Final preparations are under way for a key UN climate summit that will attempt to reach a deal on what should replace the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012.
Talks will centre on whether binding targets are needed to cut emissions.
BBC New website: ‘Nations gather for climate talks’
Eduardo Zorita sent Steve McIntyre an interesting paper from Kiehl, a prominent climate modeler, which analyzes the paradox of how GCMs with very different climate sensitivities nonetheless all more or less agree in their simulations of 20th century climate. Kiehl found that the high sensitivity models had low aerosol forcing history and vice versa. Kiehl observed:
These results explain to a large degree why models with such diverse climate sensitivities can all simulate the global anomaly in surface temperature. The magnitude of applied anthropogenic total forcing compensates for the model sensitivity.
Eduardo’s take was as follows:
surprisingly the attached paper, from a main stream climate scientist, seems to admit that the anthropogenic forcings in the 20th century used to drive the IPCC simulations were chosen to fit the observed temperature trend. It seems to me a quite important admission.
BALI, Indonesia: Coal-burning power plants belch pollutants into the air in China, contributing to global warming that experts say has destroyed billions of dollars in crops. In India, melting Himalayan glaciers cause floods, while raising a more daunting long-term prospect: the drying up of life-sustaining rivers.
The two economic giants are becoming increasingly aware of the effects of rising temperatures. But though they are among the biggest contributors to the problem, both say they will not sign any climate change treaty that would slow the pace of their development.
International Herald Tribune: Spotlight on China and India as delegates gather for U.N. global warming summit in Bali
MORE TROUBLE FOR CLIMATE ALARMISTS
Green scientists have been accused of overstating the dangers of climate change by researchers who found that the number of people killed each year by weather-related disasters is falling. Their report suggests that a central plank in the global warming argument – that it will result in a big increase in deaths from weather-related disasters – is undermined by the facts. It shows deaths in such disasters peaked in the 1920s and have been declining ever since. Average annual deaths from weather-related events in the period 1990-2006 – considered by scientists to be when global warming has been most intense – were down by 87% on the 1900-89 average. The mortality rate from catastrophes, measured in deaths per million people, dropped by 93%.
The Sunday Times: ‘Fall in weather deaths dents climate warnings’
Airlines stand to make billions of pounds in “windfall profits” from an emissions trading scheme that was supposed to make them pay for the environmental damage they cause, according to a government-commissioned report.
They will take advantage of the scheme to raise fares substantially, even though their costs will hardly change. The windfall will be highly embarrassing for the Government because it has heavily promoted the trading of aviation emissions to justify its plans to allow air travel to double by 2030.
Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, claimed last week that emissions trading would ensure that the proposed third runway at Heathrow would not add to overall climate-change gases. She said that the scheme would force the industry “to take its environmental responsibilities seriously”.
It will be the second time that an industry has made huge profits from emissions trading. There was widespread public outrage last year when it emerged that British power generators had made more than £1 billion from the scheme, under which industries have to obtain a permit for each tonne of carbon they emit. The theory is that they will become more efficient so that they need fewer permits.
The problem with the power generators arose because they were given billions of pounds of free permits at the start to cover their existing emissions. The same problem could occur with airlines, which are due to join the scheme in 2011, because the European Commission is proposing that they be given enough free permits to cover 96-97 per cent of their present emissions.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Talk about poisoning the well.
Paul – I was about to write this very thing however the link you referenced answered it for me.
“The number of deaths had fallen sharply because of better warning systems, improved flood defences and other measures. Poor countries remained most vulnerable.”
Perhaps a better measure is this:
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/40762/story.htm
“Natural and man-made catastrophes caused “comparatively light” damage of US$48 billion worldwide last year. Of that amount, insurers had to cough up US$15.9 billion, giving them a breather after record losses in 2005.
“Over the past decades, insured losses have shown a rising trend, due mainly to weather-related catastrophes … the effects of global warming are also likely to aggravate the loss situation,” Swiss Re said in a statement.
Three US hurricanes, Katrina, Rita and Wilma, alone caused insured losses of some US$65 billion in 2005, making it the costliest year for the insurance industry ever, with total losses at US$230 billion.
But last year showed the third-lowest losses in the last 20 years, with only 1988 and 1997 less expensive. Many disasters in 2006 were in developing countries, where there is less insurance cover and property is cheaper. ”
I guess that we can ignore the poor people as we normally do and breathe a sigh of relief that the damage bill was less this year.
