Roger Pielke Sr has taken issue with comments on a nationalpost.com blog by Josh Willis titled, ‘Josh Willis on climate change: Global warming is real.’
Willis is an author of the recent paper on data derived from the ARGO network, which shows no warming in the upper 700m of the ocean over the past 4 years:
The national post blog comment by Willis begins:
“As a scientist, I always enjoy it when people outside my field take an interest in oceanography. But I was a bit disappointed to read Lorne Gunter’s column: Perhaps The Climate Change Models are Wrong, March 24.
It is a well-established fact that human activities are heating up the planet and that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come. Climate change skeptics often highlight certain scientific results as a means of confusing this issue, and that appears to be the case with Mr. Gunter’s description of our recent results based on data from Argo buoys.
Josh Willis is a well respected scientist and his views merit consideration. In this case, however, Climate Science concludes that he is misinterpreting the significance of his data analysis. He agrees that
“Indeed, Argo data show no warming in the upper ocean over the past four years”.
He dismisses this though by claiming that
“…but this does not contradict the climate models. In fact, many climate models simulate four to five year periods with no warming in the upper ocean from time to time. “
Where are these model results that show lack of upper ocean warming in recent years? There is an example of a model prediction of upper (3km) ocean heat content for decadal averages in Figure 1 of
Barnett, T.P., D.W. Pierce, and R. Schnur, 2001: Detection of anthropogenic climate change in the world’s oceans. Science, 292, 270-274,
but they did not present shorter time periods. Nonetheless, since Figure 1 is presumably a running 10 year average, the steady monotonic increase in the model prediction of upper ocean heat content (the grey shading) suggests that no several years (or even one year) of zero heating occurred in the model results. The layer they analyzed in the figure is also for the upper 3 km but in Figure 2 the Barnett et al study showed that most of this heating was in the uppermost levels.
Thus the lack of heating in the upper 700m over the last 4 years does conflict with at least the Barnett et al model results!
What the upper ocean data (and lack of warming) actually tells us is that if global warming occurred over the last 4 years, it was in the deeper ocean and is thus not available in the short term to the atmosphere.
Indeed, if it is in the deeper ocean, it likely more diffused and therefore could only enter the atmosphere slowly if at all. This heat could also have exited into space, although the continuation of global ocean sea level rise suggests that this is less likely unless this sea level rise can be otherwise explained.
The other heat stores in the climate system are too small (and the atmosphere has clearly not warmed over the last few years). Global sea ice cover is actually above average at present (the Antarctic sea ice is at a near record level). The continued sea level rise indicates that the heat is in the deeper ocean (which is not predicted by the models).
Finally, there is also no “unrealized” heat in the system. This is a fallacy of using temperature trends as the surrogate for heat trends as has been reported Climate Science (e.g. see, see and see).
Josh Willis too easily dismisses the significance of his research findings.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I have a nitpick: “It is a well-established fact that human activities are heating up the planet and that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come.”
How can a future event be a well-established fact?
I’m with MDM. Is this science or brinkmanship?
You have misrepresented Barnett’s paper. Barnett was testing if models using available forcings could explain the observed data.
In any case, you should be quoting more up-to-date work such as
Science 8 July 2005:
Vol. 309. no. 5732, pp. 284 – 287
Penetration of Human-Induced Warming into the World’s Oceans
Tim P. Barnett,1* David W. Pierce,1 Krishna M. AchutaRao,2 Peter J. Gleckler,2 Benjamin D. Santer,2 Jonathan M. Gregory,3 Warren M. Washington4
A warming signal has penetrated into the world’s oceans over the past 40 years. The signal is complex, with a vertical structure that varies widely by ocean; it cannot be explained by natural internal climate variability or solar and volcanic forcing, but is well simulated by two anthropogenically forced climate models. We conclude that it is of human origin, a conclusion robust to observational sampling and model differences. Changes in advection combine with surface forcing to give the overall warming pattern. The implications of this study suggest that society needs to seriously consider model predictions of future climate change.
Which shows long term effects in all oceans.
It’s what denialists and sun worshipers leave out of discussions that’s telling. Such as cherry picks as “at present” in a discussion of trends, as well as changed Antarctic circulation, accelerating glacial discharge from erosion of sea buttresses, and high levels of mid-troposphere warming above Antarctica.
Willis is not misrepresenting his own work. Golly me – it is his own science. Pielke is an impertinence. A fence sitter who is really trying to assume the mantle of a respectable skeptic. With the usual – but land use change, clouds, aerosols, and carbon black may also be important.
Yea they know that.
Whatever is going on with ocean temperatures,and global atmospheric temperatures, cycle freaks and sun worshipers will be the last to figure it out. Leave it to real scientists.
“Whatever is going on with the ocean temperatures, and global atmospheric temperatures” …
Luke, you are starting to sound rattled?
Jennifer, address Luke’s point. Saying ‘you are starting to sound rattled’ is infantile.
With regard to nitpicking, I could be argued that the phrase “well established fact” applies to the first clause if the quote given that there is a conjuctive. Hope this helps.
Jennifer – “Luke, you are starting to sound rattled?”
You write as if this is a game. We are talking about a complex, coupled ocean atmosphere that we do not fully understand.
With the small amount of understanding that we have we conclude that the most likely outcome of human greenhouse emissions is warming of the ocean/ atmosphere system as more energy is retained.
Yet you expect it to be clear cut and always a clear linear trend from cooler to warmer. This is not going to happen no matter how much you trumpet apparent ‘victories’. Nothing in the underlying fundamentals has changed and no evidence has appeared in any peer reviewed research that directly contradicts the fundamental physical basis of AGW. Blog posts do not count.
