James A. Peden – better known as Jim or “Dad” – Webmaster of Middlebury Networks and Editor of the Middlebury Community Network, spent some of his earlier years as an Atmospheric Physicist at the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh and Extranuclear Laboratories in Blawnox, Pennsylvania, studying ion-molecule reactions in the upper atmosphere. As a student, he was elected to both the National Physics Honor Society and the National Mathematics Honor Fraternity, and was President of the Student Section of the American Institute of Physics. He was a founding member of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, and a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His thesis on charge transfer reactions in the upper atmosphere was co-published in part in the prestigious Journal of Chemical Physics. The results obtained by himself and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh remain today as the gold standard in the AstroChemistry Database. He was a co-developer of the Modulated Beam Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer, declared one of the “100 Most Significant Technical Developments of the Year” and displayed at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
Read his Editorial: ‘The Great Global Warming Hoax?’
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Global meltdown in financial markets is a temperature change we cannot argue about and some would argue far more relevant to the future of societal development than this drivvle. How’s the house value holding up? If only we had prepared for a world of expensive oil and food before it actually got here … you continue to divert intelligent conversation towards a relatively vacuous argument. Who cares if the globe is warming? Whats VASTLY more important is how we transition our energy resource base from expensive oil to whatever energy that realistically exists. Wake up mate … there are serious things happening in the world! You’ve got a grandchild … and we have a world devoid of the necessary infrastructure to cope with what mess has lobbed on our shores.
Rampant inflation, shortages of key commodities, major financial ruination, where’s the leadership out of the think tanks? Absolute disgrace …
You’re the one who needs to wake up – wasting time, effort and resources on trying to control or predictably influence the weather/climate is the real danger that the world faces.
Rampant inflation, shortages of key commodities, major financial ruination – that’s what the pseudo-environmentalists want. I’m here to play my small part in stopping them, so we can tackle solvable problems.
So tell me what you think we should be getting proactive about instead of this mission on discrediting an argument that is irrelevant to the greater benefit of society. I’m all ears and likely just as passionate as what you could be.
We should be proactive about adaptation to inevitable climate change and developing viable alternatives to fossil fuels.
End the daily rhetoric on ’emmission impossible’ CO2 reductions.
Well why don’t you post more stuff that directly says this? I agree the goal of emission reductions is at best a diversion away from the really important issues.
My problem is not with the weather and CO2 emissions … it is with the devotion of energy to an argument which is unproductive. Lets talk about ‘beyond oil’. As a farmer who uses 150L of oil per hectare just in his nitrogen fertilizer needs for wheat, I ( and I’m sure society, although it wouldn’t recognize it just yet) would greatly value our foremost thinkers (you guys) directing nation building discussion towards this the most important of issues.
I just made close to a million bucks betting on the price of fertilizer going much much higher … I started out with $45,000 at the beginning of 2005 and invested heavily in uranium. Exited into fertilizer in 2007. I follow market trends and bad news stories. Am I happy? No, because it means I am right about some major problems unfolding in the world. Its ironic the greatest profits lie in the bad news stories society doesn’t want to hear about … in the case of fertilizer food stocks are down to between 40-45 days of consumption.
All that sort of money does is give my arguments much more clout and hopefully respect when I try to change people and the future. For markets are all powerful in the messages they deliver … if you are wrong you generally learn the hard way.
Where is the debate on fossil fuel supplies? We are all dieing to get the national focus on this issue!!!!!!!
PS – sorry if I offend, I am just passionate about wanting to change the future but frustrated at how hard it is to do as an individual, though my capacity is building.
No worries Aaron. I’ve often contemplated a post entitled something like ‘Uniting sceptics and the consensus,’ but never really settled on the content.
As far as fossil fuels supplies are concerned, obtaining objective information is a problem and the situation is complicated by the exploitation of known resources being obstructed, particularly in the USA.
We’ll have to keep using oil, gas and coal until we have reliable replacements. Nuclear is an option that is resisted by the usual suspects, but works for the likes of France.
Until we separate energy policy from climate policy, get rid of the Misanthropists and Marxists who masquerade as ‘green,’ bandwagon-meglamaniac-money hungry politicians, those seeking to make huge personal fortunes or careers out of global warming alarmism, the carbon credits/trading scam, and rich celebs looking for a way to relieve the guilt of being paid $15 million for their last film or album – we’re going nowhere.
Tens of billions of dollars that could have been spent helping to develop new energy sources etc. have been wasted on pre-conceptual climate ‘research’ aimed at propping up the unprovable hypothesis of a CO2 driven climate catastrophe. CO2 will be our undoing, but in an ironic way.
Good posts Aaron.
Paul: Any chat about the “usual suspects” can’t help our debates.
Headlines on the front page today start with “Here comes the sun…” over a digital image of a possible dish array for our future solar farm.
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/
No doubt this discussion will go on for ages
The term ‘usual suspects’ is wholly appropriate.
Let’s hope the front page of a newspaper isn’t as far as the solar farm ever gets!
So if you’re so keen on “really saving the world” we never see any posts about that! Just another day at the greenie bashing factory.
Do we ever see any posts about soil acidity – a major sleeper issue for Australian agriculture. Of course not. So feigned concern, crocodile tears and rampant political bulldust.
Why no posts on such things – not on the vested interest checklist.