From your other link:
“An editorial comment. The apparent conclusion that GCMs are tuned to 20th century history does not imply that doubled CO2 is not an issue; merely that the GCMs may do little more than embody certain key assumptions. GCMs are not “truth machines”. But articles like this definitely point the way towards a more detailed and more nuanced examination of 20th century aerosol forcing histories.”
McIntyre must be getting a conscience. GCMs are tools and the scientists using them are the most aware of it.
Interesting, “the anthropogenic forcings in the 20th century used to drive the IPCC simulations were chosen to fit the observed temperature trend”.
Note, the simulations were chosen to fit “the observed temperature trend”, not the real trend after adjusting for random anomalies like volcanic eruptions, as discussed on recent threads.
So contrary to Luke’s claims that the ‘experts’ have thought it all through, the GCMs are calibrated to an imaginary set of outcomes. And foremost among those imaginary outcomes that they desperately wanted to see was the exponentially rising temperature curve that indicated an accelerating warming with high elasticity to CO2.
So how many more years of temperature plateau will it take before these boofheads are dragged kicking to calibrate the GCMs to a closer approximation of reality?
What utter rot – you’re just an uncritical turd who’s pulled another opinion sans bottom because you “read it on a blog at denialist ground zero.” ROTFL. “I read it on the internet”. Read the paper have you.
As even the guys at CA said – better make sure of the implications here big time or you won’t live it down. Better make sure of your facts clown. Really you guys are intellectual harlots – you’ll go with anything.
Interesting to note that a week after the election, we find out that Australia will “overshoot” our Kyoto target by 1%. Waxy is still determined to ratify it, even though he campaigned on the basis that we would meet our Kyoto target.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2007/s2107498.htm
By the way Mr Rudd, you can stop banging on about “working families” now. The election is over, and we lost.
Well that’s what the previous guvmint was saying they had the carbon in the bag did they not? Now we find out differently. Of course if they did the land use and forestry properly they would.
But gee the Libs are now all for Kyoto too? BIPARTISAN support ! So what gives Paul?
But I don’t dig signing up for a penalty. Seems loopy. Are we fully briefed.
Paul,
I would read your posts more often if I didn’t get so confused.
Where do your paragraphs start and finish in the above blog post?
Paragraphs help organise thoughts. Relevant links should be with relevant text. I mean in the same paragraph.
But I don’t know whether each of yours links go with the lines above or below. Also, I don’t know what the links are likely to be about until I click on them.
All this information presented in a jumbled manner.
The paper by Kiehl concludes:
“These results indicate that the range of uncertainty in anthropogenic forcing of the past century is as large as the uncertainty in climate sensitivity and that much of forcing
uncertainty is due to aerosols.”
This is a serious admission given the range of uncertainty regarding climate sensitivity.
This is however tempered by his following point:
“Second, many of the emission scenarios for the next 50 to 100 years indicate a substantial increase in greenhouse gases with associated large increase in greenhouse forcing. Given that the lifetime of these gases is orders of magnitude larger than that of aerosols, future anthropogenic forcing is dominated by greenhouse gases. Thus, the relative uncertainty in aerosol forcing may be less important for projecting
future climate change.”
Nevertheless, he adds:
“There is also a range of uncertainty in natural forcing factors such as solar irradiance and volcanic aerosol amount. It would of value to reduce uncertainties in these forcing factors as well.”
Well, yes, it would. And certainly before we undertake significant efforts at transforming the local and global economy the costs of which look to be significantly underestimated. The precautionary principle cuts both ways.
The airline windfall profit concept doesn’t appear to stand up. The windfall profits achieved by the power generators seems to have been as a result of their being allocated more permits than they actually needed, allowing them to sell the surplus.
Airlines might find themselves in the same position, but the extra profits would arise in the same way, and not from increasing fares. Fares are in any case dictated by competition as well as costs. If the costs do not go up in reality, then neither will fares.
I find the idea of including aviation illogical anyway. The permits should be required by fuel producers because the amount of carbon released is not affected by how it is used. A scheme that requires airlines, but not other transportation such as cars, to have permits to produce carbon dioxide, can skew the market to the point where passengers adopt modes of travel that release more carbon than the equivalent flight would.