Nobody is getting rattled as there is nothing to lose or win. What we Luke, SJT, Gavin have consistently said is that this is a long term trend that will either appear or not appear in the next ten years or so. In ten or twenty years there will either still be a clear warming trend in the ocean/atmosphere global average temperatures or not. Yearly variations either warm or cool are expected. Indeed if fraud was prevelant in any of the climate data then this is probably the best proof that scientists are reporting what Nature is saying. If the tin foil hat people are correct and there is a global left wing conspiracy on the consumer society, then surely they could do a better job of fiddling the numbers than this.
Additionally the ARGO information has greatly magnified our data on the ocean where previously it had been very sparse. It is hardly surprising that the new data does not fit well with the older data. Again with 10 years of this wonderful new network’s data, if cooling still exists then we will looking for what is causing this and where the discepancy is.
“I’m with MDM. Is this science or brinkmanship?”
It’s a guy trying hard to retain his research grants.
Hold on, there has been no atmospheric warming since 1998 and Willis is claiming that the corresponding lack of warming in the thermocline for the past 4 years does not constitute a lack of evidence of global warming?
So how, exactly, can global warming be continuing when it is not present in either the atmospheric data or the oceanic data?
The only explanation is that global warming is taking place entirely within the imagination of Bimbolopithicus climatensis. And of course, being pure delusion, it can continue despite solid evidence to the contrary.
And we can all look forward to how they might incorporate decade long warming pauses in the climate muddles. These can only be incorporated as “natural variation” but once they are incorporated they would also have to include decade long warming events as part of the natural amplitude.
“then surely they could do a better job of fiddling the numbers than this.”
The difficulty is in fiddling the numbers after you have cried wolf, everyone is watching your numbers, and not everyone is playing your game.
Tell me. Why doesn’t Mann update his tree ring series?
Why doesn’t Hansen inspect his measurement sites?
Why do scientists swear loyalty to the AGW agenda when their own data fails to support it. Willis could simply say that 4 years is not enough for drawing conclusions. He doesn’t have to, instead, draw conculusions that contradict his findings. And he doesn’t have to lie about ocean models having 4 year periods of no warming.
“A warming signal has penetrated into the world’s oceans over the past 40 years. The signal is complex, with a vertical structure that varies widely by ocean; it cannot be explained by natural internal climate variability or solar and volcanic forcing, but is well simulated by two anthropogenically forced climate models. We conclude that it is of human origin,”
A. Same approach for ignoring what is happening recently.
B. Same approach to explaining cause. “We don’t know what it is, so it must be those dirty humans”.
And these idiots are Luke’s idea of “real scientists”.
Tilo: ” Willis could simply say that 4 years is not enough for drawing conclusions. He doesn’t have to, instead, draw conculusions that contradict his findings. And he doesn’t have to lie about ocean models having 4 year periods of no warming.”
he has to say that to the hard headed, tight fisted people who sign the cheques and must account to the tax paying public for that signing.
It’s the bleeding edge between science and politics.
This is a joke.
Dr. Willis you should go with the data and you will be fine.After all reality is much more healthful than delusions.
The data clearly show cooling.That is a FACT!
“It is a well-established fact that human activities are heating up the planet and that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come.”
Any AGW true believers prepared to endorse THAT comment?
I’m confused by the point of this post.
One Scientist says his data doesn’t contradict AGW, the other says it does.
That’s it?
But really what’s the point of this post?
Mr T says… “But really what’s the point of this post?”
The point Mr T, is that Dr Willis has empirical evidence that does not fit his AGW Hypothesis and is ignoring it. Dr Pielke is pointing this out to him and politely reminding him that it is a scientists role to Disprove a Hypothesis… Not provide excuses for a bias.
All Scientists are skeptics. The facts fall where they may and a Hypothesis must prove itself accordingly.
The Hypothesis that Global Warming due to Anthropogenic sources of CO2 being significant in it’s effect, does not seem to be able to bear scrutiny of fact.
…. That is the point of the post Mr T.
J. Hansford.
I disagree. One man, Dr Willis, says that the data don’t disagree with his hypothesis. The other, Dr Pielke, says the data do disagree.
Dr Willis is not “ignoring it”, he is talking about it. He says that this is in some of the models.
For whatever reason you (and it seems the other bloggers here) have decided Dr Pielke is correct.
There’s no actual analysis here, just a bunch of opinions.
Mr T…. The crux would be Empirical data as opposed to Computer generated wishes…
That would be the contention…. not opinion.
J. Hansford
Empirical data doesn’t have an opinion nor can it say why it is happenening. No one is disputing the data, only what the data means. It is about ‘opinion’
You seem to have formed an opinion as well. And for some reason have decided that people without your opinion are denying the empirical data. Neither scientist disputes the data, only what it means.
Well it clearly is a game for Jen as we have seen with the Spencer paper business.
As for “rattled” – well wouldn’t it marvellous if it weren’t happening. The implication of “warmers” enjoying the problem is a try-on.
But anyway – getting back to some science for a change – what have you got as hypotheses:
(a) change in solar forcing – can’t see it myself but feel free to argue
(b) PDO – but doesn’t explain prior signal in all oceans (Barnett)
(c) Spencer cloud issue – maybe – some threshold has been reached – but lack of evidence globally – one localised case study – cloud time series data inconclusive IMO
(d) magic cosmic ray stuff (yech!)