As for “get rid of the Misanthropists and Marxists who masquerade as ‘green,’ bandwagon-meglamaniac-money hungry politicians, those seeking to make huge personal fortunes or careers out of global warming alarmism” – sounds like a frothing raving speech from the Politburo to me (and its megalomanical)
For those not living in comfy benign climates enjoying field and coppice, green and shaded lanes, with ordered woods and gardens, running in their veins – you might do well to see some climate action up close and personal on the front line. They want your best advice on future probabilities Paul, not speeches about Marxists and celebs.
For some people climate isn’t optional.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2008/20080317_drought/interviews.htm
And are you also going to tell some of the folks living in Aaron’s backyard (SW WA) that the CSIRO research giving part attribution to rainfall decline is wrong. If so – why?
“part attribution to anthropogenic factors”
Walking round the yard with cans of shower water this morning I realised I’ve almost totally lost the plot as half the garden died last week including all the tree ferns. Most of the latest casualties are things we’ve had growing for many years.
I’m also frustrated with the pettiness on this blog.
On today’s radio breakfast show was a discussion between the duty weather forecaster and the program compare about our failure to break the record for the driest / hottest monthly whatever, who cares because yesterday was only 29.999 not more! But my trusty max min went well over 32 something C for hours on end as it did over the whole week before.
The ease by which some remotely associated blog commentators play with our numbers astounds me. Hidden from nerdy science bots round the web is a stack of local information such as the frequent variations between our nearest weather stations but far more profound is the impact of measurements in combination such as humidity over substantial periods.
The bushfires in NW Tasmania this week must sound an alarm for astute observers. The region under threat now is about the last great forest that has not been savaged in south east Oz
http://nwtasmania.yourguide.com.au/news/local/general/smoke-chaos-as-huge-fire-in-west-rages-on/1205493.html.
Too many hardy folks this was the final reserve. It’s also possibly the last place the thylacine lived in the wild.
Did anyone actually read it? Sounds impressive however it has a number of crucial errors that invalidate the whole article however most people could not pick it.
1. “What the authors are explaining is they have found that the total solar irradiance (TSI) has been measured by orbiting satellites since 1978 and it varies on an 11-year cycle by about 0.07%.”
The changes in TSI have been noted however they are not large enough to account for recent warming.
http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/open?pubNo=lrsp-2007-2&page=articlesu5.html
Given the uncertainty in the TIS measurements it is highly speculative to say conclusively that TSI accounts for recent warming.
2. “In Dr. Mann’s case, the rising temperature of the Medieval Warm Period and the expected trough of the Little Ice Age had been completely erased. The hockey stick was broken. Fini. Kaput. ”
Not even close – classic denier crap. MBH99 has been confirmed by subsequent studies that used different techniques and proxies. The idea that the hockey stick is broken therefore AGW is not happening is a classic stupid denier tactic that does only appeals to the ignorant.
3. “As we can see above, carbon dioxide absorbs infrared radiation (IR) in only three narrow bands of frequencies, which correspond to wavelengths of 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (µM), respectively. ”
And this completely fails to account for later and more up to date research. This is the classic case of “What Ångström didn’t know” and is covered neatly here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument-part-ii/langswitch_lang/th
“One would think this would be the end of the discussion, that the laws of physics show us that CO2 isn’t even a significant “greenhouse gas” and certainly the human contribution is insignificant. ”
Only if you ignore modern research and go back to science at the turn of the century. This is a bit like declaring now that nuclear energy is impossible because it violates thermodynamics as they understood it in 1900 ignoring advance in quantum theory.
and so on.
I am amazed that there could be so much crap in one article – I guess this is the new gold standard from this blog.
Not even close – classic denier crap. MBH99 has been confirmed by subsequent studies that used different techniques and proxies.
Nope same proxies same method and all of them were smacked down by Wegman and the NAS panel.
http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/others/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf
http://www.uoguelph.ca/%7Ermckitri/research/StupakResponse.pdf
And this completely fails to account for later and more up to date research. This is the classic case of “What Ångström didn’t know” and is covered neatly here:
Is it really? Thanks for the laugh I needed that. Heading should read what Spencer Weart does not know.
This description:
“You have one fussy child sitting at the belt who only eats red M&M’s, and he can eat them fast enough to eat half of the M&M’s going past him. Thus, he reduces the M&M flux by half. If you put another equally fussy kid next to him who can eat at the same rate, she’ll eat all the remaining red M&M’s. Then, if you put a third kid in the line, it won’t result in any further decrease in the M&M flux, because all the M&M’s that they like to eat are already gone. (It will probably result in howls of disappointment, though!) You’d need an eater of green or blue M&M’s to make further reductions in the flux.”
Is not correct and leads me to believe he flunked quantum mechanics (might be a good reason to get into climate science).
A better analogy is if none of the kids can see the M&Ms they pick only after they have picked them up and thrown the unred ones back. This reduces the probability that the next kid will pick up red ones so he picks the same proportion of those that are left, and so on.
Oops clicked on the wrong thing.
Upshot is that this includes the probablistic element in the theory and there is a decreasing but always finite probability some red M&M will get through. The argument he presents is a strawman.
“And this completely fails to account for later and more up to date research. ”
Yes, there are some old guard scientists out there, such as “Dad”, Vincent Gray and others. Science didn’t stop when they retired, it has moved on, with current research demonstrating new discoveries.
For example, “Dad” also falls for the “CO2 is saturated” argument. Realclimate has dealt with that issue more than once, it’s not saturated.
“Rampant inflation, shortages of key commodities, major financial ruination – that’s what the pseudo-environmentalists want. I’m here to play my small part in stopping them, so we can tackle solvable problems.”