I am here at the conference, typing on a UN computer and wearing a nametage that says Non-Governmental. The sessions are mainly on the impact of global warming on transgender issues, and things like that.
Bali bagus!
http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/cop_13/agendas/application/pdf/cop_13_sched_of_work.pdf
Luke,
The figures for land use change and forestry are done correctly. That is, they are calculated using one of 6 (I think) methods that the IPCC/UNFCCC allows. The methods depend upon the development status of the country that applies them.
You have for some time now disparaged the methods that Australa uses to calculate LULUCF (land use, land use change and forestry) without providing any evidence. I have been waiting for the plethora of web links that you would usually provide to support your assertions, but alas to date none have been forthcoming. I suspect it is because you have nothing other than opinion to support your assertion. I suggest that you peruse the AGO website (www.greenhouse.gov.au) and follow the links to the national carbon accounting system (NCAS) and you may learn that much, if not all of the carbon accounting toolbox, is underpinned by research by the CSIRO and the ANU amongst other notable institutions.
Meanwhile, the delightfully wry Emeritus Professor Philip Stott has his own diagnosis of balmy Bali balminess:
http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/iWeb/Global%20Warming%20Politics/A%20Hot%20Topic%20Blog/39D0049E-FC93-47F7-87DD-C219E8D55FB8.html
Gee Pandanus – sounds a bit more serious than beers with Motty. Anyway as you say NCAS sounds very impressive.
But then you read greenie propaganda like
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5552
and page 8 here
http://www.tai.org.au/documents/downloads/NL50.pdf
But it’s all probably explicable. Someone said NSW is also pretty excited about NCAS remote sensing too.
But you sound reassuring and seem to know what you’re talking about. I’m sure nobody will ever do a serious review so probably shouldn’t worry about what we don’t need to.
Pielke Sr is back:
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/11/30/climate-metric-reality-check-1-the-sum-of-climate-forcings-and-feedbacks-is-less-than-the-2007-ipcc-best-estimate-of-human-climate-forcings/
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/12/02/misinterpretion-of-reality-check-1-by-william-m-connolley-on-the-weblog-stoat/
Rudd signs Australia up to Kyoto
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7124236.stm
Luke,
You really have no idea do you? Your second reference clearly referred to the differences in the definitions of land cover and land use change between the two methods yet you either ignored it for your own purposes or simply failed to grasp what it means.
Yes the NCAS delivers a lower figure, it also starts from a different baseline. A baseline entirely consistent with the Kyoto IPCC definitions. Thw Qld government land use change estimate uses different baselines and different methodology. It is also poorly described and lacks supporting literature, yet you unquestioningly adopt it as your champion because it tallies with your political aims.
I suspect that most people understand that Kyoto has flawed and that given different circumstances alternative methodologies might be adopted for the measurement and monitoring of land use change. However kyoto is the beast that we have, so that is what we use. If you do not like it you should be in Bali lobbying for another set of land use, land use change, and forestry (LULUCF) definitions.
Yes I’m sure you know what you’re talking about Pandanus. You seem very concerned – personal interest perhaps. Don’t worry industry groups know all they need too and they’re in Bali. New world now with Rudd of course. And you can always ask NSW for a reference. 🙂
Oh – political aims – like the truth …. yes … mmmmmm
Luke,
You said “Oh – political aims – like the truth …. yes … mmmmmm”
You fail to understand that both the Qld and NCAS results can be correct given the differing methods and baselines. They are measuring different things!! As such they are not directly comparable nor do they contradict each other, indeed one is highly likely to be a sub-set of the other.
If you have a look at the AGO web site and search for the NGGI (National Greenhouse Gas Inventory)you will find good explanations on the two methods of reporting that Australia uses. One for Kyoto (IPCC(which is a set of accounts against an emissions target)) and one for the NGGI which is a report on the annual greenhouse gas emissions (UNFCCC (NOT Kyoto)). Two very different things reported in the same annual document.
Is that so. I never knew that. 🙂
“not directly comparable nor do they contradict each other” – well of course if you’re inflexible
A blast of hot air at Bali’s climate conference
It’s not the waste that rankles so much as the hypocrisy. Some 15,000 politicians, officials, quangocrats and assorted busybodies are descending on Bali for a jamboree that will produce more than 100,000 tons of CO2 emissions. The purpose of their trip? To discuss how to reduce CO2 emissions.