(e) decadal variability we don’t understand – possible but scientifically no help
Willis knows there are decadal signals in ocean behaviour. Unlike denialists and sun worshipers he’s not going to jump on every blip, bump and wiggle with divine insight. Let it play out and the numbers will fall where the physics takes us.
So as usual denialists, cycle freaks and sun worshipers just cherrypick what evidence they like e.g. Jen on water vapour. You rarely get the full story. The long pros and cons checklist two way table is never presented.
As for “”We don’t know what it is, so it must be those dirty humans” – that’s about the level of stupidity you would expect from uninformed hick denialists. So what you’re saying is that you assemble all the best physics and science you can muster into a model and do some testing and make a conclusion. And that is just winging it. Pathetic. How would you propose we analyse a complex system – with pencils and linear regressions?
Luke
Most of would adapt to the changed climate but you can’t so you and your merry wallys want to stop the climate changing instead by regulating one infinitesimal climate factor, human emission of CO2.
Amazing how the original IPCC was tasked to combat the UK mining unions to what it is now.
What data means? Either data falsify the hypothesis, or they don’t. If the conclusion is based on what we think the data means, then a test has not been adequately conducted and more stringent tests proposed.
Otherwise this is pseudoscientific codswallop.
Empirical data compell one to accept a conclusion – not to then start another debate about how the data ought to be interpreted. No wonder climate science is in difficulties when this nonesense is spruiked.
Louis, of course you have to interpret data… There is nothing implicit in data. It’s a bunch of numbers which we then ascribe meaning to.
Also note louis, that what you are trying to do is take what is actually a subset of the dataset and say that the subset demonstrates AGW is falsified. This is not a sensible thing to do. Especially if the rest of the data shows the opposite.
Of course scientists will debate data, it’s what they do. What do you do? Do you not debate the data and what it means?
Do you think that Quantum theory was just obvious from the data?
I am interested in the various climate change theories including AGW, the sun, PDO and the list goes on. There is probably something to learn from each of them.
But I suspect that ‘natural variability’ and ‘human influence’ on the climate is impossible to model with any degree of accuracy yet.
And I think Roy Spencer may be onto something with his theories about temperature anomalies, water vapour and cloud formation in the tropics.
I have no idea whether it is going to start warming again next year, or start cooling. But I can see that the last ten years of observational data – atmospheric and oceanic – does NOT accord with established AGW theory and that the climate models therefore need an overhaul.
I am not bothered that I don’t have a theory to replace the probably soon to be discredited AGW theory.
And yes, Luke is sounding rattled. We have put up with his endless ranting about how we risk runaway greenhouse and endless drought (I am exaggerating slightly) for a couple of years and now he appears to be unsure what is going to happening next.
I sugget he just relax, and recognise that the best public policy would acknowledge that it could get cooler or it could get warmer and that there will be more floods and more droughts. And that our best protection is investment in appropriate infrastructure and technology… not the rationing of carbon.
Dear Mr T
A neophyte question at this blog I know, but I was under the impression that a key perspective regularly turned over was that there was no debate – “the science was settled” on AGW or similar ?
I would genuinely appreciate guidance on the subtlties of debate on data and debate on macro-conclusions ?
Thank You
MMLJ
re:”Why do scientists swear loyalty to the AGW agenda when their own data fails to support it.”
Dr. Davis did the same thing when his 11 year Antarctic study was used to refute Velicogna 3 year cherry pick in the same region. Davis’s own data and calculation refutes his revisionism in trying to defend Velicogna. It’s like they say something on the press, hoping that no one will read their original report, and reject the their defensive reversal.
It’s simply the suckling sound of an AGW Climatologist nursing a colleague, “HEAR WHAT I SAY NOW, not what I published in peer-review last time.”
“But I can see that the last ten years of observational data – atmospheric and oceanic – does NOT accord with established AGW theory and that the climate models therefore need an overhaul.”
Bah…bah…wrong!!! Jen, show us statistically (and that means more than closing one eye and squinting at a graph) that recent warming (say, this century) is outside of the trend from 1975 (95 % confidence interval). You’re a self-proclaimed expert in data and have a PhD so the simple stats should be no problem. Would make an interesting post.
I’d provide a link showing that this is not the case, but linkys are bad.
Hi Patrick,
You wrote:
“With regard to nitpicking, I [sic] could be argued that the phrase “well established fact” applies to the first clause if [sic] the quote given that there is a conjuctive. Hope this helps.”
Regarding nitpicking, I assume you mean “a conjunction” and not “a conjunctive”…
You can so argue – but not very persuasively. The use of “and that” tells against your version.
Hope this helps.
I still think Tsonis et al have the best explanation for the internal drivers of the climate system:
In the mid-1970s, a climate shift cooled sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific Ocean and warmed the coast of western North America, bringing long-range changes to the northern hemisphere. After this climate shift waned, an era of frequent El Ninos and rising global temperatures began.
Tsonis et al. have investigated the collective behavior of known climate cycles such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, the El Nino/Southern Oscillation, and the North Pacific Oscillation. By studying the last 100 years of these cycles’ patterns, they find that the systems synchronized several times.
Further, in cases where the synchronous state was followed by an increase in the coupling strength among the cycles, the synchronous state was destroyed. Then. a new climate state emerged, associated with global temperature changes and El Nino/Southern Oscillation variability.
The authors show that this mechanism explains all global temperature tendency changes and El Nino variability in the 20th century.
Major climate shifts have occurred or will occur around 1913, 1942, 1978, 2033, and 2072 according to the authors of this recent paper, who also predict a 0.2 Celsius cooling between 2005 and 2020 which should be followed by a 0.3 Celsius warming until 2045 or so – then cooling for the rest of the 21st century.