I know. I thought this was supposed to be about science and politics, not loony conspiracy theories.
Ender says:
“Not even close – classic denier crap. MBH99 has been confirmed by subsequent studies that used different techniques and proxies. The idea that the hockey stick is broken therefore AGW is not happening is a classic stupid denier tactic that does only appeals to the ignorant.”
When it comes to hockey stick it is the alarmists who are in denial. MBH and all of the derivative studies depend on couple sets of tree proxies which have no proven correlation with temperature. Eliminate these proxies and you have no hockey stick. This is a fact that been demostrated over and over again at ClimateAudit.
That said, I agree that the bogus hockey stick does not disprove AGW alarmism but the rediculous defense of it put forward by the climate science community has completely undermined their credibility among people who take the time to look at the evidence rather than naively assume that they are being told the truth.
Soil acidity? Give us a break Luke. Farmers have been dealing with soil acidity for hundreds of years by applying lime/dolomite. Yet, we have green shock jocks trying to portray soil acidity as some sort of looming insurmountable disaster.
The only thing restricting the capacity to manage soil acidity has been the over supply and consequent low prices of the agricultural products obtained from land.
And if there is one certainty to come out of recent events it is the fact that food prices will never be as low as they have been over recent decades. Hence, farmers capacity to correct acidity and other soil deficiencies is on the improve.
Yep just a one billion dollar per annum problem – not raised by greenies actually. 33 million ha have acid soils and another 55 M ha moderate. For highly productive country, liming may be OK for intensive highly productive areas. All manner of Al and Mn toxicity issues. According to Ian there are no resource problems in agriculture. It’s all solved. May be news to the various industry R&D corps. You should inform their panels. Soil health is a major area of national environmental neglect.
Ian: Farmers have been dealing with soil acidity for hundreds of years
there are some plants that like acid soil. Most Australian natives fall into this category as I understand it. Causes me to worry some about run off if farmers are careless with it.
Jan – “Nope same proxies same method and all of them were smacked down by Wegman and the NAS panel.”
Have you actually read Wegman? Wegman only talks about PCA in MBH99 not any of the science nor any of the other studies and it only critisises a small part of PCA centering that makes a few percent difference. I see you don’t have any problems however with solar TSI proxies and their analysis.
“Is not correct and leads me to believe he flunked quantum mechanics (might be a good reason to get into climate science).”
After the Beer Lambert debacle I am surprised you could even say this.
Spencer’s bio:
“SPENCER R. WEART () is Director of the Center for History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics (AIP) in College Park, Maryland, USA. Originally trained as a physicist, he is now a noted historian specializing in the history of modern physics and geophysics.
Born in Detroit, Michigan in 1942, he received a B.A. in Physics at Cornell University in 1963 and a Ph.D. in Physics and Astrophysics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 1968. He then worked for three years at the California Institute of Technology, supported as a Fellow of the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories. At Caltech he taught physics, did research on the sun’s atmosphere and on ground-based and space-based telescope instrumentation, and published papers in leading scientific journals.
In 1971 Dr. Weart changed his field, enrolling as a graduate student in the History Department of the University of California, Berkeley. During his studies he helped write two books: Physics circa 1900: Personnel, Funding, and Productivity of the Academic Establishments (with Paul Forman and John L. Heilbron) and Leo Szilard: His Version of the Facts (edited with Gertrud Weiss Szilard).
In 1974 Dr. Weart entered his current position directing the AIP Center for History of Physics, an institution dedicated to preserving and making known the history of physics, astronomy, geophysics and allied fields. Among his tasks have been conducting and supervising tape-recorded oral history interviews of prominent scientists, working to preserve documentation in appropriate archives, and helping scholars locate and use such materials. He has helped to lead major projects preserving the history of modern astronomy, high-energy physics, lasers, geophysics, and solid-state physics, among other fields. One major book stemming from this work is Out of the Crystal Maze: Chapters from the History of Solid-State Physics (written and edited with Lillian Hoddeson, Ernst Braun and Jürgen Teichmann).”
Ray Pierre
He received an A.B. degree in Physics from Harvard, was then a Knox Fellow in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University, and completed his PhD on hydrodynamic stability theory at MIT, in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He was a lead author of the IPCC Third Assessment Report, and a co-author of the National Research Council study on abrupt climate change. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union.
Caltech does not usually employ a lot of people that failed quantum theory. Perhaps you should publish yours and see how they stack up if you think that you can critisize Spencer. You could also ask him to teach you about how to calculate the absorption of IR in greenhouse gases as well as you seem to have a very tenous grip on it.
I also suppose the people that wrote HITRAN do not have your breadth of knowledge either. Why don’t you have a play with it and post what you think is wrong with it.
SJT:Realclimate has dealt with that issue more than once, it’s not saturated.
I have dealt with their strawman argument several times once more in the post above yours. When are you going to learn?
Finally Angstrom believed nothing of the sort their results were the results of empirical data obtained by experiment. While Koch actually confirmed the logarithmic relationship (which is NOT described by Weart) he got different figures to Arrhenius and the latter’s were clearly wrong.
Jan Pompe – “I have dealt with their strawman argument several times once more in the post above yours. When are you going to learn?”
Sorry mate you have it completely wrong – play around with HITRAN a bit and see what you get.
Raven – “MBH and all of the derivative studies depend on couple sets of tree proxies which have no proven correlation with temperature.”
