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2040 Responses to "The Bore Hole"
J. Bobsays
#183 Ray,
no one said the Fourier is a cure all, but it’s a very powerful mathematical tool, so why not make use of it?
In my above post, I used three different methods at looking at the signal, and as a cross check. These were a moving average, a recursive method with a “filtfilt” Chebuchev filter, and a Fourier filter. I chose the Fourier, since it produced superior results at the end points. In addition, I showed the deviation of the filtered from the actual, to produce a figures of merit. The graph is posted below
That provided the mean & std. dev., for a measure of filter performance. Hence one can now evaluate just how good filters are, and provide information to use with Wiener and/or Kalman predictive filters.
Another point is when you define ”white” noise, as flat over the freq. spectrum, don’t you use spectral analysis to confirm you really have what you think? Ditto for “pink, “red” or whatever the latest color is.
It might be a good idea to look at these methods, as they use a great deal of statistics & probability, and have a long history of practical applications. Wiener’s work was put to use in WWII, for close support AA. There it involved predicting future projectile position, of prime importance in staying alive. You may have seen movies of the single manned cannon, operating on the carrier flight deck edge. One of the more interesting Wiener descendants was the Black-Scholes equation, used in financial futures pricing.
If you don’t believe me, do a “wiener optimal filter prediction” search. And if you can do me better, just do it.
The following book may help you see the light, “Handbook of Astronomical Image Processing”, Berry & Burnell
starting at p.453, covering Fourier & wavelet methods, as to how astronomical images are enhanced for increased feature extraction.
P.S. Speaking of PHYSICS, I was awarded the Physics Achievement Award in my undergraduate life.
Dan H.says
Didactylos,
I think the sceptic and denier terms have been misused frequently. While “deniers” can be said to mistrust science, believe global warming is a ____ (insert your favorite word here), or are just gullible people who believe whatever they want. True sceptics have taken the time to weigh the science, and conclude that we do not have enough data to draw confident climate conclusions. Most of the people that I have found who are truly “sceptics” believe that CO2 is causing warming, just not to the degree some claim.
Most sceptics appear sceptical for two reasons: 1. There is a natural component in addition to the human component, which has been neglected or downplayed by many, and 2. Many of the forecasted effects of global warming have been exaggerated.
The first reason is largely scientific, and can be resolved with continued research. This is usually the main reason for sceptism as these forces could be quite large and play a much greater role than many people realize. On the other hand, they may be cancelling each other with no net effect. The second part is much more a PR problem, with too many people making outrageous claims blamed on global warming. Many people believe these claims. Are they as gullible as the others?
Major Mikesays
The latest climate science dropout is Al Gore. Dutch scientists just proved he was all wrong on Kilimanjaro. It’s a shame. The pictures were so pretty.
James R. Barrantesays
74: Then please explain to me how in the past atmospheric levels of CO2 have been as high as 3000 ppm with global temperatures the same as they are today. If the Earth were producing the amount of IR radiation you allude to (a Pacific Ocean full of water), the planet would have fried long ago.
Vendicar Decariansays
“Vendicar Decarian…Hmm, I see over 14 million visitors to Realclimate.org. Skepticalscience.com is available in 20 languages. You have a rather odd concept of “nobody”.” – 71
I am probably 1,000 of those visitors, while you are probably 2,000 of them, if not more, other regulars will have similar visitation counts.
With that in mind, a 14 million total evaporates in size pretty rapidly doesn’t it?
Google hits “Watts up with that” 7,300,000
“Realclimate” – 672,000
Dan H.says
I find all this rather entertaining. People are trying to compare apples to oranges in refuting each other. Start with James Barrante’s statement, “Most climatologists agree that doubling CO2 from 380 to 760 ppm would not even raise global temperature by a degree.” This is close to true, but I would say “not more than a degree” would be more accurate. This is comparing the direct effect of doubling CO2 vs. the added effects of other feedbacks. Apples vs. oranges. To state the feedbacks are “well-known” is a bit of a stretch.
Next, the statement “the fact that global temperature has not increased since 1998…” is, once again, essentially true. However, this uses individual measurements whereby 1998 was the highest temperature anomaly according to the CRU data (July, 1998 to be specific). Better, would be to use 10-year averaging which shows the highest average temperature anomaly occurred in July, 2002, and has not increased since (the small decrease since is not statistically significant, which is basically what Phil Jones has said).
I admit that I have not read his book entirely, and therefore, cannot comment on the book in its entirety. I found nothing particularly alarming in that section, and he does make some valid points. Some seem to be criticizing this book as if it were a scientific paper, targeted towards a technical meeting, rather than the general purpose audience for which he intended.
Lastly, I think Dr. Barrante has been quite cordial with those who have insulted him. Usually attacking the messenger is the last resort of someone who cannot refute his argument.
J. Bobsays
#55 Ray,
I wouldn’t talk to loudly. You never did disprove me in Unforced variations, or from the bore hole. Nor did you even demonstrate a better method of predicting future states.
Dan H.says
I find all this rather entertaining. People are trying to compare apples to oranges in refuting each other.
I admit that I have not read his book, and therefore, cannot comment on the book in its entirety. I found nothing particularly alarming in that section posted. He does make some valid points, not that I agree with them. Some seem to be criticizing this book as if it were a scientific paper, targeted towards a technical meeting, rather than the general purpose audience for which he intended.
I think Dr. Barrante has been quite cordial with those who have insulted him. Usually attacking the messenger is the last resort of someone who cannot refute his argument.
Lastly, there appear to be those who think this site should be reserved for those who think like they do, and that any opposing arguments should be deleted. That sounds a lot like what Dr. Barante was saying in his book, and is not how science should be conducted.
Dan H.says
Brian,
If you are going to refute Barrante’s statements, you need to argue the same points.
1. During the last 400,000 years, the Earth has experienced 4 ice ages and 4 interglacials. One could argue that there were 4 changes out of the predominantly glaciations, or 4 back and forth changes, for a total of 8. Just semantics here.
2. I agree with you on number short term changes.
3. You are comparing apples and oranges. While Langway, et. al. present annual values, much of the Vostok ice cores yielded temperature data every 200 years. Since Barrante is not specific in his data set, this cannot be ruled out.
4. I give this point to Barrante. The absolute temperature value was higher in 1998 in the data you presented from Spencer. I believe Barrante was referring to the CRU data set, which also shows a higher absolute value in 1998. I would counter that a 10-yr running average would be a better measure than a single year. Using the same CRU data, Barrante should change his statement to 2002, since the highest value in the 10-yr average occurred in July, 2002, and has been relatively flat since (Phil Jones referred to this in his interview, whcih was largely misquoted). Claiming that his statement is a lie, is a lie in itself.
5. Whether changes today are different from 400,000 years ago is still to be determined. Yes, atmospheric CO2 is higher than previously, but temperatures are not. Half and half on this point.
Attacking someone personally is the last resort of someone who cannot refute the data.
xaviersays
wow. I am literally disgusted at how you people are treating Dr Barrante. This is a disgusting, sad spectacle. You people know you are losing badly and your desperation is showing. You are a nasty bunch of people.
