Field in May in response to his email request. Under each of those I have blockqouted the IPCC response to my claims, which is titled “CLA Finding.” Below that I highlight my comments today in response to each of the four responses.
With that, let’s have a look . . .
>>>>>>>>>>>>
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/ipcc-sinks-to-new-low.html
Eggert:-
“….the science of radiant heat transfer has matured to the point where engineering solutions have been developed and widely implemented”
See:-
RADIATION HEAT TRANSFER IN COMBUSTION SYSTEMS
R. VISKANTA and M. P. MENGO, 1987
Abstract An adequate treatment of thermal radiation heat transfer is essential to a mathematical model of the combustion process or to a design of a combustion system. This paper reviews the fundamentals of radiation heat transfer and some recent progress in its modeling in combustion systems. Topics covered include radiative properties of combustion products and their modeling and methods of solving the radiative transfer equations. Examples of sample combustion systems in which radiation has been accounted for in the analysis are presented. In several technologically important, practical combustion systems coupling of radiation to other modes of heat transfer is discussed. Research needs are identified and potentially promising research topics are also suggested.
http://www.engr.uky.edu/rtl/Papers/Viskanta_Menguc_1987.pdf
[Warning: 64 pages and 334 references]
“An in-depth review of the world literature on the thermal radiation properties of gaseous combustion products (H20, CO2, CO, SO2, NO and N20 ) has recently been prepared. 4″
4. BLOKH, A. G., Heat TransJer in Steam Boiler Furnaces,
Energoatomizdat, Leningrad (1984) (in Russian) (to be
published by Hemisphere Publishing Corp., Washington,
D.C.).
“Detailed reviews of radiation heat transfer in pulverized coal-fired furnaces are available. 4″272″299 Radiation heat transfer in furnaces is due to gaseous and particulate contributions. Emissivity data for the major emitting gaseous species CO2 and H20 are generally adequate. 4.64″
64. SAROFIM, A. F. and HOTTEL, H. C., Heat Transfer–
1978, Vol. 6, pp. 199-217, Hemisphere Publishing
Corp., Washington, D.C. 11978).
“The expressions for the total emissivity and absorptivity of a gas in terms of the weighted sum of gray gases are useful especially for the zonal method of analysis of radiative transfer.
There are several curve-fitted expressions available in the literature for use in computer codes. Some of them are given in terms of polynomials 48- 50 and the others are expressed in terms of the weighted sum-of-gray gases. 51~-54″
48. LECKNER, B., Combust. Flame 19, 33 (1972).
49. MODAK, A. T., Fire Res. I, 339 11979).
50. STEWARD, F R. and KOCAEFE, Y. S., Heat TronsJer–
1986, C. L. Tien, V. P. Carey, and J. K. Ferrell (Eds),
Vol. 2, pp. 735-740, Hemisphere Publishing Corp.,
Washington, D.C. (1986).
51. TAYLOR, P. B. and FOSTER, P. J., Int. J. Heat Mass
TransJer 17, 1591 11974).
52. SMrm, T. F., SHEN, Z. F. and FRIEDMAN, J. N., J. Heot
Transfer 104. 602 (1982[
53. FARAG, I. H., Heat Transfer 1982, U. Grigull, E.
Hahne, K. Stephan and J. Straub (Eds), VoL 2. pp.
489-492. Hemisphere, Washington, D.C. (1982).
54. COPALLE, A. and VERVlSCH, P., Combust. Flame 49. 101
11983).
“Radiation accounts for about 40 % of the total heat transferred to the cylinder, but the radiation from gases (CO2 and H20 ) is only 20 % of the total radiation, with the rest being soot radiation”
Amazing to find what the IPCC DOESN’T defer to when you start digging.
“Radiation accounts for about 40 % of the total heat transferred to the cylinder, but the radiation from gases (CO2 and H20 ) is only 20 % of the total radiation, with the rest being soot radiation”
Interesting. Soot (black carbon) gets a mention in the IPCC’s net anthropogenic radiative forcing table when it’s on snow as an albedo forcing and is included in total aerosols:-
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-2-5.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_carbon
We don’t live in a pulverized coal-fired furnace though.