Obviously you believe McIntyre’s stuff uncritically. Take a look at this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
Moberg2005 does not use PCA, J.H. Oerlemans (2005) does not use tree ring proxies. Try again
“Eliminate these proxies and you have no hockey stick.”
Well Duhhhhhh! They are proxy studies so if you eliminate the proxies then you are left with nothing.
“This is a fact that been demostrated over and over again at ClimateAudit.”
Oh Yes and not a peer reviewed paper in sight except the dodgy (E&E) peer reviewed M&M2004.
Ender:Sorry mate you have it completely wrong – play around with HITRAN a bit and see what you get.
i don’t get anything different but I’ve already told you that. Perhaps you had better show us all exactly what it is in HITRAN that contradicts what I have said. it should be very interesting to say the least.
Take a look at this:
Oh No not the famous spaghetti chart. Notice the fine (almost) correlation during the calibration period that rather quickly degenerates to noise outside of it. With Oerlemans truncated at 1600 and Moberg showing both LIA and MWP.
What are you trying to say here? That you agree Raven whilst pretending to disagree?.
Perhaps you need to look at Craig Loehle’s series peer reviewed and corrected it uses no tree rings at all.
and finally this:
“With such a thick CO2 atmosphere, you’d think it would be utterly impossible to see the surface of Venus in the infrared. The issue of “saturation” of the absorption of infrared by CO2 has been discussed previously on RealClimate, but it turns out that even with 92 bars of CO2 in the atmosphere, Venus is not saturated throughout the infrared spectrum. There is a narrow window region in the vicinity of 1 micron wavelength, which allows the surface to be observed in the infrared. Venus Express has exploited this window to make maps of infrared emission from the surface, which, combined with topography data from the Magellan radar altimiter, allow an estimate of surface emissivity.”
I guess this is just Lefty science again.
Ender: Venus is not saturated throughout the infrared spectrum.
Whoever said it was?
“I guess this is just Lefty science again.”
No just your left coloured glasses.
“Soil acidity? Give us a break Luke. Farmers have been dealing with soil acidity for hundreds of years by applying lime/dolomite.”
Ian, you would think with all the subsidies they get from us city people, the problem would be solved by now.
Jan Pompe – “Perhaps you need to look at Craig Loehle’s series peer reviewed and corrected it uses no tree rings at all.”
Oh yes and the unweighted series that he uses – sure. I guess it gives you comfort.
Jan Pompe – “Whoever said it was?”
So you have forgotton your assertions that AGW will not be a problem because the IR bands will saturate?
Ender says:
“Oh yes and the unweighted series that he uses – sure. I guess it gives you comfort.”
You mean the type of weighting that allowed Mann and others to pretend that a single stand of trees in souther California represented the temperature for the entire world?
However, you have missed one of the key points. The hockey stick fiasco demonstrated that an significant number people in the climate science community are biased by their own tunnel vision and not willing to admit mistakes.
Why should anyone trust a group of people like that?
Ender:Oh yes and the unweighted series that he uses – sure. I guess it gives you comfort.
Oh He’s not the only one but i guess you have nothing to say about this:
With Oerlemans truncated at 1600 and Moberg showing both LIA and MWP.
“Have you actually read Wegman”
Absolutely and his reply to Stupak.
“Caltech does not usually employ a lot of people that failed quantum theory”
Do you really think they’d expect everyone in all disciplines (even with physics) to have even done quantum physics in any depth? It’s not generally necessary to be highly competent in the field of astrophysics for instance.
” I also suppose the people that wrote HITRAN do not have your breadth of knowledge either.”
I have no disagreements with HITRAN what makes you think I do? I think it’s just another lame attempt at strawman argument on your part.
I think you need and explanation of strawman argument so you quite understand what it’s about and transparent it is.
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/strawman.html
The problem is not so much the arguments they are making themselves but what they (and by imitation you too) claim their opponent’s arguments are. They make up their own opponents arguments and know them down not even touching on the real argument. Impressing the crickets and wasting everyone else’s time. Just like you do.
Ender: So you have forgotton your assertions that AGW will not be a problem because the IR bands will saturate?
And where have I said they will saturate?
I specifically remember saying it’s not about saturation but non-linearity.
I even used the decadic extinction coefficient to calculate the optical depth to 1 part in 100,000 transmission. (that is 1/100,000th) of up welling thermal IR from the surface and found it to be 15.5 m. Doubling CO2 will make that height 7.75m. Of course that also means that at 15.5 m the transmitted value is 1e-10 of incident. It’s a hard and fast rule and HITRAN provides the extinction coefficients.
If only 1e-10 gets through at 15.5 it’s not saturated it’s opaque or as good as.
Motty in Sri Lanka farmers lime their soils with the local reef resource. Dynamite the reef, pull it back to shore crush it up and apply to the soil … yep farmers can deal with soil acidity. You have no idea of resource constraints do you?
Rock phosphate prices doubled over the weekend … shortages of MAP based fertilizer here in WA TODAY
Yeah; it reminded me of something’ then I reckoned it was the article’s style.
Reading past McIntyre on the Mann “Hockey Stick” saga and pats on the back for getting through side notes etc we find this wonderful bit of school kid physics on molecular mass where all CO2 sinks magically to the bottom of the ocean. Don’t bother repeating this sentence like a drone unless you can’t immediately describe what’s wrong with it.
So in the end I went hunting to see if an Edgar Cayce like foundation survived in the US however that’s my private interest again in networks I feel are spreading particular views to gain and protect dubious incomes.