Dan H.says
I do not think that it is the work of Tyndall that is being questioned here, but rather the extensions of his work. Tyndall made no quantification of the effect of CO2, or any other hydrocarbon gas, on temperature or climate. Much has been written recently about the quantification of CO2-dependent temperature effects, with a wide range of results. Deriding someone for claiming that the effect is less than someone else claims is hardly fit conversation for a scientist. It appears that there are some people here who do not wish to listen to anyone who has an opposing view. Be careful. Science may just advance right past you.
cwon1says
Response to #10;
It’s a broad political debate for many years now. During periods of high interest millions line up on either side with a varied degree of technical knowledge. The ad hominem I was focused on, which is typical perhaps of all side but especially to the would-be keepers of the IPCC consensus “flame” is that they are by virtue of their favored conclusion more “informed and intelligent”. Hense we get articles labeling gop dissent as “ignorant”. This sort of pattern follows many left vs. right debates, liberals assume they are smarter. They endlessly dwell on how they are better informed and educated etc. They love to comment how their leaders are “smarter” and they are “progressive”. Statistically it’s nonsense when we are discussing vast populations. While one side can site university professors go take a straw poll and prisons, welfare office in cities or low skill manual labor pools and see where the base of the left is. Again, there are plenty of ignorant people on all sides but by going about this low rhetorical (and yes, ad hominem) tactic has only weakened your argument.
cwon1says
Invective labeling helps the skeptics (Ignorant). It’s a standard playing card and symbol of liberal arrogance.
There are thousands of expert of voices for and against, the IPCC process looks agenda driven and corrupt. Millions of many different levels of technical skills on both sides are involved and neither is going out quitely. Calling people or parties “ignorant” helps agw dissent in the longer-term.
Dan H.says
Bob,
I disagree that the ice is breaking up early. This year does not look all that different from others, 2005 showed a much earlier break up, and 2010 was much later. My La Nina point, combined with a largely negative NAO, indicates that colder waters are being measured in the northern oceans. 2007 reached its record low in the presence of a large amount of Atlantic water entering the Arctic. I do not see that happening this year, but se ice extent is relatively unpredictable on a yearly basis.
I am not sure what your last two paragraphs are all about, nor what you would expect me to say if the sea ice does reach a new minimum.
Dan H.says
Ad hominem attacks are usually reserved for those who are unable to refute the testimpony of their opponent. Are you saying that you cannot refute their testimony?
Isotopioussays
“..Everyone, including you and I, is ignorant about many things – I (like you I hope) aim to reduce that ignorance bit by bit. It would be nice if more people aimed to as well. – gavin]”
By making over confident statements regarding uncertainties, it’s quite clear the IPCC have no interest in reducing uncertainites which go against the IPCC point of view. It’s what I call reducing uncertainties in one direction.
Isotopioussays
In the Bore Hole
You can slag the double C
In the Bore Hole
You can cherry pick with ease
In the Bore Hole
It seems the fit has hit the shan
In the Bore Hole
Empirical evidence we demand!
James R. Barrantesays
162. You make my point. The CO2 does collide with neighboring molecules before it irradiates the energy as light. You can’t have it both ways. You say it irradiates the light energy back toward Earth (and by the way it’s light not heat), but the probably of that happening is extremely small because the numbers you cite suggest it will transfer that light energy as heat to neighboring molecules before it irradiates. So which way is it?
As far as studying CO2 is concerned, I said I never did heat capacity ratio experiments on CO2. Heat capacity ratio experiments on N2 clearly show that thermal energy goes only into translational and rotational motion. Also, you keep implying that I don’t think the greenhouse gas effect is real. I never said that. If you bothered to read my book, you would see that I am saying that there is already enough CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb all the IR radiation that it can absorb, i.e., increasing the level of CO2 will have little effect.
And you keep mentioning consensus. What consensus? There are thousands of scientists who do not believe that AGW is responsible for climate change. Moreover, I don’t consider these 1 or 2 degree wiggles in global temperature that we presently are experiencing as climate change. My definition requires at least a 8 to 10 degree change and I believe that’s coming – back to ice age.
Finally, I had never heard the definition of “troll” used the way you use it. I simply asked a simple question about saturation (I should have known better) and got jumped on, which is typical of your website. Of course, now you are bringing my family into it. My daughters are writers and made suggestions about writing style. David Whalen is an astrophysicist friend of mine. Gregory Kowalczyk is a Professor of Environmental and Analytical Chemistry. My book is short because it is essentially non-technical written for the layperson. I wrote it because I was constantly being asked for help by parents of children who were forced in school to watch “An Inconvenient Truth.” I’m glad John Mashey’s wife laughed a lot. The book was intended to be light-hearted. The 40 watt comment about computers was a joke.
Dan H.says
Charles,
I think the chalk and vinegar was nothing more than an ill-advised stunt. Do you really believe the coral reefs are dissolving in a sea of acid?
Septic Matthewsays
54, Charles: My good friend the coral reef expert who has now become an environmental educator because he is so worried about what is happening to the oceans thought it was a great demonstration which very effectively illustrated what was happening to coral reefs.
Well, the ocean is nowhere as acidic as vinegar and coral is not made from chalk. At least in some research (more details perhaps in a thread devoted to the topic, but there are at least 2 web pages devoted to this), coral grows better with increased CO2 in the relevant concentrations.
Harold Pierce Jrsays
BD at 60
Also check out:
Climate Change and Long-Term Fluctuations of Commercial Catches by L.B. Klyashtorin
I conclude from Russians’ and other studies that there are climate cycles–a whole lot of them and details of these have yet to be worked out. We know there are cycles with really long periods suchas the MWP and the LIA. And there are probably some we don’t even yet know about.
Here is another paper on climate cycles:
“An oscillation in the global climate system of period
65-70 years.” by M.E Schlesinger & N. Ramankutty, Nature, Vol 367 773-726 (1994).
I got this ref from a site that is monster bibliography of papers on global warming and climate science. Unfortunately, I forgot BM it. Anybody know it?
The big question is: How much of the recent warming is due climate cylces and GHG’s? Based upon my analyses of the temp data from the weather station at Quatsino BC, I have concluded that contribution of GHG’s is zip.
RE: JC Blog
When the number of comments on topic >1OO, I stop reading it.
Harold Pierce Jrsays
ATTN: BD
RE: Be Careful What You Wish For
RE: BC Carbon Taxes on Fossil Fuels
Below are current carbon taxes on fossils fuels in BC
based upon a tax of $20 per tonne of CO2 equivalent as of July 1, 2010:
Gasoline 4.45 ¢/litre
Diesel 5.11 ¢/litre
Jet Fuel 5.22 ¢/litre
Propane 3.08 ¢/litre
Natural Gas 3.80 ¢/cubic metre
Coal, high heat value 41.54 $/tonne
Coal,low heat value 35.54 $/tonne
Note the apparent low tax rate on nat gas. The actual tax is $0.9932 per gigajoule of BC nat gas which costs $4.568 per gigajoule. That is tax rate of 21.7%
On July 1, 2012 the the carbon tax will increase to $30 per tonne of CO2 equivalent, i.e., the above taxes will increase by 50%.
There are no free passes on fossil fuel carbon taxes although low income wager earners receive a carbon tax rebate. For industry and commerce there are complex rules and regulations for computing and paying carbon taxes. There is no rebate for folks living in the cold regions of the province.
Let us suppose the Russians are right and the climate cools down for the next 20 years. Do you think the BC gov is going to refund the tax?
Dan H.says
Rob,
I am a little confused by your last post. I believe that there is a downward trend in Arctic sea ice because the data since 1979 points towards one. We do not have solid data prior to that time, so I cannot say that this trend is representative or unusual. If you feel that there is not a downward trend in Arctic sea ice, I would be glad to listen to your reasoning.
I am disputing both the timing of breaking the record and achieveing an ice free Arctic. Extrapolating out, the trend line will not break the 2007 low for over a decade, and since very few previous years were more than 10% below the trend line, I believe that the 2007 low will not be broken in the next few years. If the current trend were to continue, the Arctic would be ice free in the summer in about 75 years.
Gambling has nothing to do with t=when this will occur.
Dan H.says
Ray,
I am surprised that you can so readily accept those. I will give you #4, as temperatures have not cooled, but not #8, since temperatures have not risen either.
