More Worst AGW Papers: A Note from Cohenite
Posted by Cohenite, April 25th, 2009 - under Opinion.
Tags: Climate & Climate Change
SINCE Copenhagen the intensity of doom and gloom [D&G] has been ratcheted up with such anthropogenic global warming luminaries as Will Steffan and David Karoly declaring their previous predictions not dire enough and so have been superseded by much worse predictions.
Jay Leno has a good response to this;
“According to a new U.N. report, the global warming outlook is much worse than originally predicted. Which is pretty bad when they originally predicted it would destroy the planet.”
The question is, is there any evidence to support the worsening D&G?
Professor Chris Field was recently reported on the ABC doing D&G about an increase in fossil fuel emissions, but this quickly died when the penny dropped that the main increase in emissions was coming from China and India, not to mention the fact that temperature was declining concurrently.
With increased emissions insufficient to sustain the D&G could the peer-reviewed literature provide justification? Peer-review is the life-blood of AGW and lo-and-behold it was apparent that the D&G was backed up by several new and recycled papers. 10 of these papers which offer ‘evidence’ for the D&G are discussed. All of them exhibit the usual defects of pro-AGW papers; reliance on modeling regardless of contradictory or non-existent ‘real-world’ data.
1. Warming of the Antarctic ice-sheet surface since the 1957 International Geophysical Year
Eric J. Steig et al [including Michael Mann].
http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/shared/articles/SteigetalNature09.pdf
This paper is an instant classic and template for future virtual science projects. Forget the prior AGW orthodoxy of a cooling Antarctic; forget the latest British Antarctic Survey report showing cooling due to ozone depletion [which is no longer declining]; forget cooling in the satellite data and the AWSs and manned stations; forget the geological distinction between the Western Antarctic Peninsula [WAP] and the rest of Antarctica; forget the volcanoes; forget the Thomas, Marshall, McConnell [2008] paper which shows snow cover in the WAP doubling since 1850; forget the expanding sea-ice and ice cover over 95% of Antarctica. The real problem with Steig et al is Mann and PCA [RegEM]; insufficient principle components and inappropriate weighting of those used. The same old methods, the same old tricks, the same old faux reality.
2. Water vapor climate feedback inferred from climate fluctuations, 2003 – 2008.
A.E. Dessler, Z. Zhang, P. Yang
http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/Dessler2008b.pdf
Dessler et al say specific humidity, “q” is increasing as a factor of increased temperature, “Ta”, and the increased “q”, is a “strongly positive” feedback. There are only 2 problems; NOAA and NCEP data show declining “q” at mid and high altitudes; secondly, increased “q” at the surface is most likely not even a feedback but a cause of temperature [Spencer and Braswell]. Then there is the problem of decreased pan evaporation [Roderick et al, 2007] which means the increased “q” must come from the oceans. Sea surface temperature has been neutral or declining for almost 2 years; http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/sst_oct_nov_dec.jpg
3. An analysis of the independence of clear-sky top-of-atmosphere outgoing longwave radiation on atmospheric temperature and water vapor.
A.E. Dessler, P. Yang, J. Lee, J. Solbrig, Z. Zhang, K. Minchswaner
http://gesa.tamu.edu/people/faculty/dessler/Dessler2008.pdf
Dessler has a second shot at D&G and he concludes that the surface temperature, Ts, atmospheric temperature, Ta, and “q” combine, primarily in the tropics, to decrease outgoing long-wave radiation [OLR]. Dessler calls this the “super greenhouse effect”. Unfortunately neither “q” or Ts or Ta are increasing. Also the decrease in OLR is problematic with Professor Lindzen noting there has been an increase in OLR;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/30/lindzen-on-negative-climate-feedback/
This elegant synopsis by Professor Lindzen was critiqued by Chris Colose. Too bad Chris didn’t read p33 of this;
Richard Lindzen, Beyond Models-using physics to assess climate sensitivity, attribution, and the relevance of both to alarm.
http://portaldata.colgate.edu/imagegallerywww/3503/ImageGallery/LindzenLectureBeyondModels.pdf
We will just have to wait for the ‘super-doper greenhouse effect’.
4. How declining aerosols and rising greenhouse gases forced rapid warming in Europe since the 1980s
Rolf Philipona, Klaus Behrens, Christian Ruckstuhl
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008GL036350.shtml
Prolific Professor Philipona is a leading exponent of back-radiation and consequent temperature and humidity effects. Here he argues the rapid increase in temperature since 1980 is due to aerosol dimming ceasing, with a consequent increase in short-wave forcing. Some problems; the study covers Switzerland and a bit of Northern Germany, an area about the size of Al Gore’s backyard. Aerosols are assumed to have only a cooling effect and humidity only a warming effect; the temperature trends from the 25 Switzerland and 8 German sites have anomaly ranges from 0.56C and 0.87C respectively yet there is no consideration of UHI influence; long-wave down radiation [LDR] is derived from absolute humidity, Uabs, yet short-wave net radiation cloud effects are equated with LDR cloud effects [Table 1]; how can the top and bottom of clouds be equivalent? Read Clausius and Heinz Thieme instead.