Roy Spencer has a paper in preparation on a similar theme, and his published/soon to be published work on clouds and precipitation using NASA satellite data drastically reduces modelled climate sensitivity to CO2.
External solar/cosmic factors are poorly understood, and Leif Svalgaad’s TSI reconstruction showing little variation in solar irradiance adds a new dimension to the debate.
Far from being settled, the science is just getting more interesting.
Jen – have you done any research on water vapour. Or just done the denialist usual and jumped on “a paper” and “an opinion”.
But you’re gotten a great run out of it nonetheless – so I’m impressed. Why worry about details.
Why would you think that Roy Spencer “is onto something” – why not that Tim Barnett is “onto something”. Essentially because it suits you – Or from a serious review of the literature? What’s your view on Soden 2002 and Santer 2007 water vapour studies?
Why do you even think Spencer’s work is generally applicable? The basis is ?
Where have I talked about runaway greenhouse?
And where have I talked about “endless drought”?
You’ve gone out of your way to fog the drought issue into mumbo-jumbo and double-speak. Always quoting national time series when you have major regional trends in the agricultural hotspots. Saying the Murray hasn’t run dry (duh – maybe the dams may have something to do with that!?)
Nobody has an exact forecast model of any specific decade.
But we certainly haven’t returned to 1970s temperature regimes either. It’s a statis at best. But in that statis most of the monitored glaciers are still retreating. Record Arctic melt. Strong trend. Drought frequency is up. Stratosphere is cooling. Western Antarctic glaciers are speeding up. Just a few. So where’s your comparative list of pros and cons. I would have thought in a statis and not a decline it would be one-all at best. Neither confirmed nor denied for your true skeptic.
But what are you going to do if drought returns in the same frequency we’ve seen since the 1990s.
What if the warming returns. My “prediction” is you will modify your position – it will be “oh we can easily adapt – she’ll be right mate” and/or “global cooling began in 2015”.
In the mean time, are you going to tell our farmers to “relax”. IPA best science advice for climate risk management is just “chill” dudes. Best advice to Treasury on $100Ms of drought relief – “just chill” guys.
And it’s AGW “soon to be discredited” eh? A bit of doubt creeping in perhaps. Hand trembling over the big red launch button.
Why not get the gang together – full page press release, make the forecast and “call it” !! Bob took the punt soon after 1998 and he’s been right so far.
So surely you guys are very confident – feeling lucky? You’ve got Roy’s paper. Go on ….
But surely you guys also must wonder why you’re having zero impact on national and global policy. It’s all just racing along towards the carbon economy. Talkie talks in Thailand going full steam ahead. Why on this issue are you bouncing off? Even Brendan’s on board.
What’s the problem. Serious question? CSIRO and AGO too tough to crack or ?
Paul has no problem listing 3 separate theories. No worries at all. But if it had the word CO2 anywhere – a priori it would be wrong. I wonder why?
Beware the ides of the cycles …..
Luke – since when has climate change only involved a single factor? Tsonis et al pointed out that rises in GHG could be superimposed on their climate shifts. I mentioned the sensitivity of climate to CO2 being lower than claimed in flawed computer models. There are clearly internal and external climate forcings. If you think that they can be manipulated to give desired local and global temperatures, the desired level of rainfall, the desired amount of ice/sea ice etc, then you are deluding yourself. A fossil fuel reliant developed and developing world can’t even manipulate atmospheric CO2.
Roy Spencer has two important papers with findings that should be incorporated into climate models, so that they do a much better job of representing the real climate system.
Luke, How are you going with Aysley Kellow’s book? It answers some of your questions – if you read to the end. And note the subtitle of the book “the virtuous corruption of virtual environmental science”.
Luke: “But we certainly haven’t returned to 1970s temperature regimes either. It’s a statis at best. But in that statis most of the monitored glaciers are still retreating. Record Arctic melt. Strong trend. Drought frequency is up. Stratosphere is cooling. Western Antarctic glaciers are speeding up.”
Why are the 1970-temperatures the right ones? Why are all the NATURAL changes you list wrong or dangerous (or even both)? Couldn’t it be that it is just NATURE. They can be inconvenient, but that’s life.
Droughts, heath waves, cooling, warming? In my opinion; just NATURE. Nature just responding to anomalies in weather, climate or any other (unknown) sources.
Droughts? Shit happens! As shit happens to anybody of us from time to time. Farmers know they have to cope with droughts from time to time. And they do, sometimes with more, sometimes with less success.
So why would you believe Tsonis’s model or GCR theories either. It’s all just preference more than analysis.
Why should Spencer’s work be incorporated into climate models. Can you show it’s global applicability?
And appears that the IPA has no advice for farmers except “chill out”.
“Just Nature” …. hmmm – what is “Nature” – I don’t think so – there quite a few spare petajoules loose somewhere.
“Nature” is just soooo unsatisfying as a concept.
“Shit happening” is also unsatisfactory. For a start we know half the “shit” comes from ENSO and and some other random “shit” from IPO, IOD and SAM. Major land degradation events in Australia are traced back to “shit happening”. Like down to the B soil horizon in the Gascoyne (or Central Australia, or NSW Western Division, SW Qld or the Burdekin) . And some evidence that global warming is/will give us more “shit”. So basically there’s a lot of “shit” going on.
See Jen’s right – endless drought (except for the wet bits). 🙂
And you’ll find multi-year droughts don’t get coped with. If they coped we would not have zillions going out in drought relief support by the States and Commonwealth. On the old 1 in 20 method many farmers have had their quota of drought support for the next 200 years.