We might in a couple of hundred years time though
Oh, funny, Simon – but you over-mis-exaggerate
The fact remains that the IPCC has mentioned only the reflective qualities of soot, not its radiative capabilities.
“The fact remains that the IPCC has mentioned only the reflective qualities of soot”
The Wiki Black Carbon link says “a more recent estimate by V. Ramanathan and G. Carmichael of 0.9 W/m2″ [Reference is 48 but I think that's an error, should be 50 - see below
And,
"Based on the IPCC estimate, it would be reasonable to conclude that the combined direct and indirect snow albedo effects for black carbon rank it as the third largest contributor to globally averaged positive radiative forcing since the pre-industrial period. In comparison, the more recent direct radiative forcing estimate by Ramanathan and Carmichael [50] would lead one to conclude that black carbon has contributed the second largest globally averaged radiative forcing after carbon dioxide (CO2), and that the radiative forcing of black carbon is “as much as 55% of the CO2 forcing and is larger than the forcing due to the other greenhouse gasses (GHGs) such as CH4, CFCs, N2O, or tropospheric ozone.”
50 ^ V. Ramanathan and G. Carmichael, Global and regional climate changes due to black carbon, 1 NATURE GEOSCIENCE 221-22 (23 March 2008) (“The BC forcing of 0.9 W m–2 (with a range of 0.4 to 1.2 W m–2) … is as much as 55% of the CO2 forcing and is larger than the forcing due to the other GHGs such as CH4, CFCs, N2O or tropospheric ozone.”)
http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/files/pr160.pdf
Not sure yet how they’ve gone about determining the forcing.
“Not sure yet how they’ve gone about determining the forcing”
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with well-calibrated and miniaturized instruments apparently:-
“Direct measurement of this solar heating has evaded us until
now as it requires multiple aircraft flying over the same domain
at different altitudes to measure flux divergences (that is, heating
rates) for an extensive period of time. These challenges were
recently overcome by deploying three lightweight unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs) with well-calibrated and miniaturized
instruments to simultaneously measure aerosols, BC and
spectral as well as broadband radiation fluxes14,51,52. The UAV
study14 demonstrated that ABCs with a visible absorption optical
depth as low as 0.02 are sufficient to enhance solar heating of the
lower atmosphere by 50%. Global average BC solar heating of the
atmosphere, as per the present estimate, is 2.6 W m–2 (Fig. 2c),
which is comparable to the TOA GHG forcing (Fig. 2a).”
Figure 3′s an eye opener (yes I know – “simulated”):-
Figure 3 Simulated atmospheric temperature change due to GHGs and BC for the
South Asian region. The values are annual mean temperature changes over the
South Asian region, averaged from 20° N to 40° N and from 70° E to 100° E. The
blue line is the change due to the increase in all GHGs and sulphate aerosols as
simulated by ref. 60. The red line is the estimated temperature change due to BC
taken from the global circulation model study of Chung and Seinfeld67.
“The uncertainty in the published estimates for BC emissions is a factor of two to five on regional scales and at least ±50% on global scales”
“Unlike the greenhouse effect of CO2, which leads to a positive radiative forcing of the atmosphere and at the surface26 with moderate latitudinal gradients27,28, black carbon has opposing effects of adding energy to the atmosphere and reducing it at the surface. Furthermore the forcing has significant latitudinal gradients. It alters the radiative forcing through a complex web of processes7.”
“We have just begun to comprehend the chain of response and feedbacks on the regional climate due to BC9,12,14,23,59–65.”
“What are the opportunities to reduce the positive forcing
by BC? Providing alternative energy-efficient and smoke-free
cookers and introducing transferring technology for reducing soot
emissions from coal combustion in small industries could have
major impacts on the radiative forcing due to soot97. Figure 4b
shows the impact of replacing biofuel cooking with BC-free
cookers (solar and bio and natural gas) in South and East Asia.
The impacts are dramatic: over South Asia, a 70 to 80% reduction
in BC heating; and in East Asia, a 20 to 40% reduction. The impact
on human health will potentially be even more dramatic as over
400,000 annual fatalities among women and children are attributed
to smoke inhalation during indoor cooking93,94″
Seems to me that BC-free cookers to alleviate “over 400,000 annual fatalities among women and children” outranks GHG concerns by a very wide margin.