We’ve had some stats and trig, also a lot of other people’s handy calculus but I can’t recall a step function anywhere so we can grind on as if they never happen. Now, I don’t mind some smoothing or the odd tree ring series but I can’t stand 2nd or 3rd hand science in preference to original observations as the starting point for a blog.
Meddlers and peddlers are my thing and its far more fun than hard work in some science discipline or other. Keep rolling it out hey
Gavin:I can’t stand 2nd or 3rd hand science in preference to original observations as the starting point for a blog.
Why not just accept it for what it is; an exposition of the physics for the layman?
As such it’s a good article.
Gavin: molecular mass where all CO2 sinks magically to the bottom of the ocean.
you want to know what was wrong with it? It’s simple he doesn’t say anything like it.
“It sinks to the ground.. in fact, into the ground, and into the oceans, as well, because CO2 is very water-soluble”
nothing magical about it really – it gets dissolved. If it didn’t diffuse down into porous material there would be no CO2 in ice core samples to measure.
Then there is this:
http://ioc.unesco.org/IOCCP/pCO2_workshop/Posters/iwata.pdf
“Large gradients of CO2 concentration were shown at large uptake region.”
Well I never would have thought it Ender likes men of straw so does SJT. I never thought you would try to diminish a paper by invoking a strawman you have disappointed me.
Jan and Raven are definitively correct regarding MBH99 and its revisions.
The PCA calculations had multiple, significant errors that have not been substantively addressed.
The proxy diverges from smoothed global temperature trends post 1980 even after correction.
The Bristlecone pines are moisture and CO2 limited; temperature is no better than third in its own PCA hierarchy. MBH doesn’t aspire to accuracy here.
The Bristlecone series was grossly overweighted in the proxy.
Data were discarded in favor of proxies.
Data and proxies were conflated.
Forget significance, error estimates, confidence intervals, etc.
And most obtuse of all, PCA is not a poor man’s calculus enabling one to generate a chaotic non-linear function. This cannot be achieved by means of a polynomial of any order.
No wonder statistics professionals like Wegman were so disgusted: “I am not a statistician” but any chimp can manage Mannian rigor.
Ender is still defending the Hockey Stick!!!!
The ‘confirmations’ shared many of the same proxies and were largely done by the ‘Hockey Team.’
See McIntyre’s recent 9mb Georgia Tech presentatation here:
http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/gatech.ppt
Nice table showing the relationship between the ‘confirmation’ studies.
The IPCC Level of Scientific Understanding of Solar Factors is classified as Low or Very Low by the IPCC. Even Lockwood and Frohlich noted there must be an ‘unknown solar amplifier.’
The article isn’t perfect, but next to AIT it looks very, very good.
Anyway – are CO2 emissions going to be reduced to near zero?
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002801.html
And how are we going to control the climate to satisfy Luke and CSIRO?
Sorry, but meaningful global CO2 emission reductions are pie in the sky – let’s do something achievable and useful instead.
Paul, like what? What do you think is meaningful and/or achievable. I would have thought you’d be saying “Absolutely nothing”
I also enjoy how Jan thinks that saying “I have dealt with their strawman argument several times once more in the post above yours. When are you going to learn?” means that he has actuallly done something. Jan, if they’re wrong, publish why they’re wrong. No one is going to accept that you’ve proved them wrong otherwise.
Like adaptation, making sure we have enough electricity generation capacity, R&D on new energy sources, – the list is long, but doesn’t include the phantom menace of CO2.
Jan Pompe – “I even used the decadic extinction coefficient to calculate the optical depth to 1 part in 100,000 transmission. ”
NO you didn’t. You tried to assert that using the Beer Lambert law (which does not apply to IR absorption) that the IR response would be logarithmic. I counter asserted that yes it is logarithmic however the relationship is not a simple y=logx and is vastly more complex than this.
What you are saying now is completely different. You capability for self delusion is astounding.
Gary – “Jan and Raven are definitively correct regarding MBH99 and its revisions.”
No they are not. Only in the simple world that McIntyre exists in is this true. All of the revisions suggested by M&M only alter MBH99 by a few percent.
Paul Biggs – “Ender is still defending the Hockey Stick!!!!”
Paul is still attacking the hockey stick – a ten year old study that has been superseded.
“The ‘confirmations’ shared many of the same proxies and were largely done by the ‘Hockey Team.'”
Oerlemans is on the hockey stick team???????
“Nice table showing the relationship between the ‘confirmation’ studies.”
Only tinfoil hat people would think this. Real people would interpret as confirming the soundness of the original study and data. I guess the man with the biggest tin foil hat is McIntyre. Do you get yours made to measure from CA?
Ender; NO you didn’t.
Are you going to add lying to your repetoir?
Just for the record.
Beer-Lambert
Io/Ii = 10^-elc
log(Io/Ii) = – elc
lo is transmitted radiation li is incident radiation absorbed radiation = li – lo e is molar extinction coefficient, l is path length and c is the concentration in mols.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer-Lambert_law
i take that back about the lying you are just clueless.
Ender is still defending the Hockey Stick!!!!
Looks like a troll flogging a dead horse.
Ender – would that be Oerlemans 2005, which only goes back to 1600? Doesn’t help with the MWP.
The ‘Pink Green Brigade’ can’t make up their minds on whether soil acidity or soil salinity is the problem.
Wake up ‘Watermelons’, you can’t have it both ways.
But oh yes, either way, ‘blame it on the farmers’.