Of the rest, #1 is valid for longer term, do not cherry-pick your data. I agree #2 is irrelevent, and should not be used to (dis)prove current climate conditions. #3 is laughable as should never be used again by any reputable scientist. #5, models are still unreliable, regardles of what gavin says. For #6, the thermometer records are valid, but my impression that the referenced temperature record referred to long-term proxies. #7 is the most valid, as life has generally prospered in warmer, wetter climates. Future predictions seem to ignore this. #9 is true, but irrelevent. #10 is valid for measurements beyond a few years. Only the short-term GRACE measurements indicate otherwise.
If these are the bases of your information, I suggest you delve deeper into the science. Sorry, but I do not find skepticalscience to be a good source. But then again, I am looking for scientific arguments, not politcal or socila ones.
patsays
As a former believer, but a person based in reality rather than the lunacy that this belief has become, I tell you all. Leave the room.
Dan H.says
Ray,
What the consensus believes, and what you claim they believe are different. While the consensus believes that temperatures have risen, even though 10% do not according to your survey, there is no consensus has to the contributing factors. Significant research has been reported that solar, oceanic, urbanization, and CO2 have all contributed up to 50% of the observed warming. The survey to which you point as evidence says nothing about CO2 (those that are convinced the warming was primarily an urbanization or deforestation effect would also answer yes).
The CRU data shows a 14-year trend line with a slope of 0. That is going back to 1997, a full year before the 1998 super El Nino. One has to go back further than that to obtain a positive temperature slope. Phil Jones has tried to point this out, but no seems to be listening. The 10-year moving average is still below the peak recorded in 2002. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
Are you saying that the CRU data is “counterfactual, fallacious, false, faulty, etc…” Brian?
Ray,
You are confusing the present and the past. If my income increases for the first 20 years of my life, but plateaus during my last 10, the last 10 will still have the highest values, but my income will no longer be rising. This is what temperatures have done over the past 30 years. Will it resume its pre-21st century climb? Possibly. Will it revert to a mid-20th century drop? Possibly. Phil Jones has pointed out that the years from 1970-2000 look remarkably similar to the same period from 1910-1940. Profs. Latif and Easterbrook have posted their beliefs in why they do not expect to see a temperature rise over the next decade. You can close your eyes to the facts, if you so choose, but that will not make them go away!
Lastly Ray, I did not claim that skeptical science was being absurd. Only that they did not refute the arguments that Brian claimed they did. Show me where someone has actually refuted the 8 points in question.
Dan H.says
Ray,
What the consensus believes, and what you claim they believe are different. While the consensus believes that temperatures have risen, even though 10% do not according to your survey, there is no consensus has to the contributing factors. Significant research has been reported that solar, oceanic, urbanization, and CO2 have all contributed up to 50% of the observed warming. The survey to which you point as evidence says nothing about CO2 (those that are convinced the warming was primarily an urbanization or deforestation effect would also answer yes).
The CRU data shows a 14-year trend line with a slope of 0. That is going back to 1997, a full year before the 1998 super El Nino. One has to go back further than that to obtain a positive temperature slope. Phil Jones has tried to point this out, but no seems to be listening. The 10-year moving average is still below the peak recorded in 2002. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
Are you saying that the CRU data is “counterfactual, fallacious, false, faulty, etc…” Brian?
Ray,
You are confusing the present and the past. If my income increases for the first 20 years of my life, but plateaus during my last 10, the last 10 will still have the highest values, but my income will no longer be rising. This is what temperatures have done over the past 30 years. Will it resume its pre-21st century climb? Possibly. Will it revert to a mid-20th century drop? Possibly. Phil Jones has pointed out that the years from 1970-2000 look remarkably similar to the same period from 1910-1940. Profs. Latif and Easterbrook have posted their beliefs in why they do not expect to see a temperature rise over the next decade. You can close your eyes to the facts, if you so choose, but that will not make them go away!
Lastly Ray, I did not claim that skeptical science was being absurd. Only that they did not refute the arguments that Brian claimed they did. Show me where someone has actually refuted the 8 points in question.
Dan H.says
Not all ice volume measurements are showing the same trends. The PIPS data shows the opposite. http://www.climate-debate.com/forum/fast-recovery-of-thick-arctic-ice-d6-e19.php
With the large disparity in volume, I am sticking with area for the time being.
I agree that we do not know if the current trend is linear, and the sea ice may be decreasing at a faster or slower rate than the linear trend.
Didactylos, you are confirming my post. Each point adds to the trend, and changes the trend slightly. Three of the past four years are below the trend line, resulting in a steeper decline than previous (2009 falls on the line). Cherry picking 2007 to show that the decline in Arctic sea ice is acceleration is just as bad as those who cherry-picked 2009 to show that the sea ice is increasing. 2011 could be substantially below the trend. It could also be substantially above the trend.
Ironically, 2008, 2009, and 2010 were above the trend line for Arctic sea ice maximum. The decline in maximum sea ice extent is only half that measured for the minimum area. Are you willing to say that the decline in sea ice maximum is decelerating? That is the fallacy involved in choosing just a few data points.
Dan H.says
Bob,
First off, it is not my calculation, but by the University of Colorado (see my previous post). As I said several times previously, if the sea ice minimum were to decline faster than recently observed, then I would rethink my position and conclude that warming is occurring faster than expected. Similarly, if the decline slows significantly, I would conclude the opposite.
It one were to believe the trend put forth previously, then the possibility of sea ice reaching zero by 2020 is same as the sea ice doubling (statistically speaking).
Dan H.says
Not all ice volume measurements are showing the same trends. The PIPS data shows the opposite. http://www.climate-debate.com/forum/fast-recovery-of-thick-arctic-ice-d6-e19.php
With the large disparity in volume, I am sticking with area for the time being.
I agree that we do not know if the current trend is linear, and the sea ice may be decreasing at a faster or slower rate than the linear trend.
Didactylos, you are confirming my post. Each point adds to the trend, and changes the trend slightly. Three of the past four years are below the trend line, resulting in a steeper decline than previous (2009 falls on the line). Cherry picking 2007 to show that the decline in Arctic sea ice is acceleration is just as bad as those who cherry-picked 2009 to show that the sea ice is increasing. 2011 couldl be substantially below the trend. It could also be substantially above the trend.
Ironically, 2008, 2009, and 2010 were above the trend line for Arctic sea ice maximum. Are you willing to say that the decline in sea ice maximum is decelerating? That is the fallacy involved in choosing just a few data points.
Dan H.says
Flxible,
I am not sure to what you refer, nor am I trying to convince you that declining sea ice is irrelevant. I am showing you that the two different datasets (if you know of more than two, let me know) differ significantly.
Bob,
Now that I have answered your question, I have a hypothetical for you. If instead of declining to zero by 2020, the ice increased to pre-1980 levels (slightly higher probability of occurring since it would require less of a deviation from the trend line), how would it impact your view?
Fred Knellsays
Bloke: But that is because all “deniers” (a despicable term) are automatically expunged from this blog, like me. Name one who has not been (I am one of many).
Harold Pierce Jrsays
J. Bowers at 93
The buffer system of the ocean contains soluble bicarbonate and insoluble calcium and magnesium cabonates. The pH of the ocean can never ever fall below ca 8.
CO2 + H20 —> H2CO3 carbonic acid
H2CO3 —-> H + HCO3
H + HCO3 + CaCO3(solid) —> Ca2(HCO3)
If sodium bicarbonate is put into water at ca 20 deg C, the initial pH is about 8. The pH will slowly increase because bicarbonate ion is unstable:
2HCO3—>CO3 + H20 + CO2
CO3 + H2O—> HCO3 + OH
Since calcium and magnesium ion are constantly entering the oceans from river, they will form insoluble carbnates. There is little free carbonate ion in seawater.
These claims that ocean is being acidified are nonsense. Its just not possible.
BTW pH measurements are only accurate to +/- 0.1 unit.
Anbody reporting pH measurments to 0.01 does not what he is doing.