We wonder whether there would be so many observers and hangers-on if the venue were, say, Düsseldorf. For many of those attending have no direct involvement in the talks.
For example, 19 MEPs, accompanied by advisers and staff, are in Bali, staying at a luxurious spa hotel. Not only will their fares, meals and accommodation be paid for by the rest of us, but they will also claim a further £95 per day.
advertisement
Our purpose is not just to mock the attendees. No, we have a deeper objection.
The Bali summit represents much of what is wrong with the green movement, in that it elevates intentions over results. The supposedly ethical aims of the conference are presumed to render irrelevant the pollution engendered by its delegates.
Euro-MPs, and politicians generally, often behave this way. When Indonesia was devastated by the 2004 tsunami, MEPs cheerfully voted millions of their constituents’ euros in aid.
But when it was suggested that they might contribute a single day’s attendance allowance – around £190 – to the relief effort, they were horrified.
They demand green taxation, yet many of them fly to Strasbourg by the most environmentally unfriendly routes, thereby pocketing higher mileage allowances.
The Kyoto agenda is not principally about affecting climate change. Even if we accept all its proponents’ figures, we would succeed in reducing the projected temperature rise by just 0.3F over the next century (at a cost of an almost unbelievable £3 trillion).
No, the Bali meeting is not really about doing anything. It is about feeling smug; and getting paid for it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/12/03/dl0302.xml
So the only people attending are Europeans?
And the green movement – gee I thought it was government delegations? Or does the green movement now = the government and if so who elected them?
And given the Tele dosn’t believe in AGW surely the expense to Europe will have the much touted massive trickle down effect on the local economy?
This just wouldn’t be just an ongoing whinge in the Telegraph’s war on science would it. i.e. another scungy Tele op-ed.
Of course they could have featured the impact of climate on the region e.g. someone said EL Ninos affect Indonesia and maybe droughts have affected Australia. But why have anything of local interest.
“Euro-MPs, and politicians generally, often behave this way. When Indonesia was devastated by the 2004 tsunami, MEPs cheerfully voted millions of their constituents’ euros in aid.
But when it was suggested that they might contribute a single day’s attendance allowance – around £190 – to the relief effort, they were horrified.”
Those euro’s are tax, that they also pay themselves. What disgusting piece of journalism.
Luke,
“Is that so. I never knew that. :-)”
Clearly! :o)
“”not directly comparable nor do they contradict each other” – well of course if you’re inflexible” nothing to do with flexibility, just an understanding of the underpinning assumptions, methods and constraints of the different methods.
A quick internet investigation reveals all the Qld methods published. A cut on Kyoto forest could be done – just a GIS job. Basically those two contrasting patterns in Macintosh’s paper beggar belief without a solid explanation of exactly why and where differences are. Has the NCAS work been extensively ground truthed (and that’s on the ground). Where’s the publication about on ground observations?
Bali Day 2
Luke, I know you would be worried, but I am in a second floor room at the back of the hotel, so I will be safe from a tsunami. The Indos have laid on 4,000 security staff, including frogmen with automatic weapons, so we are safe from an attack by sea. Interestingly, there is a big contingent of UN security staff, in blue uniforms and big, American-style badges and sidearms. God knows what they do all year when there aren’t conferences to guard. The breakfasts are very good. This morning there was a mixture of bean sprouts, chilli and some other stuff. Because of my cancer research, I know how healthy that combination is. Being here has given me time to advance my solar theories. The 2000 paper of Charapatova has a lot of good insights. Dr Svalgaard, at the birth of the solar dynamo theory with Ken Schatten and others, has recently been attempting to hammer flat the TSI and aa Index. His quoting of Wittgenstein on the CA blog confirms that he now serves the Dark Side. The days pass without a sunspot from Solar Cycle 24. In a New Scientist article last year, Dr Svalgaard said that when solar activity crashes, it crashes hard, and that Solar Cycle 24 is going to be very low. So if an invariate Sun can produce the Dalton Minimum, Maunder Minimum and 1970s cool period, then the solar activity crash that Dr Svalgaard is predicting will produce a very cold period indeed.
Luke,
Oh Please! Macintosh hasn’t just clutched at straws he’s practically invented them. His attempts to refute the critique of his paper by the AGO were embarassing. Clearly he is pushing a political message and after being taken to task has been unable to refute the critisisms aimed at his analysis.