Jan: We have two important CO2 pumps. One is the solubility pump but it’s hardly a magical sink because CO2 out gasses in the tropics and flashed upwards in the atmospheric “heat vent” that naturally controls global warming / cooling, also discussion on a few sceptic blogs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solubility_pump
The other is the industrial power station along with millions of transport vehicles each with their own blackened flue but we don’t understand them as an issue do we?
Given fuel combustion is hardly ever complete, grab a load of these equations. Note that a practical technician just monitors furnace inputs and outputs and the boiler man wears dark glasses inside the power station and outside.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combustion#Complete
Retired smoke watchers inc. here.
Gavin:We have two important CO2 pumps. One is the solubility pump but it’s hardly a magical sink
The only one talking about “magical” sinks is you. While I do enjoy the odd fanatasy e.g. harry potter or Terry Prachett’s Disc World series it has no place here.
“Only tinfoil hat people would think this. Real people would interpret as confirming the soundness of the original study and data. I guess the man with the biggest tin foil hat is McIntyre. Do you get yours made to measure from CA?”
There is a non sequitur embedded in the above quote.
“And how are we going to control the climate to satisfy Luke and CSIRO?”
Another strawman. No one has ever claimed we ‘control’ the climate. We are affecting the climate, and are just seeking to stop that process.
SJT: We are affecting the climate, and are just seeking to stop that process.
Looks like you think we can control the climate too, so where was the strawman?
SJT
Just how are we affecting climate? AS climate is weather averaged over a 30 year period, your comment is far too brief.
Luke’s comment “For some people climate isn’t optional” pretty much sums up the idiocy of AGW hysteria. We can’t choose our climate (unless wealthy, and can actually move to a different one), any more than we can change it. The only thing we can do is to adapt, and worrying about C02, and wasting billions trying to reduce it is insane beyond belief. Don’t like the climate? Don’t worry, it will change, just as it always has. In fact, it’s looking more and more likely we’re now in the initial stages of heading into another LIA type of climate.
“All of the revisions suggested by M&M only alter MBH99 by a few percent.”
This is Mann’s (“I am not a statistician”) retort regarding the errors in calculation, point 1 in my list. He addressed none of the remaining, more serious issues.
I did not even list other, obvious but contentious matters like the missing MWP.
Ender, are you about to throw a fit on the floor or just hold your breath ’til you pass out? I believe you’re in need of a timeout.
So SJT – how do we influence the climate to satisfy Luke and CSIRO?
Ender – do you really think Wiki has an objective write up of the Hockey Stick saga? Who wrote it I wonder.
M&M 2005 was published in GRL
Does Oerlemans 2005 only go back to 1600?
IIRC, Moberg 2005 had a warm MWP? 8 of the 11 Moberg series were used in the Loehle reconstruction. From CA: Moberg used the Arabian Sea G Bulloides, which is uncalibrated to local temperature (actually having an inverse relation!), the Agassiz melt percentage also uncalibrated to local temperature and the Lauritzen speleothem, digital information on which was not made available at the time.
All I’m after here is an admission that there is no definitve climate reconstruction, and all reconstructions can be criticised. Of course, this didn’t bother the IPCC in the TAR, where the HS appeared 6 times in colour.
Paul:Who wrote it I wonder.
William M. Connolley AKA stoat will have vetted it irrespective of who wrote it. I suspect you knew that.
Indeed – I am aware of stoat’s Wikiganda.
Jan: I note you wimped off quickly re my power station / transport CO2 input. Was there no shame in your avoiding the obvious problem with rising man made greenhouse gasses?
Sure I’m well out of the picture nowadays on both scientific and practical response to damaging effluents of any kind however I can still pick up on general procrastination by intelligent people who become mere apologists for the perpetrators. Btw that’s most of us living the good life at earth’s expense including yours truly much of the time.
Jan: We are involved in a rat race to hide the problems of our society’s excess. Radical change in our use of such things as land, water and energy is essential regardless of predicted climate variations one way or another.
Change is afoot we hope: Canberra Times headline today “New deal for science, end to ‘cultural wars’…..
dissent should flourish…
Kim Carr says “scientists felt intimidated under Howard”
Gavin:I note you wimped off quickly re my power station / transport CO2 input.
Nope just not interested in topic changes and other distractions but just for the record I agree that caring for the environment is an important issue.
We produce about 3% of the total planetary output of CO2 I believe planetary homeostasis can take care of it. I also believe that if we weren’t producing that extra 3% the oceans will out gas more to make up the shortfall. You know Henry’s law an all.
I do find it amusing that there are constant complaints about scientists being wrong in the past, when they predicted that there would be an ice age. (That’s wrong, but it’s a complaint that is constantly heard).
What is a constant claim heard these days by deniers? That there will be another ice age, we are already in the cooling phase.
It’s not about “satisfying” me or CSIRO. As usual you guys have missed the point. None of you are on the pointy end of decision making with real climate issues.
Farmers need to know if the future climate will continue to be a sample of the past 100 years or something else. Best science says it’s something else. Odds have changed.
So while you’re sitting here having a rant about commies and marxists etc – some people are out there making decisions and the denialists have nothing to contribute or suggest except a political rant, and some platitude about climate has always changed. Shame on on you.
If the world is unable to organise itself to do anything about growing CO2 emissions, climate science on growing changes is still sorely needed e.g – warming (or cooling if the dishonest denialists ever have the guts to actually make a prediction and stop fence sitting), decadal influences – PDO, and interannual and seasonal – El Nino, SAM, IOD etc.