Another possible emission source of CO2 is seawater heated in heat exchangers of big ships. The marine diesel engine in the Emma Mersek is ca 150 ft log and about 2 stories high, and it consummes ca 45,000 liters of fuel per hour. Enormous amounts of sea water are used for cooling the engine. The CO2 in the hot discharge water from the heat exchanger would escape from directly into the air.
Since there are great many huge ships on the ocean, how much CO2 in the air is due to them? it’s not zero.
J. Bobsays
#46, Ray
You noted that these ~60 year cycles “don’t stand up to statistical scrutiny”, then what are the following graphs?
These graphs are normalized (1960-1990) averages, of the longest temperature records we have. Most were from http://www.rimfrost.no/
from stations in western & central Europe.
Ave1 is the Cent. England data with a 25 year Fourier filter.
Ave4 are from station records starting prior to 1750 & include Ave1 plus Debilt, Uppsala and Berlin, using the same 25 year filter.
Ave14 includes Ave4, plus station records starting prior to 1800. Again using the 25 year.
In addition, you can compare the Ave results with the HadCRUT3 northern hemisphere data set.
These show the data sets with three different filters, 50, 25 & 20 year filters. It would seem there are was a whole lot of oscillations going on, in central & western Europe.
How does this artical support the claim that has been widely comunicated about “settled science” in these matters? It seems in opposition.
Jack Maloneysays
“22.Jack Maloney: You don’t seem to have bothered to find out what scientists have to say on the subject. Isn’t that a serious omission on your part? And what exactly is “scientific fact”? Comment by Didactylos
Didactylos – you don’t know what I have bothered to find out what scientists have to say, and you haven’t any basis for that statement. It’s interesting that you and others here have gone the ad hominem route simply because I call for transparency and honesty about uncertainties in climate science. Do you really object to transparency and honesty?
“Scientific fact” is an objective and verifiable observation, in contrast with a hypothesis or theory. Computer models, predictions, scenarios and hypotheses are not scientific facts. Unfortunately, the RC post that heads this thread doesn’t make that distinction clearly.
Hiram Hornblowesays
What would you regulars this website do if you didn’t have folks like Septic Matthew to hang the pinata up for you? As an outsider reading the comments here, it really feels like a kid’s birthday party where all the kids are taking turns taking a wack at the Septic Matt Pinata, as if it represents some great evil here.
One thing you can be sure of however. Your arguments aren’t very convincing to a layperson like me when it comes enlightening me about the huge threat that AGW supposedly is to the planet. However your arguments do seem to support the notion that your real mission is to protect the government gravy train that funds your “research”
Ok, this will probably be attacked by the RC anti-troll squad but that is the chance one takes to tell it like it is.
Isotopioussays
Ray,
My concern is climate models being treated as the last word on the subject, the quintessential element. I disagree with the notion that the current models are our “best guess”. They are Gavin and co’s best guess, not mine.
As I noted above, weather models are great for 3 days. Comparably climate models should be able to do 3 years, but alas, they can’t even do 1 year.
The reason they can’t do 1 year is ENSO, add to the problem El Nino warms the climate, an above average number of El Niño’s during the last several decades, is it any wonder that climate models fail to address an alternative cause for global warming?
The concern trolls are indeed flourishing in such an ideal environment!
Dan H.says
SM,
The other reason that it will not play well in Peoria, etc. is that farmers know that warmer temperatures and wetter climates yield more bountiful harvests. They may not know that an increase in atmospheric CO2 will also aid in crop production. The growing season has increased in Middle America mainly due to an increased frost-free season. Most studies point to an increase of about two weeks over the past century. The decrease in drought years has also been a blessing to the farmers. Nobody follows weather better than the farmers (except local meteorologists), because their livelihood depends upon it. I admit that it is difficult to separate weather effects from technological advances in farming. But the bottom line is that there have no negative effects of the recent warming being felt by the Midwestern farmers.
Jack Maloneysays
22.And what exactly is “scientific fact”? Didactylos — 30 Mar 2011 @ 3:14 PM
23 What do you understand by the term ‘scientific fact?’ Kevin McKinney – 30 Mar 2011 @ 3:58 PM
A scientific fact is an objective and verifiable observation, in contrast with a hypothesis or theory. Climate change is a fact. Global warming – on a millennial scale – is a fact. Global warming forced primarily by anthropogenic CO2 is a hypothesis.
Lack of transparency in climate science has been cited by independent inquiries. Phil Willis, chair of Parliament’s Science and Technology Select Committee, stated: “What this inquiry revealed was that climate scientists need to take steps to make available all the data that support their work and full methodological workings, including their computer codes. Had both been available, many of the problems at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit could have been avoided.”
Tom Scharfsays
@38
“Weather again. Tom Scharf, the very foundations of your beliefs are nothing but misconceptions.”
I understand that regional forecasts may supply drought and extreme precipitation predictions. That would be useful.
I’m simply saying that providing testable results that are confirmed will lead to people considering the models useful.
“Remind us again what you think is reasonable”
Null models are a subject with no perfect answer. Here are a few examples which use no physics modeling, outperform these and you are going down the road to proving the physics modeling is useful.
1. Temperature will continue to rise at a constant 0.1C / decade.
2. The temperature will change at the same rate as the average of the last 11 years.
The point is consistently performing better on future predictions than most non-physics based models, Predict things they would be unable to predict. Quantify performance. There are other parameters which may be useful, precipitation, hurricane season, etc.
As of now, continued increases in CO2 should cause temperature increases to accelerate, and that is not happening. I think this is important. Time will tell.
Dan H.says
Some of you people have no clue. I do not know who is more out of touch, Susan or Ray. IF the rain was all coming in two weeks, then yes. So far, that has not been the case. That is just not reality. Yes Susan an April snowstorm. That is surely a sign that global warming will lead to colder temperatures and more snow. Get real.
Bert Schmertsays
Curiously as soon as Bush was out the way, Science in the US of A seemed to behave like they’d been liberated from an oppresive tyranny !
Bert Schmertsays
I’m wondering if the short fall of actually getting prediction right rather arguing semanitcs of Ego and who get’s the finance lies in the question of : please can we have some classified data from your military satelites so we’ve got some idea of what the key driving mechanism of the Chaos of global weather, the oceanic escalators are actually doing ? then Climate Change ? can be factored in to the equation !
Geez Louize, even the IPCC routinely uses confidence levels in the 90% range as justification for something being very likely. If we’re going to tighten up statistics let’s do it across the board. The minimum level for publication should be at least 95%, preferably 99%. Actually the engineering standard of a safety factor of 3x to 5x would be even better. Then we wouldn’t have this quibbling about whether 90% significance is very likely or not. 99.99% should keep everyone honest and the results trustworthy.
J. Bobsays
Well Ray Ladbury, I see you made a interesting comment about “statistical scrutiny” and ref. tamino’s post on 8000-years-of-AMO. Did you note that he was using spectal & wavlet analysis?
Hate to tell you, but those methods, tamino was using, involve mathematical domain mappings into the frequency domain. You know, the ones that you called “curve fitting”. The connection between statistics and the spectral methods that tamino uses, are under an umbrella called mathematics.
an click on the global temp tab. There is a comparison graph (1979-2011), showing the 5 major global temperatures (UAH, RSS, GISS, NCDC & HadCRUT3) sets.
The Mar. data should be interesting.
Kevin Csays
Bob #104:
Thanks for that. You’ve convinced me.
(Actually had I thought instead of posting I guess I could have taken the difference between GISTEMP and HADCRUT and calculated a correlation coefficient with sunspot number.)
Septic Matthewsays
184, Vendicar Decarian: Bankrupting the U.S. government as a means to end social programs in the U.S. has long been a goal of many Libertarians and Republicans.
Bankrupting the U.S. government has been bipartisan policy for the last 10 years or so. The Democratic effort of the last 2 years exceeds the Republican effort of the previous 8 years.