“Not sure yet how they’ve gone about determining the forcing”
I’m guessing that if the IPCC didn’t defer to established heat transfer science for CO2, that Ramanathan and Carmichael didn’t for soot either. There’s nothing in the 98 references to indicate they did.
“about 50% (soot) vs 50% (CO2) [uncertainty ±50%] in the atmosphere”
Should be,
about 33% (soot) vs 66% (CO2) [uncertainty ±50%] in the atmosphere
That’s if soot is about 50% of CO2.
“We don’t live in a pulverized coal-fired furnace though” – No we don’t, but “Green” Germany is doing their utmost to live BY coal-fired electricity though.
The principles of radiative heat transfer are the same whether the atmosphere under consideration is in a furnace/combustion chamber or 0 – 10 km above the earth’s surface. WRT BC (soot), obviously the effect is different in either case because the dispersion is vastly different but it’s obvious that the effect is major in both compared to CO2: 80% (soot) vs 20% (CO2 + H2O) in a combustion chamber and about 50% (soot) vs 50% (CO2) [uncertainty ±50%] in the atmosphere.
EVALUATION OF EMISSIVITY CORRELATIONS FOR H20-C02-N2/AIR MIXTURES AND COUPLING WITH SOLUTION METHODS OF THE RADIATIVE TRANSFER EQUATION
N. Lallemant*, A. Sayret and R. Weber
1996
http://www.ewp.rpi.edu/hartford/users/papers/engr/ernesto/brazw/Project/Other/Research/Soot/Lallemant_EmissivityCorrelations.pdf
3. CORRELATIONS FOR PREDICTING THE TOTAL EMISSIVITY AND ABSORPTIVITY OF
COMBUSTION GASES
Emissivity correlations are usually limited to calculations of the CO, and H20 total emissivity. Mathematically, these models appear either in the form of the weighted sum of gray gases model (WSGGM)4-‘5 or in the form of polynomials.‘-3 Existing WSGGM are somewhat less general than the polynomial correlations since coefficients for the WSGGM have to be recalculated for each H20/ CO1 partial pressure ratio. Polynomial correlations such as those of Leckner2 and Modak3 do not feature such shortcomings; they involve many more fitted coefficients (e.g. 48 for each species in Modak’s model) but retain all the generality required to model total emissivity of gas mixtures. Both types of correlations are accurate enough and simple to use in engineering calculations. However, they are often limited to total emissivity calculations in volumes of gas with a mean beam length greater than 1 cm. This section surveys the total emissivity correlations presented in Table 2. Only the models which have been widely applied in CFD modeling of flames and engineering combustion problems are described.
3.2. Polynomial Approximations
The two most well-known and general total emissivity correlations using polynomials are those developed by L.eckne2 and Modak.3 Prior to these publications, Hadvig’ derived polynomial expressions to calculate the total emissivity of HzO-CO2 gas mixtures for pW/pC = 1 and pW/pC = 2. However, in view of the limited range of applicability of this model, it is excluded from the assessment in Section 4.
4. ASSESSMENT OF THE ACCURACY OF SEVERAL TOTAL EMISSIVITY CORRELATIONS (HOMOGENOUS CALCULATIONS)
4.1. Generalities
In this section, the exponential wide band model (EWBM)25,26 is used to provide benchmark data to validate the total emissivity models developed by Johnson6 Leckner,2 Taylor and Foster,’ Modak,3 Smith et a1.,13 Coppale and Vervish14 and Steward and Kocaefe” (see Table 2).
The above paper Lallemant, Sayret and Weber (1996) includes verification of the polynomial CO2 path length curves of Leckner from which Professor John Eggert selected the q(278) curve plotted here:-
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/eggert-co2.png
IPCC Check Kites Gergis
Steve McIntyre
A few days ago, WUWT pointed out that the American Meteorological Society webpage showed that the Gergis et al paper had been officially “withdrawn”. However, readers should know better than to presume that this would have any effect on IPCC use of the reconstruction.