IPA are paying from here on.
And GMB wants to know who’s tax-eating?
Just for the record, only Luke is suggesting Spencer’s work be incorporated into the current models.
I’ve already written – that the real climate is too complex to effectively model.
Also for the record, I have never advocated drought assistance or not.
And the IPA is just a family of thinkers many of whom would often suggest that the best contribution that government could make would be to butt out/chill out.
Luke – I’m intrigued by how you intend to control rainfall and over what timescale?
Meanwhile, here’s today’s CCNet:
AS PROSPECTS FOR CO2 REDUCTIONS FADE, INTEREST IN GEOENGINEERING RISES
———————————————————————-
Gregory Benford thinks Al Gore’s a good guy and all, but he also thinks the star of “An Inconvenient Truth” is a little delusional.
–Elizabeth Svoboda, Salon, 2 April 2008
I never believed we were going to be able to thwart global warming through carbon restriction. Carbon restriction requires nations to subvert short- and midterm goals for a long-term goal they’ve read about online, and that’s just not going to work.
–Gregory Benford, University of California, 2 April 2008
I know of no realistic person who thinks carbon dioxide emissions are going to do anything but grow. Most European countries are not meeting their emissions goals, and of the ones that have, it’s because their economies are collapsing. In the United States, this notion that we’re going to reduce our emissions by 80 percent is pure fantasy.
–Pete Geddes, Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, 2 April 2008
Even with the most assertive emissions-reduction targets, we’re not talking about a real reduction in CO2 levels, we’re talking a reduction in the rate of growth. Either we have to question the nature of industrial society, or we have to consider other solutions.
–Jay Michaelson, Boston University, 2 April 2008
Londoners do seem to have to be dragged to the climate change trough. Eco Soundings notes that of more than 30,000 businesses worldwide that signed up to turn their lights off for “Earth hour” on Saturday, only 14 were from the capital – compared with nearly 100 in Fiji.
–John Vidal, The Guardian, 2 April 2008
Painstakingly tough negotiations on how to fight climate change are getting even harder as concerns mount that the global economy is heading into recession. Even when the economic outlook looked brighter, the United States led criticism that the existing Kyoto Protocol’s requirements on cutting greenhouse gases would prove too costly for rich countries. “There’s no question it’s going to make enacting climate policy more difficult,” said Angela Anderson.
–AFP, 2 April 2008
Alan Oxley, a former Australian ambassador who leads the pro-globalisation group World Growth, said that green technologies were not yet economically viable. “If we try and engineer a new economy, we would have the same success as the Soviet communist party,” he said. “The concern about a general slowdown in the economy should be a good wake-up call for climate change negotiators to factor in the reality of the global economy,” he said.
–AFP, 2 April 2008
Welcome to the apocalypse auction, where experts and authorities bid up their pet threats to public safety. In competing to win headlines, they all seem to lose a sense of perspective. As they compete to make a media impact, experts raise the scaremongering stakes ever higher. New research even claims that mobile phones are “more dangerous than smoking”. (Maybe they’ll ban mobiles in public…) The likely results of this my-risk’s-bigger-than-yours talk will be to raise public anxieties further – and lower public trust in anything that officials say.
–Mick Hume, The Times, 2 April 2008
Well Jen that’s helpful. So after all this discussion you have no idea what the climate is doing. Although you are enamored with Spencer’s paper – the consequences of that paper are “unknown” to you as any projection requires some sort of “model” – mental or computer. And we can’t model so we don’t know. So we don’t know whether we’re cooling, warming or wiggling, drying or wetting. We’re just beetling along.
And farmers left to themselves with government butting out on any planning, occasionally bailing, has degraded huge tracts of land and consumed vast amounts of support funding. No view on climate risk management or drought policy from the IPA – just let-er rip ! And let it keep ripping. No recommendations as to invest or retreat. Just flip a coin.
But strangely are interested in Murray irrigation issues, where public money has built massive water resources infrastructure. Perhaps government should have “butted out”. Then it would have run dry.
Luke: “Stratosphere is cooling.”
Really? When was the last you looked at a graph of stratospheric temperatures? 15 years ago?
Must have been!(See Figure 7, Ch. TLS)
http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html#msu_decadal_trends
How inconvenient!
Oh – and please, none of you AGW proponents should embarass yourselves by referring to the strongly downward trendline that is highlighted on the figure I referenced. This is clearly driven by the spikes in stratospheric temperature in the first half of the graph due to the El Chichon and Pinatubo eruptions in 1982 and 1991 respectively and has nothing to do with any significant underlying cooling.
Luke, when you have finished Kellow’s book you might start to read some of the classic liberal thinkers (Friedman/Hayek). yes, as hard as it is to believe, we are often much better off without big government and others who want to plan a future for us including through the fanciful notion of climate control.
Oh and please – rub those periods out and it makes no difference. If it’s a solar influence where’s the strong upper atmosphere warming signal?
In any case, the lower stratosphere is the only part of the stratosphere and MSU isn’t the only measuring device. SSU gives a cooling mid stratosphere trend over 25 years.
Shine, K. P., J. J. Barnett, and W. J. Randel
(2008), Temperature trends derived from Stratospheric Sounding
Unit radiances: The effect of increasing CO2 on the weighting
function, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L02710,
Ramaswamy et al. illustrates distinct declines at 50km. Reviews of Geophysics, 39, 1 / February 2001
pages 71–122
And indeed the whole upper atmosphere seems to be undergoing significant changes – cooling and contracting – above the stratosphere.