#183 Ray,
no one said the Fourier is a cure all, but it’s a very powerful mathematical tool, so why not make use of it?
In my above post, I used three different methods at looking at the signal, and as a cross check. These were a moving average, a recursive method with a “filtfilt” Chebuchev filter, and a Fourier filter. I chose the Fourier, since it produced superior results at the end points. In addition, I showed the deviation of the filtered from the actual, to produce a figures of merit. The graph is posted below
http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/filter_er_10yr-g6l8y.jpg
That provided the mean & std. dev., for a measure of filter performance. Hence one can now evaluate just how good filters are, and provide information to use with Wiener and/or Kalman predictive filters.
Another point is when you define ”white” noise, as flat over the freq. spectrum, don’t you use spectral analysis to confirm you really have what you think? Ditto for “pink, “red” or whatever the latest color is.
It might be a good idea to look at these methods, as they use a great deal of statistics & probability, and have a long history of practical applications. Wiener’s work was put to use in WWII, for close support AA. There it involved predicting future projectile position, of prime importance in staying alive. You may have seen movies of the single manned cannon, operating on the carrier flight deck edge. One of the more interesting Wiener descendants was the Black-Scholes equation, used in financial futures pricing.
If you don’t believe me, do a “wiener optimal filter prediction” search. And if you can do me better, just do it.
The following book may help you see the light, “Handbook of Astronomical Image Processing”, Berry & Burnell
starting at p.453, covering Fourier & wavelet methods, as to how astronomical images are enhanced for increased feature extraction.
P.S. Speaking of PHYSICS, I was awarded the Physics Achievement Award in my undergraduate life.
Didactylos,
I think the sceptic and denier terms have been misused frequently. While “deniers” can be said to mistrust science, believe global warming is a ____ (insert your favorite word here), or are just gullible people who believe whatever they want. True sceptics have taken the time to weigh the science, and conclude that we do not have enough data to draw confident climate conclusions. Most of the people that I have found who are truly “sceptics” believe that CO2 is causing warming, just not to the degree some claim.
Most sceptics appear sceptical for two reasons: 1. There is a natural component in addition to the human component, which has been neglected or downplayed by many, and 2. Many of the forecasted effects of global warming have been exaggerated.
The first reason is largely scientific, and can be resolved with continued research. This is usually the main reason for sceptism as these forces could be quite large and play a much greater role than many people realize. On the other hand, they may be cancelling each other with no net effect. The second part is much more a PR problem, with too many people making outrageous claims blamed on global warming. Many people believe these claims. Are they as gullible as the others?
The latest climate science dropout is Al Gore. Dutch scientists just proved he was all wrong on Kilimanjaro. It’s a shame. The pictures were so pretty.
74: Then please explain to me how in the past atmospheric levels of CO2 have been as high as 3000 ppm with global temperatures the same as they are today. If the Earth were producing the amount of IR radiation you allude to (a Pacific Ocean full of water), the planet would have fried long ago.
“Vendicar Decarian…Hmm, I see over 14 million visitors to Realclimate.org. Skepticalscience.com is available in 20 languages. You have a rather odd concept of “nobody”.” – 71
I am probably 1,000 of those visitors, while you are probably 2,000 of them, if not more, other regulars will have similar visitation counts.
With that in mind, a 14 million total evaporates in size pretty rapidly doesn’t it?
Google hits “Watts up with that” 7,300,000
“Realclimate” – 672,000
I find all this rather entertaining. People are trying to compare apples to oranges in refuting each other. Start with James Barrante’s statement, “Most climatologists agree that doubling CO2 from 380 to 760 ppm would not even raise global temperature by a degree.” This is close to true, but I would say “not more than a degree” would be more accurate. This is comparing the direct effect of doubling CO2 vs. the added effects of other feedbacks. Apples vs. oranges. To state the feedbacks are “well-known” is a bit of a stretch.
Next, the statement “the fact that global temperature has not increased since 1998…” is, once again, essentially true. However, this uses individual measurements whereby 1998 was the highest temperature anomaly according to the CRU data (July, 1998 to be specific). Better, would be to use 10-year averaging which shows the highest average temperature anomaly occurred in July, 2002, and has not increased since (the small decrease since is not statistically significant, which is basically what Phil Jones has said).
I admit that I have not read his book entirely, and therefore, cannot comment on the book in its entirety. I found nothing particularly alarming in that section, and he does make some valid points. Some seem to be criticizing this book as if it were a scientific paper, targeted towards a technical meeting, rather than the general purpose audience for which he intended.
Lastly, I think Dr. Barrante has been quite cordial with those who have insulted him. Usually attacking the messenger is the last resort of someone who cannot refute his argument.
#55 Ray,
I wouldn’t talk to loudly. You never did disprove me in Unforced variations, or from the bore hole. Nor did you even demonstrate a better method of predicting future states.
I find all this rather entertaining. People are trying to compare apples to oranges in refuting each other.
I admit that I have not read his book, and therefore, cannot comment on the book in its entirety. I found nothing particularly alarming in that section posted. He does make some valid points, not that I agree with them. Some seem to be criticizing this book as if it were a scientific paper, targeted towards a technical meeting, rather than the general purpose audience for which he intended.
I think Dr. Barrante has been quite cordial with those who have insulted him. Usually attacking the messenger is the last resort of someone who cannot refute his argument.
Lastly, there appear to be those who think this site should be reserved for those who think like they do, and that any opposing arguments should be deleted. That sounds a lot like what Dr. Barante was saying in his book, and is not how science should be conducted.
Brian,
If you are going to refute Barrante’s statements, you need to argue the same points.
1. During the last 400,000 years, the Earth has experienced 4 ice ages and 4 interglacials. One could argue that there were 4 changes out of the predominantly glaciations, or 4 back and forth changes, for a total of 8. Just semantics here.
2. I agree with you on number short term changes.
3. You are comparing apples and oranges. While Langway, et. al. present annual values, much of the Vostok ice cores yielded temperature data every 200 years. Since Barrante is not specific in his data set, this cannot be ruled out.
4. I give this point to Barrante. The absolute temperature value was higher in 1998 in the data you presented from Spencer. I believe Barrante was referring to the CRU data set, which also shows a higher absolute value in 1998. I would counter that a 10-yr running average would be a better measure than a single year. Using the same CRU data, Barrante should change his statement to 2002, since the highest value in the 10-yr average occurred in July, 2002, and has been relatively flat since (Phil Jones referred to this in his interview, whcih was largely misquoted). Claiming that his statement is a lie, is a lie in itself.
5. Whether changes today are different from 400,000 years ago is still to be determined. Yes, atmospheric CO2 is higher than previously, but temperatures are not. Half and half on this point.
Attacking someone personally is the last resort of someone who cannot refute the data.
wow. I am literally disgusted at how you people are treating Dr Barrante. This is a disgusting, sad spectacle. You people know you are losing badly and your desperation is showing. You are a nasty bunch of people.
I do not think that it is the work of Tyndall that is being questioned here, but rather the extensions of his work. Tyndall made no quantification of the effect of CO2, or any other hydrocarbon gas, on temperature or climate. Much has been written recently about the quantification of CO2-dependent temperature effects, with a wide range of results. Deriding someone for claiming that the effect is less than someone else claims is hardly fit conversation for a scientist. It appears that there are some people here who do not wish to listen to anyone who has an opposing view. Be careful. Science may just advance right past you.
Response to #10;
It’s a broad political debate for many years now. During periods of high interest millions line up on either side with a varied degree of technical knowledge. The ad hominem I was focused on, which is typical perhaps of all side but especially to the would-be keepers of the IPCC consensus “flame” is that they are by virtue of their favored conclusion more “informed and intelligent”. Hense we get articles labeling gop dissent as “ignorant”. This sort of pattern follows many left vs. right debates, liberals assume they are smarter. They endlessly dwell on how they are better informed and educated etc. They love to comment how their leaders are “smarter” and they are “progressive”. Statistically it’s nonsense when we are discussing vast populations. While one side can site university professors go take a straw poll and prisons, welfare office in cities or low skill manual labor pools and see where the base of the left is. Again, there are plenty of ignorant people on all sides but by going about this low rhetorical (and yes, ad hominem) tactic has only weakened your argument.