The withdrawal of the Gergis article hasn’t had the slightest impact on IPCC usage of the Gergis reconstruction, which continues to be used in the recently released AR5 Second Order Draft, thanks to academic check kiting reminiscent of Ammann and Wahl. Tim Osborn of CRU is a Lead Author of the AR5 chapter (as he was in AR4) and would be familiar with the technique from AR4.
Although David Karoly had denied that Gergis et al had been withdrawn, the AMS finally admitted this at their website here.
http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/ams-gergis-errors.png
However, the Gergis reconstruction continues to be used in the IPCC Second Order Draft (released for review in early October). The figure below shows its use in the First Order Draft on the left and its use in the Second Order Draft on the right – the two reconstructions are identical up to smoothing.
http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/australasia-compare.png
However, the attribution has changed. The First Order Draft attributed the reconstruction to Gergis et al (then submitted to Journal of Climate, later accepted and then withdrawn. See CA posts here). The Second Order Draft attributes the Gergis reconstruction to PAGES 2K Consortium (submitted to Science).
I presume that the PAGES 2K Consortium has done a little academic check kiting a la Wahl and Ammann i.e. that they have cited the Gergis et al reconstruction even though the article has been withdrawn. The IPCC then cited the article that kited the check (a kitation?
)
It would be interesting to see precisely how the PAGES 2K Consortium (of which Gergis was a member) stickhandled their citation of the withdrawn Gergis et al article. I doubt that they were entirely candid with Sciencemag on the matter.
The PAGES 2K consortium article should be online to Second Order Draft reviewers at the WG1 website, but I haven’t seen it because I haven’t signed up as a reviewer since I am not prepared to agree to the secrecy demands instituted by Thomas Stocker at Phil Jones’ urging. But for any IPCC reviewers reading this post, take a look. See if this most recent check-kiting makes you proud to be part of the organization.
http://climateaudit.org/2012/10/22/ipcc-check-kites-gergis/
Climate change predictions right on the mark
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/8061167/Climate-change-predictions-right-on-the-mark
1990 IPCC Report Successfully Predicted Warming, New Study Shows
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/10/1990-ipcc-report_n_2270453.html
“When Frame and Stone took natural variability into account, they found that the observed warming was consistent with the IPCC’s best estimate for warming”.
# # #
Another in the vein of Rahmstorf, Foster and Cazenave (don’t look at CMIP5, actual trajectory, global dimming/brightening, misconstrue natural variability etc but Bryan Leyland sets the record straight).
David Frame loses all credibility with this effort.
Bryan Leyland gets an entire sentence in. Wow – balanced reporting huh?
Balance? I wasn’t aware that Brian Leyland had written any papers on climate change in refereed scientific journals. Unless he has done so, his opinion carries no more weight than any other lay-person.
I see on Brian’s website that he claims that 2012 would be a “cool” year. Give that 2012 is tracking to be the ninth warmest on record despite La Nina starting conditions, his powers of prediction seem to be somewhat lacking.
Amazing then , isn’t it, how 30% of the last IPCC report is non peer reviewed, including the infamous Stern Report on which governments base a lot of their climate policy?
Presumably Stern should also be treated with the same disdain?
>”Give that 2012 is tracking to be the ninth warmest on record despite La Nina starting conditions, his powers of prediction seem to be somewhat lacking”
Are you sure?
‘Global warming is slowing down, says Met Office’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/9708144/Doha-Global-warming-is-slowing-down-says-Met-Office.html
“……2012 is cooler than the average for the past decade, that was pushed up by soaring temperatures in 2010 and 2005″.
“Dr Stott said that 2011 and 2012 have been cooler because of La Nina pattern in the southern oceans”.
+ + +
Comparing 2012 to Date with Previous Years
Global Year to Date Temperature Anomalies
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2012/10/supplemental/page-1/
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/ytd-global-temp-anoms/201210.png
# # #
Definitely a “cool” year in the context of the decade. Stott is adamant that “”It has slowed down but it will speed up at some point”. Doubtful. The PDO’s in cold mode and the sun’s going into hibernation, get used to some more “cool” years in the near future.