5. Consistency of modeled and observed temperature trends in the tropical troposphere.
Santer, B.D., et al [including G.A. Schmidt and S.C. {wind-shear} Sherwood]
http://www.realclimate.org/docs/santer_etal_IJoC_08_fact_sheet.pdf
This paper is one of the great obfuscations from a champion cherry-picker. Fig 9.1[c], AR4, p675, unambiguously predicts a tropical hot spot [THS] from increased ACO2 warming of the surface. Santer et al finds it using a “global” weighting function, T2lt, derived from a synthetic [sic] base, T2, with an error margin of 0.0 – 0.5CPD, which means no warming at all would still produce a THS. A crescendo of Santer support followed based on increased humidity [not happening], changes in the moist adiabat and a rising tropopause. The THS is not hotter, it’s taller. This height issue was rebutted by Spencer and Christy’s response to Fu et al. Finally, the non-existent THS was rationalized by Tim Lambert as a signature of surface warming from any source not just ACO2. The only problem with this is an equivalent solar forced THS requires a 2% increase in insolation. Now that’s hot [thanks Birdie].
6. Temperature trends derived from Stratospheric Sounding Unit radiances: The effect of increasing CO2 on the weighting function.
Keith P. Shine, John J. Barnett, William J. Randel
http://acd.ucar.edu/~randel/2007GL032218.pdf
The other side of the coin to a THS is a cooling Stratosphere. Keith Shine and the lads claim to have found it, again riding on the well-worn back of model corrections of incorrect data. After corrections to the CO2 weighting function Keith finds Stratospheric temperature trends ranging from – 0.4K decade-1 to + 0.4K decade-1. Yep, Keith found nothing.
7. Is the climate warming or cooling?
David R. Easterling, Michael F. Wehner
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/csi/images/GRL2009_ClimateWarming.pdf
The previous Keenlyside et al effort predicted masking of underlying AGW due to SST driven natural variation. Unfortunately, when the ENSO is removed from temperature trends there is no post 2000 underlying AGW;
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/10/temperature-trends-and-carbon-dioxide-a-note-from-cohenite/
Easterling and Wehner revisit this trainwreck of an idea to prove that future cooling will still have underlying AGW. Their null hypothesis [NH] really settles the matter. The NH is that there will be an “equal percentage of statistically significant positive and negative trends” [p6]. This is high order virtual reality; the concept of the 100 year flood explains why. Pacific Decadal Oscillation [PDO] climate phases have greater probability of floods during a negative phase during which time [about 30 years] there may be several 1 in 100 year floods. During the positive, El Nino dominated PDO phase there will most likely be no 1 in 100 year flood.
The same principle applies to temperature. Positive PDOs will have increasing temperature trends and vice-versa for negative PDOs. The paper doesn’t consider ENSO at all apart from an admission that it is not modeled well [p6]. Table 1 shows more positive temperature trends in the 20thC. This was due to positive PDO dominance not, as the paper claims, AGW. Still, it’s a great title.
8. Decadal-Scale Temperature Trends in the Southern Hemisphere Ocean.
Sarah T. Gille
http://www-pord.ucsd.edu/~sgille/pub_dir/i1520-0442-21-18-4749.pdf
The issue of ocean warming is crucial for AGW but problematic. Sarah puts her hand up for warming and produces this gem;
“Overall, the results indicate that the Southern Hemisphere ocean has warmed substantially since the 1930s. Some 80% of this warming is concentrated south of 30 degrees S where it is evident at all depths. Observations are also sparsest in this latitude range. Estimates of the exact amount of warming that has occurred therefore depend on the details of the assumptions made about temperature trends in regions where no observations are available” [p4761] Priceless.
9. Role of water vapor feedback on the amplitude of season cycle in the global mean surface air temperature.
Qigang Wu, David J. Karoly, Gerald R. North
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL033454.shtml
Speaking of Dr Karoly this little bit of virtual science; Dr K equates seasonal variation in Surface Air Temperature with water vapor feedback “since both are subject to the same feedback process” of downward long-wave radiation. The same problems with Dessler, Philipona and Santer apply. You would be excused in thinking they are reading from the same book.