The fundamental issue is that therse are not comparable studies. The NCAS is reporting land use change under Kyoto rules and regulations, the Qld study is not. i.e. NCAS reports on deforestation under a particular definition and the Qld study reports all land clearing (including non forest). Both Macintosh and yourself appear unable or unwilling to grasp this fundamental point.
Indeed the SLATS reports themselves make the point that the two studes are not comparable, so why is Macintosh persisting with his claims other than for political reasons.
Well David we await the crash in awe …. waiting … de dum de dum de dum. Is your cancer business in league with Milan Brych perchance?
Pandanus – the political closure is fascinating. And it would be interesting to run an analysis with the same definitions wouldn’t it.
What political reasons do you think there might be? Surely the numbers are just the numbers. And the Qld data would seem to indicate more carbon has been saved than we have credit for. Good news?
You yourself seem to saying that one data set is just a subset of the other so why do you think they would be so different. The difference would be vast amounts of regrowth is that’s your explanation. Strange pattern though.
You seem pretty interested Pandanus – why’s that?
Incidentally you were going to educate us about the NCAS ground truthing?
Luke,
Macintosh is pushing a particular environmental and political barrow. Anyone who cares to can read his “reports” and analysis of other peoples work at http://www.tai.org.au/ I leave it for others to make up their own minds.
You know well indeed that the “numbers are not just numbers” as i’ve said before different methods, different assumtions, different definitions = different outcomes. As for more carbon saved it all comes down to definitions, surely you understood that?
There are differences in the way that the two studies account for regrowth and they also need to be taken into account but that is a methodological issues again.
Why am I interested, probably the same reason as you, I have an interst in things environmental. However I suspect that we come from different schools of thought in regards to the manner in which we critique the information that is presented to us.
As for NCAS ground truthing, no I was not going to educate you in that regard as I suspect that you already know the answer. However as you are insisting (I could direct you to the AGO web site, just follow the links to NCAS and all will be revealed)my understanding of the process is that NCAS utilises ultra high resolution satellite imagery 0.4m resolution (compared to the 25m resolution of SLATS or the 14m resolution of NCAS)to “ground” truth its work. The method is described in the technical papers on the AGO web site, but basically it is calibrated against known field sites and then used to verify/validate the NCAS pixel attribution.
Having worked with quickbird satellite imagery (0.4m resolution) it is a method that I would both use and recommend (and no I have not worked on NCAS). It is possible to both individually identify remnant vegetation and determine species as well as take basic measurement such as crown cover, foliage projection, etc. Being able to calibrate the method against known, or well understood, sites also provides for a greater level of objectivity and removes much of the subjectivness of more traditional methods.
David Archibald
I have been following Svalgaard’s musings from the SolarCycle24 page, through Open Mind and now to CA.
Svalgaard is spending a phenomenal amount of time on this – and he’s giving out lots of hints along the way to those interested in thinking through the implications. Why would someone in his position do this? I’m not going to assume his motives as to why he is spending so much time and effort “educating” the great unwashed – but I think there’s an elephant hiding in this.
Please read comments 300-302 carefully.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2470#comment-169998
The hammering flat of the TSI & aa is not illogical – it is the same logic used for the justification of the undercount of historical tropical storms. If we just look at the last three or four sunspots – these would be difficult to pick up without “modern” instruments and certainly would not have been picked up prior to the 1800’s.
Scafetta’s phenomenological model gave a higher modern solar forcing using the flatter Wang et al rather than the Lean TSI reconstruction. Is it not logical therefore that using an even more flattened out TSI would increase the modern solar temperature forcing?
This I think is the elephant. It will be interesting to see what comes out of his upcoming AGU presentations – maybe he’s going to rock the boat a bit.
By the way, I found his post http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2470#comment-170487 very interesting. He may not be such a fan of the “Dark Side” as you so quickly assume…
cheers
Arnost
As yes – so there is no serious ground truth across the huge range of land systems and soil types!
And I hear NSW is not confident in the slightest from experience. Real good.
Plenty of Quickbird imagery in 1990 too.
Luke,
Its a hell of a lot more than what happens to “ground truth” climate models, eh! and you certainly appear to never question their validity.
Before you cherry pick I’d suggest that you ensure that the ground will not slip out from under your feet.