Science 24 November 2006:
Vol. 314. no. 5803, pp. 1253 – 1254
Global Change in the Upper Atmosphere
J. Laštovička,1 R. A. Akmaev,2 G. Beig,3 J. Bremer,4 J. T. Emmert5
Life on Earth is affected more directly by climate change near the surface than in the upper atmosphere. However, as the story of Earth’s ozone layer illustrates, changes higher up in the atmosphere can also be important. In 1989, Roble and Dickinson (1) predicted that rising greenhouse gas concentrations should affect atmospheric climate in the highest reaches of the atmosphere. Since then, upper atmospheric data have been combed for evidence of long-term trends. A coherent pattern is now beginning to emerge.
Mark – try harder….
Yes all fascinating Jen – but back on the science what’s your opinion of those major papers on water vapour that I listed. Surely if you’re now broadcasting to the entire blogosphere on water vapour you’d be aware of recent mainstream research in the area. Surely you wouldn’t just be winging it. What’s your opinion?
And what’s your case for extrapolating Spencer’s work.
That is really rich, Luke. You work for the loathesome Qld Natural Resources mafia and you cry crocodile tears for the farmers who might be left “high and dry”. Is this your casual dress day when you all leave the jackboots at home?
You are right, Jen, he is clearly rattled. And he knows we have long memories.
So lets just rattle your daggs with one more question, Lukey.
The total of manmade CO2 emissions is significantly less than the sum of the annual increases in atmospheric CO2. So how can the IPCC be anywhere near 90% certain that human emissions are the sole contributor to brief pre-1941 and pre-1992 temperature rises when human emissions don’t even make up 90% of the increase in atmospheric CO2?
Wrong on two counts – I don’t work for the mafia and the IPCC didn’t say that at all. Join GMB as unrepresentative opinionated swill.
Luke, As I’ve said previously, given your comments to me that there are more important and more mainstream work on water vapour than Spencers – send me a summary and links and I’ll post the same as a new thread.
Luke,
It’s you that needs to try harder. I was talking about since 1994 not a 25 year trend. It’s pretty obvious there’s been a cooling since El Chichon blew its top in 1982!
I looked at a bunch of Ramaswamy’s stuff and it didn’t show any data past the early 1990’s.
And NOAA is quite content to state that the lower stratosphere shows us signs of global warming due to cooling but its own graph shows no trend after 1994.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2006/ann/global.html
C’mon Luke. Give us a link to any graph or data that specifically shows a cooling trend in the stratosphere (lower, middle or upper) since the mid 1990’s.
Oh and as to you gibe about solar should be warming the stratosphere. You need to do your homework boy – if it’s non-irradiance effects that drive an enhanced solar effect (i.e. modulation of cloud levels), that ain’t going to show up in the stratospheric signal.
Ian,
“The total of manmade CO2 emissions is significantly less than the sum of the annual increases in atmospheric CO2. So how can the IPCC be anywhere near 90% certain that human emissions are the sole contributor to brief pre-1941 and pre-1992 temperature rises when human emissions don’t even make up 90% of the increase in atmospheric CO2?”
This is totally wrong.
Actually human’s contribute about 200% of the yearly increase in CO2. The other half get’s absorbed by the oceans; hence the oceans level of CO2 is rising. This is a problem, because as the oceans warm they lose their capacity to store CO2 and will eventually stop absorbing and start emitting on their own.
Fig 4 Shine et al (2008) GRL 1979-1997 – Wot’s wrong with that !
“if it’s non-irradiance effects that drive an enhanced solar effect” IF!! did you say IF !!!! You mean magic – we’re not sure … but it sounds good stuff. ROTFL
And there’s more than temperature – Thermal contraction of the upper atmosphere should result in a downward displacement of ionospheric layers. Laštovička and Bremer reviewed long-term trends in the lower ionosphere and found a positive trend in electron density at fixed heights, consistent with downward displacement
Try to keep up Mark.
Bollocks, T. Tell us what the total human emissions have been each year for the past 40 years and we will reconcile them with Mauna Loa.
Ok, Ian. Lets look to the journals for some answers…
I found this one pretty quickly:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/305/5682/367
“Using inorganic carbon measurements from an international survey effort in the 1990s and a tracer-based separation technique, we estimate a global oceanic anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) sink for the period from 1800 to 1994 of 118 ± 19 petagrams of carbon. The oceanic sink accounts for 48% of the total fossil-fuel and cement-manufacturing emissions, implying that the terrestrial biosphere was a net source of CO2 to the atmosphere of about 39 ± 28 petagrams of carbon for this period. The current fraction of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions stored in the ocean appears to be about one-third of the long-term potential. ”
So in the period 1880 to 1994 Humans emitted 118 petagrams. The terrestrial biosphere (ie nature) emitted 39 petagrams…
So humans contributed about 3 times the volume that nature did. And of that volume, according to this study, 48% went into the oceans (apparently filling them to 33% of their capacity), the rest into the atmosphere. Now remember before we started making it, the CO2 level had remained pretty constant at about 280 for a long time, and in fact hadn’t been above 280ppm for millions of years. This shows that the terrestrial input was pretty well balanced with the biosphere’s uptake of CO2. This means the excess CO2 we create is what is accumulating in the air. It has gone from 280 ppm to 380ppm, and almost all of that is from the emissions humans have made (either through industry, land clearing, or farming animals).
Here’s the Article from Science
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/308/5729/1743c
So we don’t need to reconcile them with Mauna Loa, as we know where the CO2 comes from.