Invective labeling helps the skeptics (Ignorant). It’s a standard playing card and symbol of liberal arrogance.
There are thousands of expert of voices for and against, the IPCC process looks agenda driven and corrupt. Millions of many different levels of technical skills on both sides are involved and neither is going out quitely. Calling people or parties “ignorant” helps agw dissent in the longer-term.
Bob,
I disagree that the ice is breaking up early. This year does not look all that different from others, 2005 showed a much earlier break up, and 2010 was much later. My La Nina point, combined with a largely negative NAO, indicates that colder waters are being measured in the northern oceans. 2007 reached its record low in the presence of a large amount of Atlantic water entering the Arctic. I do not see that happening this year, but se ice extent is relatively unpredictable on a yearly basis.
I am not sure what your last two paragraphs are all about, nor what you would expect me to say if the sea ice does reach a new minimum.
Ad hominem attacks are usually reserved for those who are unable to refute the testimpony of their opponent. Are you saying that you cannot refute their testimony?
“..Everyone, including you and I, is ignorant about many things – I (like you I hope) aim to reduce that ignorance bit by bit. It would be nice if more people aimed to as well. – gavin]”
By making over confident statements regarding uncertainties, it’s quite clear the IPCC have no interest in reducing uncertainites which go against the IPCC point of view. It’s what I call reducing uncertainties in one direction.
In the Bore Hole
You can slag the double C
In the Bore Hole
You can cherry pick with ease
In the Bore Hole
It seems the fit has hit the shan
In the Bore Hole
Empirical evidence we demand!
162. You make my point. The CO2 does collide with neighboring molecules before it irradiates the energy as light. You can’t have it both ways. You say it irradiates the light energy back toward Earth (and by the way it’s light not heat), but the probably of that happening is extremely small because the numbers you cite suggest it will transfer that light energy as heat to neighboring molecules before it irradiates. So which way is it?
As far as studying CO2 is concerned, I said I never did heat capacity ratio experiments on CO2. Heat capacity ratio experiments on N2 clearly show that thermal energy goes only into translational and rotational motion. Also, you keep implying that I don’t think the greenhouse gas effect is real. I never said that. If you bothered to read my book, you would see that I am saying that there is already enough CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb all the IR radiation that it can absorb, i.e., increasing the level of CO2 will have little effect.
And you keep mentioning consensus. What consensus? There are thousands of scientists who do not believe that AGW is responsible for climate change. Moreover, I don’t consider these 1 or 2 degree wiggles in global temperature that we presently are experiencing as climate change. My definition requires at least a 8 to 10 degree change and I believe that’s coming – back to ice age.
Finally, I had never heard the definition of “troll” used the way you use it. I simply asked a simple question about saturation (I should have known better) and got jumped on, which is typical of your website. Of course, now you are bringing my family into it. My daughters are writers and made suggestions about writing style. David Whalen is an astrophysicist friend of mine. Gregory Kowalczyk is a Professor of Environmental and Analytical Chemistry. My book is short because it is essentially non-technical written for the layperson. I wrote it because I was constantly being asked for help by parents of children who were forced in school to watch “An Inconvenient Truth.” I’m glad John Mashey’s wife laughed a lot. The book was intended to be light-hearted. The 40 watt comment about computers was a joke.
Charles,
I think the chalk and vinegar was nothing more than an ill-advised stunt. Do you really believe the coral reefs are dissolving in a sea of acid?
54, Charles: My good friend the coral reef expert who has now become an environmental educator because he is so worried about what is happening to the oceans thought it was a great demonstration which very effectively illustrated what was happening to coral reefs.
Well, the ocean is nowhere as acidic as vinegar and coral is not made from chalk. At least in some research (more details perhaps in a thread devoted to the topic, but there are at least 2 web pages devoted to this), coral grows better with increased CO2 in the relevant concentrations.
BD at 60
Also check out:
Climate Change and Long-Term Fluctuations of Commercial Catches by L.B. Klyashtorin
FOA Fisheries Technical Paper. No. 410. Rome, FAO 2001 86pp.
Available at:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/y2787e00.pdf
I conclude from Russians’ and other studies that there are climate cycles–a whole lot of them and details of these have yet to be worked out. We know there are cycles with really long periods suchas the MWP and the LIA. And there are probably some we don’t even yet know about.
Here is another paper on climate cycles:
“An oscillation in the global climate system of period
65-70 years.” by M.E Schlesinger & N. Ramankutty, Nature, Vol 367 773-726 (1994).
I got this ref from a site that is monster bibliography of papers on global warming and climate science. Unfortunately, I forgot BM it. Anybody know it?
The big question is: How much of the recent warming is due climate cylces and GHG’s? Based upon my analyses of the temp data from the weather station at Quatsino BC, I have concluded that contribution of GHG’s is zip.
RE: JC Blog
When the number of comments on topic >1OO, I stop reading it.
ATTN: BD
RE: Be Careful What You Wish For
RE: BC Carbon Taxes on Fossil Fuels
Below are current carbon taxes on fossils fuels in BC
based upon a tax of $20 per tonne of CO2 equivalent as of July 1, 2010:
Gasoline 4.45 ¢/litre
Diesel 5.11 ¢/litre
Jet Fuel 5.22 ¢/litre
Propane 3.08 ¢/litre
Natural Gas 3.80 ¢/cubic metre
Coal, high heat value 41.54 $/tonne
Coal,low heat value 35.54 $/tonne
Note the apparent low tax rate on nat gas. The actual tax is $0.9932 per gigajoule of BC nat gas which costs $4.568 per gigajoule. That is tax rate of 21.7%
On July 1, 2012 the the carbon tax will increase to $30 per tonne of CO2 equivalent, i.e., the above taxes will increase by 50%.
There are no free passes on fossil fuel carbon taxes although low income wager earners receive a carbon tax rebate. For industry and commerce there are complex rules and regulations for computing and paying carbon taxes. There is no rebate for folks living in the cold regions of the province.
Let us suppose the Russians are right and the climate cools down for the next 20 years. Do you think the BC gov is going to refund the tax?
Rob,
I am a little confused by your last post. I believe that there is a downward trend in Arctic sea ice because the data since 1979 points towards one. We do not have solid data prior to that time, so I cannot say that this trend is representative or unusual. If you feel that there is not a downward trend in Arctic sea ice, I would be glad to listen to your reasoning.
I am disputing both the timing of breaking the record and achieveing an ice free Arctic. Extrapolating out, the trend line will not break the 2007 low for over a decade, and since very few previous years were more than 10% below the trend line, I believe that the 2007 low will not be broken in the next few years. If the current trend were to continue, the Arctic would be ice free in the summer in about 75 years.
Gambling has nothing to do with t=when this will occur.
Ray,
I am surprised that you can so readily accept those. I will give you #4, as temperatures have not cooled, but not #8, since temperatures have not risen either.
Of the rest, #1 is valid for longer term, do not cherry-pick your data. I agree #2 is irrelevent, and should not be used to (dis)prove current climate conditions. #3 is laughable as should never be used again by any reputable scientist. #5, models are still unreliable, regardles of what gavin says. For #6, the thermometer records are valid, but my impression that the referenced temperature record referred to long-term proxies. #7 is the most valid, as life has generally prospered in warmer, wetter climates. Future predictions seem to ignore this. #9 is true, but irrelevent. #10 is valid for measurements beyond a few years. Only the short-term GRACE measurements indicate otherwise.