Raises the question as to why Pachauri, Gore, & Ban Ki Moon keep getting quoted about climate change in newspaper articles. At least Leyland bases his arguments on scientific facts instead of making it up on the hoof like the aforementioned trio and their ‘voodoo science’.
@ Simon:
“his opinion carries no more weight than any other lay-person.”
Argumentum ad verecundiam (appeal to authority).
I don’t give particular weight to letters after a name. If the logic and facts of their argument stack up and are reproducible, then it matters not whether they are a rocket scientist or a railroad engineer.
It’s funny though, as Prof Dave Frame points out the media are quite happy to quote Bill McKibben,
http://hot-topic.co.nz/stuff-and-nonsense-ministerial-condescension-and-media-fossil-fools/#comment-35879
Of course, for the terminally smug, it is ok to use far left anti capitalist activists such as McKibben as your source, regardless of their scientific credentials.
Meanwhile, they furiously tweet their drivel from their iPads, braying about their moral superiority, prattling on about their carbon footprint and the number of solar panels they own.
Tis the time to be merry folks….
DF seems intent on “keeping it in the family”. Kudos to Rob Painting in that regard (“Dave Frame, you appear to be afflicted with a severe case of IvoryTower-itis”).
There’s plenty of people from outside the climate science clique who are perfectly able to compile and interpret temperature series (despite Venning’s opinion) due to career-long experience and skills with similar data in far more critical environments.
BTW re carbon footprints. DWTV Global 3000 reports Doha’s carbon footprint was over 133,000 tonnes.
Barbra on Climate Change.
NOVEMBER 2, 2012, 5:10 am
By Barbra Streisand.
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, I can’t comprehend how there are still climate change deniers out there. Yet there are. These last few days, we’ve all seen pictures of New Jersey and New York LITERALLY under water. And the extreme droughts in the Midwest, the floods in Vermont and the fires in Colorado and Texas this year only validate what nearly every leading scientist has confirmed: Climate change is REAL and causes extreme weather conditions.
No matter how loud Mother Nature screams, we never seem to listen. We’ve got to get serious about investing in solutions to this serious threat before it gets any worse. We know which party thinks that climate change is a hoax. We know whose policies will subsidize polluters over funding FEMA. Think about the opportunity we have to invest in new sources of technology that will produce clean energy and the millions of new jobs that will be created. One party is willing to have this conversation, the other won’t even sit at the table. This is no longer a fight about ideology. It’s a fight about the kind of world we want to pass on to our children. So, let’s start the conversation on November 6th at the voting booth and make our voices heard.
My Foundation started supporting climate change work in 1989, when I donated a quarter of a million dollars to support the work of environmental scientist Dr. Michael Oppenheimer at the Environmental Defense Fund. Since then, I, and others have spent countless millions on this issue. Unfortunately, due to the lack of political courage by some politicians and relentless lobbying and campaign contributions from the powerful oil and fossil fuel industries, progress on this issue has been impossible.
http://www.barbrastreisand.com/us/statement/barbra-climate-change
“Environmental scientist” Dr. Michael Oppenheimer becomes “climate scientist” for this Borenstein AP article regurgitated in Stuff on the “new reality” after “Hurricane” Sandy:-
http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/7887861/Hurricane-Sandy-The-climate-science
Climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer stood along the Hudson River and watched his research come to life as Hurricane Sandy blew through New York.
Just eight months earlier, the Princeton University professor reported that what used to be once-in-a-century devastating floods in New York City would soon happen every three to 20 years. He blamed global warming for pushing up sea levels and changing hurricane patterns.
New York “is now highly vulnerable to extreme hurricane-surge flooding,” he wrote. [it always was]
DF provided some useful links (his climate sensitivity paper was interesting) but unfortunately the cretins have taken over the thread again
Scathing review of Frame and Stone 2012 at JN:-
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/12/the-ipcc-was-not-right-frame-stone-ignore-main-ipcc-predictions/
Meanwhile, Moscow has early snow, as does most of the European Alps. Early snow for Scotland,
http://ski.visitscotland.com/conditions/cairngorm/
This line of reasoning sounds a bit like the Christchurch insurance industry’s approach.