Where did you source your information?
Ian,
You could read this book too
http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=OkCnnMiXFMUC&oi=fnd&pg=PA53&dq=Anthropogenic+carbon+dioxide+estimate&ots=v2CXD2NTdQ&sig=dNCACsmbkBTA1n-fLsGqoGYp768#PPA54,M1
And of course there is Chapter 2 of this little number…
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch02.pdf
Luke: Fig 4 Shine et al (2008) GRL 1979-1997 – Wot’s wrong with that !
Um, we’re focused on the period from 1994 onward so 1979-1997 doesn’t cut it!
And give us a link next time will ya! That way everyone can quickly see whether there’s really anything behind your bluster!
Are we?
Can’t you use Google Scholar – full GRL reference is above – should take you all of 20 seconds.
And as for bluster pasting undocumented unpublished pencilled-in diagrams on some web site isn’t science Mark. You may not realise that. Frankly all we’ve seen from you is hand waving.
Obviously have Luke cornered on this. Like many other times he can’t produce the goods. Ante up boy!
Hell, I’ll even take a “hand-drawn” graph if you can give me data references!
Mark stop laying smoke and hand waving – read the paper. I assume you’re familiar with the weighting functions used on those sorts of data – without which it’s a waste of time even looking at raw data.
Luke: Look boy you’re the one who claimed the stratosphere is cooling! You didn’t say the stratosphere is cooling according to weighted function analysis. Weighted functions indeed. Show me the plot from 1994 to 2008 with the weighted fundtions then. Not some other diagram which is meaningless to the discussion at hand.
Everytime I hear this debate and Al Gore’s name comes up, I recall his story about his dad stripping down to the waste to pull a cow out of the mud of a flooded fast moving creek. Didn’t even need to tie his rope to a truck. Growing up a rancher’s son, I actually pulled cows and sheep out of the mud from dirt tanks that had gotten low. It can’t be done by hand, at least with a cow. If he were Catholic, that man couldn’t tell the truth in a confessional booth. And I don’t think he’s that different from many in the school of “Oh, Baby, It’s HOT Outside”.
It’s a classic tactic. Gen up a scare to get people to do this or that. Please, the world is not going to collapse if we don’t don’t act now (or within the next 10 years).
The sun’s been very quite lately. A quite sun is highly correlated to cold weather in the past (even if no one wants to admit exactly how). If it stays quite, we’ll have a good test over the next 10 years – CO2, the sun, or something else.
Sigh – all analyses for all these data have weighting functions. Surely you know that? For heavens sake. Read the paper.
Mark, most people acknowledge the stratosphere is cooling… I didn’t think that was in doubt.
I am familiar with these papers, Mr T but an estimate going back to 1880 is not very reliable. Of much more relevance is the more recent annual increments in the Mauna Loa atmospheric CO2 levels that do not reconcile with reported human emissions and claimed ocean absorption rates.
During the 1990s the decadal change from annual peak to peak CO2 readings at Mauna Loa was 1.55ppm while the annual trough to trough reading was 1.48ppm. One ppm amounts to about 5.23Gt of CO2 so the annual increase over the decade was in the order of 8.1Gt/year CO2. And this is consistent with reported human emissions during the same period.
But wait, if half of all emissions are absorbed by oceans then an 8.1Gt increase in atmospheric CO2 would need 16.2Gt of human emissions.
But when we look at specific years we see that there is much greater variation in the rate of atmospheric increase that is not matched by human emissions which are relatively stable.
In 1997 the increase from the trough of 1996 to the trough of 1997 was only 0.73ppm which equates to only 3.8Gt. And if this represents the half that was not absorbed by oceans then the total human emissions must have been 7.6Gt.
In the 1998 El Nino the increase was 3.71ppm which equates to 19.4Gt. And if this represents the half that was not absorbed by oceans then the total human emissions would have been a massive 38.8Gt or 500% of reported human emissions.
In 1999 the increase was back down at 0.73ppm which equates to 3.8Gt and implies a total human emissions of 7.6Gt as was the case in 1997.
The substantially shallower trough in the CO2 data in 1998 was not matched by the peak to peak data for that year. This increase was only 2.5ppm, still 13Gt for an implied total of 26Gt but that still leaves an anomalous 12.8Gt.
And it is my understanding that CO2 emissions are diffused through the atmosphere fairly quickly so this part of the increase in atmospheric CO2 levels must have come from some other source. There is certainly no theoretical basis for such a large volume of human emissions to hide under a rock for a year before venturing forth into the atmosphere.
Furthermore, if this were a simple discharge of oceanic CO2 that was released due to the higher temperatures of the El Nino year then we would also observe a corresponding reduction the following year when temperatures dropped and more CO2 could be absorbed by oceans.
But this is not the case. The rate of CO2 accumulation simply returns to normal levels that are consistent with the level of human emissions.
The most plausible explanation for this phenomena is that the dryer weather during an El Nino is limiting vegetation’s capacity to absorb CO2 in these years and the resulting absorption deficit is being accumulated in the atmosphere over time.
And one can only conclude that a significant portion of the increase in atmospheric CO2 is being put there by cyclical changes in ENSO. That is, it is part of the normal cyclical range of variation in this key climate driver.
Ian, you should probably also look at the corresponding reduction in O2 from the atmosphere. It is clear that the increase in CO2 is match by a decrease in O2, which implies the additional CO2 is from combustion of carbon, not stored CO2 being released.
Also note the use of isotopic data, carbon from fossil fuels has a different isotopic signature.