If these are the bases of your information, I suggest you delve deeper into the science. Sorry, but I do not find skepticalscience to be a good source. But then again, I am looking for scientific arguments, not politcal or socila ones.
As a former believer, but a person based in reality rather than the lunacy that this belief has become, I tell you all. Leave the room.
Ray,
What the consensus believes, and what you claim they believe are different. While the consensus believes that temperatures have risen, even though 10% do not according to your survey, there is no consensus has to the contributing factors. Significant research has been reported that solar, oceanic, urbanization, and CO2 have all contributed up to 50% of the observed warming. The survey to which you point as evidence says nothing about CO2 (those that are convinced the warming was primarily an urbanization or deforestation effect would also answer yes).
The CRU data shows a 14-year trend line with a slope of 0. That is going back to 1997, a full year before the 1998 super El Nino. One has to go back further than that to obtain a positive temperature slope. Phil Jones has tried to point this out, but no seems to be listening. The 10-year moving average is still below the peak recorded in 2002.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
Are you saying that the CRU data is “counterfactual, fallacious, false, faulty, etc…” Brian?
Ray,
You are confusing the present and the past. If my income increases for the first 20 years of my life, but plateaus during my last 10, the last 10 will still have the highest values, but my income will no longer be rising. This is what temperatures have done over the past 30 years. Will it resume its pre-21st century climb? Possibly. Will it revert to a mid-20th century drop? Possibly. Phil Jones has pointed out that the years from 1970-2000 look remarkably similar to the same period from 1910-1940. Profs. Latif and Easterbrook have posted their beliefs in why they do not expect to see a temperature rise over the next decade. You can close your eyes to the facts, if you so choose, but that will not make them go away!
Lastly Ray, I did not claim that skeptical science was being absurd. Only that they did not refute the arguments that Brian claimed they did. Show me where someone has actually refuted the 8 points in question.
Ray,
What the consensus believes, and what you claim they believe are different. While the consensus believes that temperatures have risen, even though 10% do not according to your survey, there is no consensus has to the contributing factors. Significant research has been reported that solar, oceanic, urbanization, and CO2 have all contributed up to 50% of the observed warming. The survey to which you point as evidence says nothing about CO2 (those that are convinced the warming was primarily an urbanization or deforestation effect would also answer yes).
The CRU data shows a 14-year trend line with a slope of 0. That is going back to 1997, a full year before the 1998 super El Nino. One has to go back further than that to obtain a positive temperature slope. Phil Jones has tried to point this out, but no seems to be listening. The 10-year moving average is still below the peak recorded in 2002.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
Are you saying that the CRU data is “counterfactual, fallacious, false, faulty, etc…” Brian?
Ray,
You are confusing the present and the past. If my income increases for the first 20 years of my life, but plateaus during my last 10, the last 10 will still have the highest values, but my income will no longer be rising. This is what temperatures have done over the past 30 years. Will it resume its pre-21st century climb? Possibly. Will it revert to a mid-20th century drop? Possibly. Phil Jones has pointed out that the years from 1970-2000 look remarkably similar to the same period from 1910-1940. Profs. Latif and Easterbrook have posted their beliefs in why they do not expect to see a temperature rise over the next decade. You can close your eyes to the facts, if you so choose, but that will not make them go away!
Lastly Ray, I did not claim that skeptical science was being absurd. Only that they did not refute the arguments that Brian claimed they did. Show me where someone has actually refuted the 8 points in question.
Not all ice volume measurements are showing the same trends. The PIPS data shows the opposite.
http://www.climate-debate.com/forum/fast-recovery-of-thick-arctic-ice-d6-e19.php
With the large disparity in volume, I am sticking with area for the time being.
I agree that we do not know if the current trend is linear, and the sea ice may be decreasing at a faster or slower rate than the linear trend.
Didactylos, you are confirming my post. Each point adds to the trend, and changes the trend slightly. Three of the past four years are below the trend line, resulting in a steeper decline than previous (2009 falls on the line). Cherry picking 2007 to show that the decline in Arctic sea ice is acceleration is just as bad as those who cherry-picked 2009 to show that the sea ice is increasing. 2011 could be substantially below the trend. It could also be substantially above the trend.
Ironically, 2008, 2009, and 2010 were above the trend line for Arctic sea ice maximum. The decline in maximum sea ice extent is only half that measured for the minimum area. Are you willing to say that the decline in sea ice maximum is decelerating? That is the fallacy involved in choosing just a few data points.
Bob,
First off, it is not my calculation, but by the University of Colorado (see my previous post). As I said several times previously, if the sea ice minimum were to decline faster than recently observed, then I would rethink my position and conclude that warming is occurring faster than expected. Similarly, if the decline slows significantly, I would conclude the opposite.
It one were to believe the trend put forth previously, then the possibility of sea ice reaching zero by 2020 is same as the sea ice doubling (statistically speaking).
Not all ice volume measurements are showing the same trends. The PIPS data shows the opposite.
http://www.climate-debate.com/forum/fast-recovery-of-thick-arctic-ice-d6-e19.php
With the large disparity in volume, I am sticking with area for the time being.
I agree that we do not know if the current trend is linear, and the sea ice may be decreasing at a faster or slower rate than the linear trend.
Didactylos, you are confirming my post. Each point adds to the trend, and changes the trend slightly. Three of the past four years are below the trend line, resulting in a steeper decline than previous (2009 falls on the line). Cherry picking 2007 to show that the decline in Arctic sea ice is acceleration is just as bad as those who cherry-picked 2009 to show that the sea ice is increasing. 2011 couldl be substantially below the trend. It could also be substantially above the trend.
Ironically, 2008, 2009, and 2010 were above the trend line for Arctic sea ice maximum. Are you willing to say that the decline in sea ice maximum is decelerating? That is the fallacy involved in choosing just a few data points.
Flxible,
I am not sure to what you refer, nor am I trying to convince you that declining sea ice is irrelevant. I am showing you that the two different datasets (if you know of more than two, let me know) differ significantly.
Bob,
Now that I have answered your question, I have a hypothetical for you. If instead of declining to zero by 2020, the ice increased to pre-1980 levels (slightly higher probability of occurring since it would require less of a deviation from the trend line), how would it impact your view?
Bloke: But that is because all “deniers” (a despicable term) are automatically expunged from this blog, like me. Name one who has not been (I am one of many).
J. Bowers at 93
The buffer system of the ocean contains soluble bicarbonate and insoluble calcium and magnesium cabonates. The pH of the ocean can never ever fall below ca 8.
CO2 + H20 —> H2CO3 carbonic acid
H2CO3 —-> H + HCO3
H + HCO3 + CaCO3(solid) —> Ca2(HCO3)
If sodium bicarbonate is put into water at ca 20 deg C, the initial pH is about 8. The pH will slowly increase because bicarbonate ion is unstable:
2HCO3—>CO3 + H20 + CO2
CO3 + H2O—> HCO3 + OH
Since calcium and magnesium ion are constantly entering the oceans from river, they will form insoluble carbnates. There is little free carbonate ion in seawater.
These claims that ocean is being acidified are nonsense. Its just not possible.
BTW pH measurements are only accurate to +/- 0.1 unit.
Anbody reporting pH measurments to 0.01 does not what he is doing.
Another possible emission source of CO2 is seawater heated in heat exchangers of big ships. The marine diesel engine in the Emma Mersek is ca 150 ft log and about 2 stories high, and it consummes ca 45,000 liters of fuel per hour. Enormous amounts of sea water are used for cooling the engine. The CO2 in the hot discharge water from the heat exchanger would escape from directly into the air.
Since there are great many huge ships on the ocean, how much CO2 in the air is due to them? it’s not zero.
#46, Ray
You noted that these ~60 year cycles “don’t stand up to statistical scrutiny”, then what are the following graphs?