10. Declining Coral Calcification on the Great Barrier Reef
Glenn De’ath, Janice M. Lough, Katharina E. Fabricius
Science. Volume 323, pp116 – 119; 2 January 2009
Coral is one of the ‘Koala Bear’ emotive images of AGW. This study found coral growth from Great Barrier Reef [GBR] samples increased 5.4% between 1900 -1970, but declined 14.2% from 1900 – 2005; the culprit, ACO2. Professor Hoegh-Guidberg started waving his hands and Premier Bligh promised action on the coral and got elected. More salient facts: Dr Alina Szmant noted that studies on coral decline used hydrochloric acid, not CO2, to lower the pH of water, so conclusions about the role of CO2 were premature; John McClean and Warwick Hughes noted there had been no temperature increase from 1982 to the present along the GBR; in fact, in June 2007 record low temperatures caused extensive bleaching of GBR coral; Professor H-G began hand-waving again and the culprit, again, ACO2. The good news is, according to Dr Guillermo Diaz-Pulido, the coral has recovered and expanded; the culprit… Perhaps Dr De’ath’s conclusions from his earlier study, that further data on the “links between environmental change and effects on coral growth” is needed, should have informed this study.
In Conclusion: There is no evidence in the PR literature that AGW is worsening, or exists for that matter.
“Jen’s Jackals”? And the reason why Plimer has published a book like “Heaven and Earth” is as he stated before apparatchik Jones, the book is a chance for the average person who has been disenfranchised in this ‘debate’ to get some plain-speaking information; we saw a recent example of this disenfranchisement from Robert Manne who endorsed Clive Hamilton’s view about everyone shutting up and doing as told by the scientists; that is the scientists he agrees with.
Cohenite,
A replacement for Pachauri, coming from any of the current aparatchiks would be unthinkable.
It would kiss good bye for ever the notion that there is now, and would ever likely to be in the future, any sort of objectivity coming out of the IPCC process.
No doubt the Australian Grant Grabbers Collective would push its favourite toady forward.
If any of you get the chance go over and have a bit of a look at Tim Curtain’s blog. Its really got a lot of marvelous stuff there. A Sterling effort. I was motivated to go there after I’d raided Harry Clarkes blog taking a swipe at Harry and some of the rogues gallery of stupid and malign contributers that were there. Tim gave me a bit of a swipe, so I was around to his blog on the instant to see if I could start bullying him without a moment to lose and I was stunned by what a smart guy this fellow is. Tim I should have heard of you. But somehow I never did. Great blog fella. The rest of you ought to take a look. Its quite rich reading. And you won’t necessarily be in the mood for it at all times.
Of course there is no question whose blog is the best one and that is Jennifers. It hasn’t always been the best Climate Science blog in the world and amongst the best libertarian blogs in Australia. But since 2008, with the good crew that have supported it, its been a sensation. I’d hung out at Roger Pielke Seniors site for a long time, and I saw that blog as a standard in true excellence. But from about 2008 onwards Jennifers site even overtook that because we had a diverse bunch of guys that kept on putting striking new perspectives on the table. I’m wondering if we have that sort of level of ensemble excellence right now. I guess people get busy with other things.
“4. Lumps Plimer,Carter, Monckton and Bellamy all together.” These are all good blokes though cohenite. Carter and Plimer is where the true excellence is. But they are fine gentlemen. Plimer is a fine scientist but he’s also a full-spectrum intellectual. A philosopher if you like. He’s been a bit harsh on some of these creationists in the past. But he’s one of the people I admire most in this country. And its just astonishing that this hateful goon-show could have sidelined someone so vastly superior to them in every way. I’m not given to bouts of great shyness these days but I could imagine getting nervous going to get Plimers autograph. It would be like getting Clint Eastwoods or George Reismans.
This is what happens when you go easy on the stupid, the less competent and the more intellectually dishonest. You are selling our best people short. Some of us have to be really nasty towards these people and more of us ought to be taking up that role. Putting on that mask, gearing up for that persona. Being nasty is a dirty job. Somebodies got to do it. And its important that some of us become lightning rods for this contempt and gestapo like hatred these people have developed for our honest and more committed scientists. Its better that the hostility of these goons is transmuted to someone like me whose job does not rely on what I say about climate science. We have to take the load of the true heroes here who have stayed committed to the scientific ethos while all others were lost in sin and immorality towards the the values that make science work and make it good.
Superb. I’ve just tracked down a playlist for Ian Plimers lecture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VDDNgl-UPk&feature=PlayList&p=0E25DB23184B21A2&index=0&playnext=1
Absolutely sensational. But the audience are bonehead-”skeptics” I think.
“the book is a chance for the average person who has been disenfranchised in this ‘debate’ to get some plain-speaking information;”
Another statement by Plimer that damns him as a denialist.
Shut idiot. Stop lying. Don’t you ever get lying all the time you loathsome stinking lump of dog vomit?