I’ll read around and see what I can find on estimates of volumes of anthropogenic CO2.
Mr T, “It is clear that the increase in CO2 is match by a decrease in O2”
The CO2 + stuff Cstuff + O2 (bein lazy)
is not the only source of atmospheric O2 there is also UV initiated dissociation of H2O in the upper atmosphere, there is some thought by some that it’s our original source of free O2, whether true this bit is true or not I don’t know but the dissociation does go on. This will be a cause of some imbalance in the variations of CO2 and O2.
Mr T: Mark, most people acknowledge the stratosphere is cooling… I didn’t think that was in doubt.
Let us go back to my original statement:
Luke: “Stratosphere is cooling.”
Really? When was the last you looked at a graph of stratospheric temperatures? 15 years ago?
Must have been!(See Figure 7, Ch. TLS)
http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html#msu_decadal_trends
How inconvenient!
To interpret for the AGW dunderheads:
There has been no sign of a cooling stratosphere since 1993. Yes before that there was but since 1993 CO2 levels are up 11% but there has been no further reduction in stratospheric temperature. Look at the link I gave!
Luke then comes back about the middle and upper atmosphere trends. Wow a chart of the average trend from 1979 to 1997! That really enlightens us about the trend from 1993 to 2008. Nice air ball Luke!
Sigh – MSU is seeing troposphere in that. Not a worthy instrument and doesn’t measure the cooler higher levels.
Anyway I’ll stop teasing – here’s a free kick for you and the definitive story (well almost)
Watch this http://ams.confex.com/ams/15isa14m/techprogram/paper_125889.htm audio not the best
So don’t say I don’t share. You’ll love it as it helps your argument no end.
However stratosphere has cooled over time and prior volcanism issues.
However the “weighting function” paper probably changes all this. No fair says Mark.
Yep debatable.
Thanks for the video Luke. You wonder why they make it hard to get at the SSU results until you see them. I’ve made it much easier for everyone by capturing a key screen shot:
http://www.geocities.com/mcmgk/SSU.jpg
What do we see Luke? No cooling in any of the stratospheric levels since 1994! In fact, maybe even a slight warming. Now you can go on about this so called weighting function and the impact of CO2 but even they don’t appear to have a clue as to what it’s all about hence in their summary at the end:
We have low (no?) confidence in trends derived from the SSU data (hence we have vitually no confidence in stratospheric trends above ~50 hPa).
Kind of blows you out of the water doesn’t it Luke.
So what do we have?
1) No warming at the surface for at least a decade.
2) No warming in the troposphere for at least a decade
3) No cooling in the stratosphere for over a decade.
Change of sports analogies
Strike three you’re out!!!
Or maybe we should use tennis!!!
Game
Set
Match!
nope – read my last comments. You missed it. The weighting functions are important which steepen the negative trend. But alas Shine (2008) didn’t go to 2007 in his analysis.
But I provided the video in full knowledge of what you’d say. It’s the science after all !
But you need to also concede my original point that the stratosphere had cooled like the troposhere had warmed. The earliest data pre-volcanism were much higher.
To be fair you should also concede that the ionosphere had contracted in height (well as per a paper above) and that the higher stratosphere temperature drops were steeper.
All very far from game set and match. Almost a call for new rules. And a new game.
Both troposphere and stratosphere (and ionosphere) behaved as you would hypothesise for greenhouse – then in the last few years a “statis” has been reached. Although we should look at the global spatial trends too.
So if you are fair dinkum as I have been in bringing fire down on my own position – you would at least concede this is a complex story.
AGW is not about winning and losing – we just want to know the answer !
(I’m on the road currently so not blogging much)
Enjoy gloating. There are lots of other good climate videos on those sites. Like http://ams.confex.com/ams/87ANNUAL/wrfredirect.cgi?id=6473
Yes I’ll concede it is a complex story. But your original statement was “Stratosphere is cooling” not as you put it just above as the “Stratosphere had cooled”. There’s a big difference!
Mark, look at these data (specfically the very bottom of the page)
http://www.remss.com/msu/msu_data_description.html
You can see clearly that the stratosphere has continued to cool. Please update your graps, as they end in 2004.
Luke, how could you let him do that to you? The graphs he posted ended in 2004!
Not quite with you Mr T.
The snapshot Mark made was from the Webex seminar I linked to above. The upper SSU stratosphere data are the most significant. Free from volcanism – anyway the stratosphere has cooled but the cooling appears to have bottomed out. Researchers themselves have said this too. I believe that’s all the data they have worked up.
Watch this http://ams.confex.com/ams/15isa14m/techprogram/paper_125889.htm audio not the best
Why this has happened we don’t know.
Luke, thank you for being honest on this. As for Mr. T, he shows just the opposite. What a twit – he’s showing exactly the same link I did originally that demonstrates no cooling trend in the lower stratosphere since 1993! And as to the trend line . . . As I pointed out earlier in this thread, it’s driven by the early part of the data record – most notably the volcanic driven spikes!!
Partially disagree – pre-volcanic temperatures (start of time series) are much higher than now & the high stratosphere with no volcanic blips has definitely cooled as per AGW theory – and a contracting ionosphere. So I believe we did have an early effect regardless of volanoes but current levels are statis – highest level SSU being the best indicator IMO.
I suggest Mr T hasn’t had time to review the Webex video seminar yet. Without which it’s more ambiguous. One needs to also see the SSU data.
Anyway it is important to get the science correct. And despite what you may thought hitheto I spend a fair bit of time researching all issues AGW. (now as a hobby)