“We have decided how much we will pay you and make various ad hoc adjustments and assumptions until that value is met”
AR5 Chapter 11; Hiding the Decline (Part II)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/30/ar5-chapter-11-hiding-the-decline-part-ii/#more-76591
Figure 11.33: Synthesis of near-term projections of global mean surface air temperature. a), b) and c):-
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/image_thumb1.png?w=936&h=1143
They hid the decline! In the first graph, observational data ends about 2011 or 12. In the second graph though, it ends about 2007 or 8. There are four or five years of observational data missing from the second graph. Fortunately the two graphs are scaled identically which makes it very easy to use a highly sophisticated tool called “cut and paste” to move the observational data from the first graph to the second graph and see what it should have looked like:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/image_thumb2.png?w=939&h=414
Well oops. Once one brings the observational data up to date, it turns out that we are currently below the entire range of models in the 5% to 95% confidence range across all emission scenarios. The light gray shading is for RCP 4.5, the most likely emission scenario. But we’re also below the dark gray which is all emission scenarios for all models, including the ones where we strangle the global economy.
Norwegian Study Shows Global Temperature Not Warming as IPCC Predicted
http://occupycorporatism.com/norwegian-study-shows-global-temperature-not-warming-as-ipcc-predicted/
Stefan Rahmstorf, professor of physics at Potsdam University conducted a study in 2011 which showed that CO2 is having less of an effect on climate than the IPCC asserts to be true and that their “claim that they are 90 percent sure that humans have ‘contributed to’ the observed warming” cannot be proven without a reasonable doubt. Rahmstorf explains: “It is evidence that CO2 is not nearly as strong a climate driver as the IPCC has been assuming. This is the possibility they do not allow to be considered, because it would end all of their policy-changing goals.”
While Rahmstorf does believe that humans are having an effect on climate change, he maintains that simply blaming humanity solely for the changes is obscuring “the bigger picture.”
James Annan on climate sensitivity
James Annan has a must-read post on climate sensitivity today, picking up on the Norwegian study, Nic Lewis’s work and the contents of the leaked IPCC report. Here are some choice excerpts:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/2/1/james-annan-on-climate-sensitivity.html
And there are some interesting comments on Nic Lewis’s work too. Great fun. Read the whole thing.
http://julesandjames.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/a-sensitive-matter.html
“Interestingly, one of them stated quite openly in a meeting I attended a few years ago that he deliberately lied in these sort of elicitation exercises (i.e. exaggerating the probability of high sensitivity) in order to help motivate political action.”
BREAKING: an encouraging admission of lower climate sensitivity by a ‘hockey team’ scientist, along with new problems for the IPCC
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/01/encouraging-admission-of-lower-climate-sensitivity-by-a-hockey-team-scientist/
Last night I was cc’d an exceptional email from Andrew Revkin forwarding an email (Update: Andy says of a comment from Dot Earth) quoting climate scientist James Annan, who one could call a member of the “hockey team” based on his strong past opinions related to AGW and paleoclimatology.
Andrew Revkin published the email today at the NYT Dot Earth blog as a comment in that thread, so now I am free to reproduce it here where I was not last night.
Below is the comment left by Andy, quoting Annan’s email, bolding added:
And this is what many have been saying now and for some time, that the climate sensitivity has been overestimated. Kudos to Annan for realizing the likelihood of a lower climate sensitivity.
UPDATE: Annan now suggests the IPCC “is in a bit of a pickle”,
UPDATE2: Title has been changed to reflect Annan’s new essay, suggesting lying for political purposes inside the IPCC. Also added some updates about Aldrin et al and other notes for accuracy.
A Closer Look at Moderating Views of Climate Sensitivity
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/a-closer-look-at-moderating-views-of-climate-sensitivity/
“This is also not a “single-study syndrome” situation, where one outlier research paper is used to cast doubt on a bigger body of work — as Skeptical Science asserted over the weekend. That post focused on the as-yet-unpublished paper finding lower sensitivity that was inadvisedly promoted recently by the Research Council of Norway.”
Comments on this at BH
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/2/4/revkin-does-low-climate-sensitivity.html
Tallbloke
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/consensus-what-consensus-the-lie-comes-undone/
WUWT, ‘The Revkin-Gavin debate on lower climate sensitivity’
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/04/the-revkin-gavin-debate-on-lower-climate-sensitivity/
Links to Chip Knappenberger: ‘The yearly lukewarm report’. Also relevant.