Sid had his little spray as usual – the point is that soil health issues (a deserving topic that the blog would never touch as there is no big end of town vested interest or political points to be scored against greenies) aren’t a “pink” greenie interest at all. It’s a serious farmer issue. Needs support – as do research on what farming systems with the best available climate assumptions are needed, as do decisions for landholders on whether to persist or get out of farming; and for governments whether to reduce/halt or invest in drought relief funding.
Africa is the climate management analogue to Australia but without the option of “getting out” of farming.
SJT: That there will be another ice age, we are already in the cooling phase.
yes and we have been for 12,000 years.
Jan: I could claim this blog and many people on it are a distraction from the main game of handling environmental problems like drought – BoM, desertification – UN 2006, climate change – IPCC, Carbon Trading – Garnaut Report and so on. Admittedly I switch discussion back to these themes when ever I can and play the devil’s advocate at times however as we go on I become more and more aware of how narrow this group is in terms of both science and practice.
Yesterday I spent hours with google checking back over the RL stuff of another contributor and found numerous citations where I least expected them in relation to several of my themes above.
That made me realize what time has been wasted in discussion round important issues by people on the extreme fringe of developing science in this country. Through much of that period another significant person was also working their way through the maze and expanding that tiny branch of research here.
Mate: We are truly indebted to those who persevere in a new career.
Gavin:I could claim this blog and many people on it are a distraction
So could everyone else but let me ask you; would you sell a customer who asked for temperature controller a motor speed controller instead?
In any plant you are liable to find both they are hardly interchangeable. Even though they have their similarities I don’t think your beloved thermocouples will get much traction on the tacho-gen input. Your action will be incoherent with your customer’s requirements.
There is enough incoherence around here as it is.
“That made me realize what time has been wasted in discussion round important issues”
You might also realise a lot of time is wasted doing cryptic crosswords. However when you consider brains are a little like muscle in he use it or lose it department it may not be such a waste after all as it exercises the frontal lobe recall function.
In this thread the issue is public education in the context of James Peden’s article.
Is he right or wrong?
Actually Jan, and SJT, we are still in an ice age. An interglacial period, but still an ice age. Non ice-age eras would have no ice in the arctic, and limited glaciation for the antarctic.
Mr T,we are still in an ice age
Depends on your definition and since definitions tend to change with time I think several thousand years of arctic ice is enough time for the definition to change to include the presence of arctic Ice in the definition of “interglacial”.
In any case we still have that 12,000 year secular cooling trend and people are making a huge song and dance about a small amount of warming for the first 20 of the past 30 years.
Jan: Hey I hate thermocouples and tachometers.
BTW I’ve recently gained a point or two over a previous recall function test without doing crosswords. When words are frozen at an intersection I can point directions for my chauffer.
Also I’m rather more experienced with various customers than you can guess, everything from advice on systems purchasing to across a spectrum of operations deprogramming hapless sales people on my doorstep or phone.
Jan: Let’s ask this very personal question just once; are you an agent on commission?
Much of my time has been spent on voluntary campaigning often on a one to one basis. It can be hard to find rewards immediately. I used to feel sorry for the manually employed people we regularly put out of work with process automation and IT. One lot was the girls at the telephone exchange another was the ladies at benches in places like Kodak however we all adjusted to the digital world over a very short time.
I wonder if anyone bothers with thermocouples and tachometers for space travel and earth observations.
Imagination was the best tool in the business.
Gavin: Also I’m rather more experienced with various customers than you can guess.
Does this mean you’ll sell him a cat when he wants a guard dog?
It’s really all about your going off into red herrings and generating other distractions.
Like: I wonder if anyone bothers with thermocouples and tachometers for space travel and earth observations.
no about that James Peden article ..
You’re very strange Jan, you seem to think that all definitions and theories need to be parsed by you first. Who are you to decide what should constitute an ice-age?
It’s not my definition. Read some geology.
Not sure about your 12000 year secular cooling. Where are you referencing that?
Mr T, You’re very strange Jan, you seem to think that all definitions and theories need to be parsed by you first.
Can you stop with the fatuous remarks already?
“Not sure about your 12000 year secular cooling. Where are you referencing that?”
Vostok ice core an ordinary geologist like you should be able to do a simple regression on the series from the Holocene Optimum.
Sure, just stop saying things like
“Depends on your definition and since definitions tend to change with time I think several thousand years of arctic ice is enough time for the definition to change to include the presence of arctic Ice in the definition of “interglacial”.”
Here’s a start on the climate of the Holocene:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum
Your dates are wrong for the Holocene Optimum. Especially as the Holocene started at 11500 years BP.
The Younger Dryas lasted between 12700 and 11500. That was a lot colder than now.
I’ll make a deal with you Mr T, I’ll not take your fatuous remarks seriously if you don’t take mine seriously.
Who cares about 500 years in 12,000 just round up to 2 significant figures and it’s in the ball park. Now why don’t you just stop with the red herrings and do your homework get the data
start here :
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icgate.html
and do a linear regression on the data from the holocene optimum where ever you find it it will be around 12,000 years ago give or take a 1000.
If you do it yourself you can blame no one else if you don’t like the results.
Jan, Fine.