Arnost and maybe even David A. if he’s feeling up for it. Why would a decreasing solar output do anything to disprove AGW? Fundamentally the Sun is the primary driver. No radiation and CO2 does nothing.
What happens when your “supposed cycle” turns around.
The only way you disprove the CO2 position is to have no change in solar insolation, no major volcanism and the temperature doesn’t trend up as CO2 does.
Just as it enters its death throes, how embarrassing for us all that our Prime Minister signs on to this ridiculous farce, like some hayseed signing up to a long term encyclopedia contract.
I don’t know about embarrassing, chrisgo, the last two days have been almost wintry here in the Adelaide Hills. This damn Kyoto thing is working before the ink is even dry!
Next thing the drought will break, and a grateful population will beg Cerumen to become President for Life.
I was just reflecting on the passage of time since the last temperature rise (the one hidden by Pinatubo) and it is rather ironic that there has been zero global warming since before Al Gore became US Vice President.
Indeed, global warming actually stopped shortly after the climate conference in Rio 1990.
And the Klimate Krudditess want us to hurry, lest we miss the bus?
Pandanus – irrelevant side step.
Very few state people actually believe the NCAS remote sensing. Maybe they’re just jealous and uninformed hey? Or maybe they peeked.
Climate gimps having a little prattle …. oooo …. ooooo ….
Luke,
Nonsense, You, Macintosh and maybe a few others do not believe it. Having trawled through the technical reports and other supporting literature my conclusion is that it is up to the task. Sure it may not be perfect but the level of error and confidence are there for everyone to see, unlike GCM’s.
As for State people, you must be talking to different ones than I do. Most that I know are accepting of the NCAS, however they also want their own land use change models that conform to their own legislative requirements and definitions. Therein lies the problem.
Unfortunately this is problematic across all State and Federal Government agencies, Isn’t one of Rudd’s election platforms the breaking down of this sort of State-Commonwealth duplication and wastefulness.
I wish him luck, however I am not confident that he can deliver given the differeing roles of these tiers of Government. International treaty obligations for the Commonwealth versus the more operational State based focus.
I think you’ll find SLATS pre-dates the AGO by a fair way. Don’t worry about sideline GCM diversions. So then it has no field validation? – all done from a desk in Canberra. 2m high was it? 🙂
Irrelevant Luke. SLATS may pre-date the NCAS but it has not always used the same methodology. Like most of these types of studies methods have evolved with new knowledge and technical ability, especially computing power. NCAS and SLATS both are quite open about the evolving nature of their methods, as we would expect them to be.
Again you have either missed the point or are choosing to ignore it. It is perfectly acceptable to utilise high resolution remotely sensed imagery, wheter it is satellite derived or more traditional aerial photography, to validate remote sensing outcomes. What is important is that the high resolution imagery is calibrated to known test sites. The number of known test sites across Australia is large (the numbers are described in the NCAS technical reports)and the number of high resolution (0.4m) imagery validation/verification sites is vast. This method is well known and appears regularly within the remote sensing literature. It is not something that the AGO has made up for itself. I have used similar methods based on traditional aerial photography over a long period of time and the results are comparable to traditional field work without the additonal expence. Essentially this method allows for a far greater level of validation/verification than traditional field work.
In regards to your comment on GCM’s. Rubbish, you keep sniping at studies such as NCAS that do not give the results that you demand and you uncritically accept GCM output because it ties in with your world view. Yet GCMs by their very nature are unable to be verified/validated through field work. I’ve yet to find the paper that describes the method of validating the modelled climate with the actual climate. And I do not mean any of the resampling methods used by modellers.
Luke – as a bye the bye: “The only way you disprove the CO2 position is to have no change in solar insolation, no major volcanism and the temperature doesn’t trend up as CO2 does.”
Over the last solar cycle you have no change in solar insolation (trough to trough average delta TSI = 0), there has been no major (or medium for that matter) volcanic activity, AND the temperature (HadCru & MSU & Radiosonde) has not trended up as CO2 does – it has actually trended down.
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadat/images/update_images/global_upper_air.png
Even if you remove the influence of the big El Nino & La Nina 98/99, since 2000 the HadCru & MSU temperature trend is very flat and in no way correlates to the ever increasing CO2 trend.
Of course, if you throw GISS back at me – then please explain why you think it better as it does not correlate with the MSU and Radiosonde records (as HadCCRU does), and why the IPCC does not use it if it’s so good.