(Reuters) – Scientists are struggling to explain a slowdown in climate change that has exposed gaps in their understanding and defies a rise in global greenhouse gas emissions.
UN PANEL SEEKS EXPLANATION
A rapid rise in global temperatures in the 1980s and 1990s – when clean air laws in developed nations cut pollution and made sunshine stronger at the earth’s surface – made for a compelling argument that human emissions were to blame.
The IPCC will seek to explain the current pause in a report to be released in three parts from late 2013 as the main scientific roadmap for governments in shifting from fossil fuels towards renewable energies such as solar or wind power, the panel’s chairman Rajendra Pachauri said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/16/us-climate-slowdown-idUSBRE93F0AJ20130416
IPCC Co-Chair Thomas Stocker Flunks Major Swiss Interview – IPCC Science Hanging From Its Last Thread
By P Gosselin on 17. April 2013
Last week hard-hitting Swiss weekly Weltwoche published a revealing interview with IPCC WG-1 Co-Chair Thomas Stocker. The interview was conducted by Markus Schär.
Dr. Sebastian Lüning was given permission to republish the interview at the Die kalte Sonne site here, adding his rebuttals and corrections. Lüning writes: “Thomas Stocker showed a number of memory lapses in the Weltwoche-Interview.”
What follows is the interview along with Lüning’s rebuttals in English. Because of the interview’s length, it will appear in 3 or 4 parts over the next few days. Some parts have been slightly shortened and edited.
The Stocker interview not only exposes misleading science, but also provides good hints as to how the IPCC intends to approach its 5th report.
http://notrickszone.com/2013/04/17/ipcc-co-chair-thomas-stocker-flunks-major-swiss-interview-ipcc-science-hanging-from-its-last-thread/
Part 2 Thomas Stocker Interview…Lüning: “IPCC Increasingly Unable To Maneuver, Detached From Reality”
By P Gosselin on 18. April 2013
Part 2 of the Stocker/Weltwoche interview
In part 2, Stocker contradicts Ben Santer and claims that 17 years are not enough to establish a climate trend, insists that warming is taking place and that the model projections have been “extremely good”. Part 2 reveals how the IPCC science is hanging from a thread. Stocker obstinately maintains there is no CO2 lag behind temperature, claiming that they moved “simultaneously” in the past. Stocker erroneously believes CO2 is the only explanation for the 20th century warming.
http://notrickszone.com/2013/04/18/part-2-thomas-stocker-interview-luning-ipcc-increasingly-unable-to-maneuver-detached-from-reality/
Interview Part 3…WG1 Co-Chair Stocker Exposes His Rank Non-Objectivity / Activism
By P Gosselin on 19. April 2013
Here’s the last part of the tough Weltwoche interview with IPCC WG1 Co-Chair Thomas Stocker (see Part 1 here and Part 2 here).
INTERVIEW PART 3
Lüning: Next Weltwoche refers Stocker to the natural cycles, which fit well with the 20th century’s overall pattern. The Little Ice Age also was characterized by low solar activity.
[..]
Lüning: We had to wait until the very end for Stocker to out himself as an activist. “The problem is there, it is one of the biggest that humanity faces,” he says. We should all be concerned when a leading IPCC referee, someone who is supposed to view and summarize the scientific literature objectively, has already personally made up his mind for the climate-alarmism side. With this backdrop, what are the chances the IPCC will revise its overblown temperature projections and modify its models when there is so much powerful evidence showing that natural climate factors are playing a role in the warming? How will Stocker suddenly appear when the anthropogenic global warming effect is far less dramatic than what he vehemently projected in the past and projects currently?
One of the most important tasks for the IPCC in the coming years will be to prevent personal interest conflicts and to assure an appropriate amount of skepticism when handling scientific literature. Until then the IPCC reports unfortunately will not be able make any sensible contribution to understanding the complex climate interrelationships.
http://notrickszone.com/2013/04/19/interview-part-3-wg1-co-chair-stocker-exposes-his-rank-non-objectivity-activism/