Well here’s the image, I can see what you’re getting at Jan
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/image/icecore/vosbarnco2.gif
Now there’s a rather large oversimplification in what you’re suggesting (and I think you already know what it is). To reconstruct a cliamet you need more than just the CO2 data. What this graph is showing is just that the CO2 level has been basically falling since around 12000 to a few hundred years ago. Now to claim that this shows that temp has been cooling ever since is little… well it’s an idea that’s underdeveloped. You should be able to acknowledge that other factors will influence the temp. I think we both understand that. Armed with that information other authors have shown that there were warmer periods – described now as the Holocene Climatic Optimum. Which is really divided into several parts:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WPN-45C0W5H-6&_user=659159&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000035829&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=659159&md5=d3e8822b32999287d5ab3d6b4526b606
So to say the temp has been cooling since 12000BP(or for the whole of the Holocene as I think you mean) is not really correct.
Does this mean you actually trust climate reconstructions based on CO2 data?
Edit.
I meant the CO2 has been rising since about 120000 BP…
Jan, 12000 of secular cooling…
What exactly do you mean by that? I am starting to doubt that I understand what you mean (Or perhaps you don’t know).
“Secular” means long term, so the regression from termination will give us a secular trend for the period.
Yes I did say optimum I meant termination there were two optima and could be confusing – meah culpa.
I could have said the early one I suppose.
just by way of example on the CO2 level chart the secular trend basically eyeballing the chart is -.8 ppmv /millennium from 140ka BP to 10ka BP.
Mr T CO2 is not generally a temperature proxy (some might disagree), 018 is here:
.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/o18nat.txt
or
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/deutnat.txt
The latter is not as patchy and actually has the temperature reconstruction.
Jan, I have no idea about the use of CO2 as a temp proxy, I am a mere geo. I had heard they use oxygen, yes.
That table shows several MWPs! However none are particularly warm.
Not very many at +2 are there… You need to go back to 127000 to see a series of them. That’s when things will start to get messy. Of course, yes, that’s IF we get there. Wonder if there’s much paleo data for around 130000 – 125000 years ago.
Mr T,I have no idea about the use of CO2 as a temp proxy.
Joke.
Wonder if there’s much paleo data for around 130000 – 125000 years ago.
Further back we go the thinner it gets. There are lots of ups and downs but I think the main point of the exercise is too see actually how little variation there actually is since termination compared to say the periods of (extra) glaciation. The secular trend is ~ -.14 C/millennium which is very small and all the highs and due to whatever are superimposed on this trend.
Yes, seems that warming is rapid and cooling is slow.
Mr T,Yes, seems that warming is rapid and cooling is slow
the secular cooling is steady the warming is irregular – it’s all in the perspective.
perhaps you should ask Gavin about superposition of small high frequency signals on large low frequency ones. Perhaps he can also explain beating and why 3 overlapping Milankovich cycles should cause a longer interglacial than usual.
Why a long interglacial?
http://amper.ped.muni.cz/gw/articles/html.format/orb_forc.html
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/297/5585/1287
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1993A%26A…270..522L&data_type=PDF_HIGH&whole_paper=YES&type=PRINTER&filetype=.pdf
and
hamper.ped.muni.cz/gw/articles/graphs/ins-5-2.png
Luke:hamper.ped.muni.cz/gw/articles/graphs/ins-5-2.png
Doesn’t work.
I like the Harvard one.
Jan: some patience required, see my link correction
http://amper.ped.muni.cz/gw/articles/graphs/ins-5-2.png
Re superstition of waves, beats, sum and difference, destructive interference, shock waves etc I needed some refreshing.
http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/Demos/superposition/superposition.html
Tesla, coils, pulses, damped waves, phase locked loops and so on is another branch. From a very fuzzy memory, I can recall asking an important electrical utility operator where the network control depended on signals added to high voltage transmission cables how they protected their system from external pulses. I got a long story over the phone. Australia at that time was leading technical design in lightening arresting techniques, phase shift with load and drop out back flash.
Re Simulation: This chip (note the wave diagrams), a video tube and a modulated solid state RF device became someone’s idea for their crude radio cam.
http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~murray/books/AM05/wiki/index.php?title=Phase_locked_loop
See also Broadband on power lines.
http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_2847
http://amper.ped.muni.cz/gw/articles/graphs/ins-5-2.png is the correct url as Gavin has deduced.
It is a graph of -500 ka to 200 ka from present, made for a rather low 1366.3 W/m2 solar constant again. -400 ka summer insolation minimum was some 10 W/m2 lower than that one we have almost reached already. No pronounced decline of solar orbital summer forcing at 65° N is ahead of us next 50 ka (low solar orbital summer forcing at 65° N being needed for onset of glaciation).
Jan Hollan says we should not extrapolate past trends (like decline in summer insolation, or the shape of the past glaciation cycles). We should look at reliably computed past, current and future forcings instead. It’s evident we have almost reached the near-future insolation minimum already.
Before the atmosphere returns to normal (thousands of years), we will be on the increasing part of the insolation curve again…
(The Laskar reference (Harvard) is the basis behind the calculations).
Gavin – it was Critec in Tasmania that did much of the lightning and transient suppression research – their products live on – http://www.erico.com/
Luke,
As insolation is a “measurement” of solar radiation, your graph above,is quite problematical.
Given we only recently had the technical ability measure insolation, say 200 years?, then the rest are non-measurements and clearly concatening oranges and figs.
So how did our neolithic forbears measure insolation?
A real scientist would not make such a gaffe.
whoops, concatenating
Gavin: I needed some refreshing.
me too and is why I suggested to ask you I thought maybe you had some more recent experience with it. You have my apolgy for the imposition.