Bird or Louis? Hard to know who is the easiest person to ignore here.
Cohenite wrote:
2. Water vapor climate feedback inferred from climate fluctuations, 2003 – 2008.
A.E. Dessler, Z. Zhang, P. Yang
http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/Dessler2008b.pdf
Dessler et al say specific humidity, “q” is increasing as a factor of increased temperature, “Ta”, and the increased “q”, is a “strongly positive” feedback. There are only 2 problems; NOAA and NCEP data show declining “q” at mid and high altitudes; secondly, increased “q” at the surface is most likely not even a feedback but a cause of temperature [Spencer and Braswell]. Then there is the problem of decreased pan evaporation [Roderick et al, 2007] which means the increased “q” must come from the oceans. Sea surface temperature has been neutral or declining for almost 2 years; http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/sst_oct_nov_dec.jpg
I don’t have the time to research all 10 of the worst papers to see if the criticisms are correct. I can easily see that the above criticisms are incorrect.
The online NOAA data I am familiar with is from radiosonde balloons which have a lot of problems.
Also part of the feedback effect was measured when temperatures were declining in 2007, according to Dessler’s paper. The measurements showed how humidity tracked surface temperature, and the temperatures did not have to increase to measure the feedback.
It is pretty clear from this criticism, that you do not have the ability to read and understand the literature you are criticising. My experience is that this is a common failing of the denier bloggers.
It is all attitude and no real scientific content.
eric, you’re hopeless; here from ISCCP data on column atmospheric water levels, first graph from top;
http://www.climate4you.com/ClimateAndClouds.htm#Clouds%20and%20atmospheric%20water%20vapour
You are simply doing what all AGW supporters do and it is a one-trick show: you attack the data source or the person rather than the revealed evidence; when I presented the NCEP data to Nick he linked to an appraisal of this data, which unequivocally shows decling high water and increasing low water, which said this data was a bit patchy; really? That the computer modeling of Dessler should be preferred to patchy data and totally contradictory climate trends says all that needs to be said about AGW supporters; which is, the concept is ideological and at heart evidence is irrelevant; so eric, I may or may not be able to read data, but you won’t read it even if you could. Just for the record here is the relevant NOAA data as graphed by NOAA;
http://landshape.org/enm/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/optical-depth-trend-1.png
Why don’t you go to the site and generate your own graphs eric;
http:www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries1.pl [// excluded]
I have seen the graphs before. The source of the data is radiosonde balloons. THere is no other way that data before the satellite era at high altitudes could be obtained. It is well known that this data sucks. A lot of papers have been written to that effect. Here is one.
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0477(1991)072%3C1507:OTUORH%3E2.0.CO%3B2
This doesn’t stop deniers who are looking for any argument, no matter how incorrect, to throw at the idea of AGW.
You haven’t rebutted the illogic of your argument that a reduction in temperature made it impossible for positive feedback of water vapor to exist. It is clear that you don’t know the first thing about this subject, and are talking nonsense.
cohenite
The last post was meant for you. You will have to copy and past the url into the browser window for it to work.
Very good eric; a 1991 paper saying the pre-1973 radiosonde data is not homogenously accurate; here’s an interesting take on the 2009 Paltridge, Arking and Pook paper which takes amore sanguine view about the veracity of the water records, compared with the Dessler and Sherwood [Mr windshear himself] modeling paper which concludes on the basis of a modeled increase in water that a +ve feedback is occuring;
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=5416
And I agree, I have no idea what this means;
“You haven’t rebutted the illogic of your argument that a reduction in temperature made it impossible for positive feedback of water vapor to exist”
At least we are in agreement that there has been a decrease in temperature, but how that combines with a positive feedback from/of water vapor I honestly don’t know what you mean.
Cohenite,
If the feedback is positive, a decline in temperature, would mean a decline in water vapor content.
This would cause a reduction in downwelling radiation.
If the measurements show this is happening, a decline in temperature could be used to measure the positive feedback effect of water vapor.
eric, the key is, is water level a +ve feedback; that is, is simply more water a +ve feedback; I don’t think it is as clearcut; even the papers and modeling which question the NCEP data allow for different responses depending on the height/location of the water; everyone agrees that more high water is a +ve feedback; the issue is what is low/surface water; the Spencer and Braswell thesis is that it is a -ve feedback; that is, the increase in low water will suppress or moderate temperature; as an anchillary consideration of this is the issue of the form of water, whether vapor or cloud. The Kump and Pollard paper puts a good case for previous hot-house conditions being a response to decline in cloud cover due to a lack of consensation nuclei; it is a fact that a 1% variation in cloud cover has more forcing effect than all of the increase in CO2. One thing is for sure, more accurate records, not just modeling, of water levels is required before the crucial issue of water can be resolved.