WTF – you see no trend in all those data sets?
H0 – the slope of your data sets is not significantly different to zero.
Really?
This is almost anthropomorphising CO2 – “if it was any good it would have done better”?? You’re disappointed?
BTW funny that the stratosphere is trending down eh?
Pandanus – yes I’m sure you’re right 🙂
Arnost,
As I say in that post, if you flatten out the TSI and aa Index, you then have to explain a widening discrepancy with the Be10 record, which is not subject to human observation error or instrument changes. Dr Svalgaard has undertaken to provide such an explanation. I don’t think we will see it soon.
As the world gets colder and winter snows linger longer into spring, there will be a shift from climate science to solar science. Dr Svalgaard could have set himself up to be a great sage in the coming decade, but that role will now be filled by others. His disagreement with Lockwood is merely a tiff between a messianic warmer and an alarmist warmer. Dr Svalgaard claims that he was misrepresented in the New Scientist article last year.
Yes, I also wondered about Dr Svalgaard’s sudden interest in blogs. My take is that it is all about discrediting Svensmark. That is, an invariate Sun can’t produce climate change.
So there is no agreement on whether it’s solar of cosmic rays then. ROTFL. Or is it the Great Pacific Shift or is it the ….
“or cosmic rays”
David A
Again I respectfully suggest that (if you haven’t) you have a better read of this comment by Svalgaard on CA.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2470#comment-170789
What Svalgaard suggests WRT to what modulates CRs (about half way down in his post) is: “The real explanation is much more wonderful. The root cause of CR-modulation is solar rotation.”
Given that solar wind – even at or beyond the high 800km/s end is as close to vaccum as makes no difference, it will not of its own have enough power to deflect CRs. Sorry but that’s probably the way it is. However, if as Svalgaard suggests the ‘corotating interaction regions’ “stack up” the variable speed solar wind wave train prevalent at solar maximum, then this HAS enough power to deflect the CRs, and therby modulate it explaining the Be10/C14 record.
I am waiting to see what the final line of this post promises.
By the way, Svalgaard has never denied the existence of the MWP and LIA – quite the opposite.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2470#comment-169705
cheers
Arnost
Arnost,
I read the first reference you gave. The Sun rotates every 28 days. The GCR modulation is in line with the sunspot cycle, and let’s take that as 10.7 years. Dr Svalgaard went through a whole lot of verbiage to get nowhere. If you need to see for yourself, go to the Boulder site and get the raw GCR data. The aa Index lines up with the sunspot cycle. Dr Svalgaard makes a number of armwavy comments, such as that the solar wind is too thin. Whether it is constantly thin or bunched up, it doesn’t make any difference. It is still the same amount of mass. The solar wind takes one year to get to the heliopause. It has plenty of time to act.
Not denying the WMP and LIA is not the same as saying they exist. The MWP has been reborn thanks to Loehle, and it is more beautiful than ever.
By the way, Dr Svalgaard makes a mistake in one of his climate audit posts. The Earth orbits the Sun, not the barycentre.
Dr Svalgaard says that the Sun is no more active than it was 150 years ago. The Be10 record says that it is. By the way, the Be10 record can’t lie.
Bali Day 3
Some of the European women here are stylishly dressed, as you would expect. A good proportion of the warmer chicks have hairy armpits and wear sensible shoes, also as you would expect. Hairy armpits – no worse than being in France, you would say, but one this morning was somewhat worse, with lint stuck in matted underarm hair. But one of the warmer blokes took the prize – a goatee and wearing a felt beret. The beret would be a mating signal to equally whacko females of the type.
Watch out David… For the hairy armpits, I mean. Sounds as if the true believers are there in force.
As they were at COP 11 in Montreal, two years ago. When “Hughie” decided to turn on an Arctic blast for them…’Freeze, true believer’.
There they were, in blizzard conditions, with the thermometer at minus 28deg. chanting “It’s hot here, it’s hot here..There’s too much carbon in the atmosphere.” !
Maybe it’s a bit warmer for them in Bali. Even if it makes the hairy armpit mascara run.
David – you and me are preaching from the same book – so a pissing against the wall contest with you is (as far as I’m concerned) very counterproductive.