These graphs are normalized (1960-1990) averages, of the longest temperature records we have. Most were from http://www.rimfrost.no/
from stations in western & central Europe.
Ave1 is the Cent. England data with a 25 year Fourier filter.
Ave4 are from station records starting prior to 1750 & include Ave1 plus Debilt, Uppsala and Berlin, using the same 25 year filter.
Ave14 includes Ave4, plus station records starting prior to 1800. Again using the 25 year.
http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/ave1_2010_ff_25yr-KepXe.jpg
http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/ave4_2010_ff_25yr-cWDPG.jpg
http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/ave14_2010_ff_25yr-6TPzH.jpg
In addition, you can compare the Ave results with the HadCRUT3 northern hemisphere data set.
These show the data sets with three different filters, 50, 25 & 20 year filters. It would seem there are was a whole lot of oscillations going on, in central & western Europe.
http://www.imagenerd.com/show.php?_img=had_nh_ave14_2010_ff-yWXM2.jpg
You might note the temperature drop in the early 1800’s, as more stations were added to the set. This lasted until about 1850.
Well, we know that the consensus of scientists is always right – like they were here in 2008.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/most-experts-foresee-a-repeat-at-least-of-2007-arctic-ice-loss/
How does this artical support the claim that has been widely comunicated about “settled science” in these matters? It seems in opposition.
“22.Jack Maloney: You don’t seem to have bothered to find out what scientists have to say on the subject. Isn’t that a serious omission on your part? And what exactly is “scientific fact”? Comment by Didactylos
Didactylos – you don’t know what I have bothered to find out what scientists have to say, and you haven’t any basis for that statement. It’s interesting that you and others here have gone the ad hominem route simply because I call for transparency and honesty about uncertainties in climate science. Do you really object to transparency and honesty?
“Scientific fact” is an objective and verifiable observation, in contrast with a hypothesis or theory. Computer models, predictions, scenarios and hypotheses are not scientific facts. Unfortunately, the RC post that heads this thread doesn’t make that distinction clearly.
What would you regulars this website do if you didn’t have folks like Septic Matthew to hang the pinata up for you? As an outsider reading the comments here, it really feels like a kid’s birthday party where all the kids are taking turns taking a wack at the Septic Matt Pinata, as if it represents some great evil here.
One thing you can be sure of however. Your arguments aren’t very convincing to a layperson like me when it comes enlightening me about the huge threat that AGW supposedly is to the planet. However your arguments do seem to support the notion that your real mission is to protect the government gravy train that funds your “research”
Ok, this will probably be attacked by the RC anti-troll squad but that is the chance one takes to tell it like it is.
Ray,
My concern is climate models being treated as the last word on the subject, the quintessential element. I disagree with the notion that the current models are our “best guess”. They are Gavin and co’s best guess, not mine.
As I noted above, weather models are great for 3 days. Comparably climate models should be able to do 3 years, but alas, they can’t even do 1 year.
The reason they can’t do 1 year is ENSO, add to the problem El Nino warms the climate, an above average number of El Niño’s during the last several decades, is it any wonder that climate models fail to address an alternative cause for global warming?
The concern trolls are indeed flourishing in such an ideal environment!
SM,
The other reason that it will not play well in Peoria, etc. is that farmers know that warmer temperatures and wetter climates yield more bountiful harvests. They may not know that an increase in atmospheric CO2 will also aid in crop production. The growing season has increased in Middle America mainly due to an increased frost-free season. Most studies point to an increase of about two weeks over the past century. The decrease in drought years has also been a blessing to the farmers. Nobody follows weather better than the farmers (except local meteorologists), because their livelihood depends upon it. I admit that it is difficult to separate weather effects from technological advances in farming. But the bottom line is that there have no negative effects of the recent warming being felt by the Midwestern farmers.
22.And what exactly is “scientific fact”? Didactylos — 30 Mar 2011 @ 3:14 PM
23 What do you understand by the term ‘scientific fact?’ Kevin McKinney – 30 Mar 2011 @ 3:58 PM
A scientific fact is an objective and verifiable observation, in contrast with a hypothesis or theory. Climate change is a fact. Global warming – on a millennial scale – is a fact. Global warming forced primarily by anthropogenic CO2 is a hypothesis.
Lack of transparency in climate science has been cited by independent inquiries. Phil Willis, chair of Parliament’s Science and Technology Select Committee, stated: “What this inquiry revealed was that climate scientists need to take steps to make available all the data that support their work and full methodological workings, including their computer codes. Had both been available, many of the problems at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit could have been avoided.”
@38
“Weather again. Tom Scharf, the very foundations of your beliefs are nothing but misconceptions.”
I understand that regional forecasts may supply drought and extreme precipitation predictions. That would be useful.
I’m simply saying that providing testable results that are confirmed will lead to people considering the models useful.
“Remind us again what you think is reasonable”
Null models are a subject with no perfect answer. Here are a few examples which use no physics modeling, outperform these and you are going down the road to proving the physics modeling is useful.
1. Temperature will continue to rise at a constant 0.1C / decade.
2. The temperature will change at the same rate as the average of the last 11 years.
The point is consistently performing better on future predictions than most non-physics based models, Predict things they would be unable to predict. Quantify performance. There are other parameters which may be useful, precipitation, hurricane season, etc.
As of now, continued increases in CO2 should cause temperature increases to accelerate, and that is not happening. I think this is important. Time will tell.
Some of you people have no clue. I do not know who is more out of touch, Susan or Ray. IF the rain was all coming in two weeks, then yes. So far, that has not been the case. That is just not reality. Yes Susan an April snowstorm. That is surely a sign that global warming will lead to colder temperatures and more snow. Get real.
Curiously as soon as Bush was out the way, Science in the US of A seemed to behave like they’d been liberated from an oppresive tyranny !
I’m wondering if the short fall of actually getting prediction right rather arguing semanitcs of Ego and who get’s the finance lies in the question of : please can we have some classified data from your military satelites so we’ve got some idea of what the key driving mechanism of the Chaos of global weather, the oceanic escalators are actually doing ? then Climate Change ? can be factored in to the equation !
#46
“Except they don’t stand up to statistical scrutiny:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/8000-years-of-amo/
Comment by Ray Ladbury — 26 Mar 2011 @ 9:54 AM”
Geez Louize, even the IPCC routinely uses confidence levels in the 90% range as justification for something being very likely. If we’re going to tighten up statistics let’s do it across the board. The minimum level for publication should be at least 95%, preferably 99%. Actually the engineering standard of a safety factor of 3x to 5x would be even better. Then we wouldn’t have this quibbling about whether 90% significance is very likely or not. 99.99% should keep everyone honest and the results trustworthy.
Well Ray Ladbury, I see you made a interesting comment about “statistical scrutiny” and ref. tamino’s post on 8000-years-of-AMO. Did you note that he was using spectal & wavlet analysis?
Hate to tell you, but those methods, tamino was using, involve mathematical domain mappings into the frequency domain. You know, the ones that you called “curve fitting”. The connection between statistics and the spectral methods that tamino uses, are under an umbrella called mathematics.
#104 Kevin C
go to
http://www.climate4you.com/
an click on the global temp tab. There is a comparison graph (1979-2011), showing the 5 major global temperatures (UAH, RSS, GISS, NCDC & HadCRUT3) sets.
The Mar. data should be interesting.
Bob #104:
Thanks for that. You’ve convinced me.
(Actually had I thought instead of posting I guess I could have taken the difference between GISTEMP and HADCRUT and calculated a correlation coefficient with sunspot number.)
184, Vendicar Decarian: Bankrupting the U.S. government as a means to end social programs in the U.S. has long been a goal of many Libertarians and Republicans.
Bankrupting the U.S. government has been bipartisan policy for the last 10 years or so. The Democratic effort of the last 2 years exceeds the Republican effort of the previous 8 years.