But, with all due respect, a couple of points:
1)
I think you may want to reconsider your “The Earth orbits the Sun, not the barycentre” comment. This is just plain WRONG. The barycentre is the center of gravity where two or more celestial bodies orbit each other. The Moon does not “orbit” the Earth, nor does the Earth “orbit” the Moon – instead they both orbit a common center of gravity:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/Orbit3.gif/160px-Orbit3.gif
In the same way the Earth does not “orbit” the Sun, but instead “orbits” the common centre of gravity of the Solar System, and extrapolating, the common centre of gravity of the Milky Way, and indeed the entire Universe.
2)
You may want to reconsider your comment re: “the solar wind is too thin. Whether it is constantly thin or bunched up, it doesn’t make any difference. It is still the same amount of mass.” The solar wind is too thin at 1 AU. If this “thinness” was constant all the way to the heliopause, a “drunkards walk” will get the GCRs into the heart of the solar system almost always. You need a SIGNIFICANT shockwave to deflect the GCRs and so prevent a drunkards walk scenario. And your “same amount of mass” comment is non sequitur – it is the summed charge of the solar wind that deflects the GCRs.
3)
Your comment “The Sun rotates every 28 days” is however the crux. Solar wind fluctuates mostly at solar maximum – and this is the result of multiple CMEs associated with sunspots, flares and coronal holes. However, because these are tied to a point on the Sun’s surface, these are directed outward in a straight line – resulting in the “sprinkler” dispersal of the solar wind.
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/spaceweather/images/solar_wind.jpg
And this sets up the potential for this wave train of charged solar wind particles to bunch up (as a result of faster particles catching up with slower ones). This can then create the “shock wave” (prior to reaching the heliopause) that can fully deflect the GCRs and so lessen their effect vis-à-vis Be-10 and C-14 radionuclide production in the atmosphere.
————————————————-
David – it is all consistent. I suspect that the Nobel that Svalgaard is hinting at is that somebody will figure out the link between the solar wind and cosmogenic isotope generation through a correlation between solar wind flux / wave train bunching as a consequence of CMES from sun spots, associated flares and coronal holes.
Where this leaves the Svensmark thesis is – “who knows”? Bottom line is that Svalgaard is seriously hinting at the fact that the climate is far more sensitive to solar fluctuation than currently assumed. And he’s a “heavy weight” in his field – proved right multiple times against serious opposition – and so his opinion should not be discounted so easily. (Let’s face it, his solar cycle 24 prediction is the one of two still standing – all the others are pretty well busted).
I impatiently await his AGU presentations…
cheers
Arnost
Arnost
Maybe he is a heavyweight when it comes to the sun, but he’s getting out of his area of expertise when he starts talking about climate.
Gee Wiz SJT, I guess that make you an expert on climate given your propensity to cast doubt on any research that does not align with your political mindset, regardless of the quality of the work?
Re Arnost,
Dr Svalgaard made statements about the solar wind bunching up causing GCR reflection. The bunching effect sounds very reasonable, but that does not necessarily make it the mechanism.
Only 2 Solar Cycle 24 predictions left standing? You have got to be joking. There’s at least 20 (at a guess) still in the running, including Ken Schatten at 75, who has the best track record. Try the Solar Cycle 24 prediction page on Solaemon (find it by Google) run by Jan Janssens of the Belgian Solar Section.
A number of good people are down at the 50 mark, including Clilverd of the British Antarctic Survey. Clilverd is a wavelet man, Drs Svalgaard and Schatten are solar dynamo people. Hathaway got fooled by the flare activity of 2003 and went high. Dikpati is a joke.
It is good to see a lot of interest in the start of Solar Cycle 24. We are at the stage that people are interested but don’t have the mechanism sorted in their mind.
Bali Day 4
The rest of the gang is here, including Lord Monckton, who admits to recommending to Margaret Thatcher to set up the Hadley Centre. He tells an interesting tale that he recently addressed the Kentucky legislature. Hansen had written to the Kentucky people saying that they should hear Lord Monckton speak becuase he was telling lies. So Lord Monckton wrote to the head of NASA saying that Hansen was abusing his position as a public employee to tell lies, for example that 60% of species would be extinct by 2100. Lord Monckton is demanding an apology or he will report NASA and Hansen to the SEC. Bali has suddenly become a lot more interesting.
Archie – that would have to be the greatest load of crap I have ever heard – how many different schools of thought. What a friggin joke.
looks like the denialists are gutless as ever trying to gag free speech.