IT is my prediction that in not so many years time weather station data will be collected more for fun, a sense of history and for site-specific information, than for serious regional and global climate statistics. In the future it will be data from satellites that is recognised as much more reliable for understanding regional and global temperature trends.
The recent debacle with the global temperature data set compiled by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) from thousands of thermometers in little white boxes all over the world will probably hasten the transition from a primary reliance on thermometer to satellite data.
While we have known for some time, including through the work of Anthony Watts, that many weather stations are poorly maintained and positioned in wrong places – including next to air conditioning outlets on bitumen – the recent GISS saga indicates how subjective the system of compilation can be. Indeed it appears that when Australia sends data in late, rather than wait, the team in New York might be inclined to best guess based on last month’s pattern and climatology.
A problem for those who have hitched their careers to claims that global temperatures will continue to rise is that the satellite data is much less subject to manipulation in favour of confirmation bias.
The latest UAH global temperature data from the satellites, with a trend line added from Klockarman, shows temperatures have gone down a total of 0.37° F. (or 0.205° C.) since the movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was released at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2006.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Your final point, Jen, is a very important one. The climatistas are so immersed in modelling “scarenarios” that they no longer understand the concept of a “record of fact”, let alone the reasons they are required. When we have a situation where the global mean temp back in 2005 is still being “corrected” in late 2008 there is obviously a problem with data integrity.
Yet, at the same time, we are given temperature series like the one above which is used as the primary indicator of anthropogenic impacts but which continues to exclude the much more significant impacts of the El Chichon and Mt Pinatubo eruptions which produce a temperature series that has absolutely zero correlation with the climate muddles.
Note also from the graph that our current global mean temperature is exactly what it was in October 1979. And if we accept that it was entirely natural cyclical variation that has returned our temperature to the level it was in 1979 then by what perverted logic can the warm-mongers claim that the intervening temperature rise was purely human induced?
So if it goes up it is human induced and if it goes down it is natural? Yeah, right.
Thanks Ian.
Though I think I need to modify my above prediction to refer just to ‘regional’ and ‘global’ climate stats. There will continue to be a real need for locality specific data from quality weather stations. Trends from a few specific sites, should probably be reported, in the future, along with the regional and global data from the satellites.
I have just modified the first paragraph of this post to include reference to site-specific information.
Indeed there is no reason why one of the Central England weather stations with the continuous record back to 1659 (is it Rothamsted, Malvern, Squires Gate or Ringway) could not become one of several reference stations in the same way carbon dioxide is reported for Mauna Loa.
Hello? It’s the trend that matters, not one point in time.
I defy any rational, sane person to look at that chart and tell me that the overall trend since about 1985 is not clearly upward.
Talk about missing the wood for the trees.
“Your final point, Jen, is a very important one. The climatistas are so immersed in modelling “scarenarios” that they no longer understand the concept of a “record of fact”, let alone the reasons they are required. When we have a situation where the global mean temp back in 2005 is still being “corrected” in late 2008 there is obviously a problem with data integrity.”
Let me put this to you as simply and clearly as possible, Ian. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
“IT is my prediction that …”
Got any data or models that might back up you speculation?
“those who have hitched their careers”
Could we have some evidence to back up this libel on the reputations of hard working scientists all over the globe?
So this is what’s the blog is left with. Brief, ill considered attacks based on a whim. Perhaps if you did some actual work you might actually get some traction.
Show us the difference between RSS UAH and GISS… What is the real difference?
The history of RSS and UAH is one of cooperation rather than antagonism; not so with GISS which is secretive and esoteric; GISS simply is out of step with the other indices, even the land-based ones;
http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/ipcc-falsifies-gavin.gif
And while it may be the case that when a standard base period is applied to all the indices some correlation of trend occurs, it remains a fact that GISS uses a different base period and unrevealed processes of adjustment to correct raw data, which as Watts has adequately shown, is dubious in the first instance. The killer for AGW though, is if one looks at the 20thC temp trends just using GISS then even then there is no consistency with AGW theory or predictions.
Cohenite,
“it remains a fact that GISS uses a different base period and unrevealed processes of adjustment to correct raw data,”
Ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaa
Ok Cohenite, which base period came first? GISS or everyone else?
And of course because the processes are ‘unrevealed’ they are bad!
Country Boy: So are you saying that the upward trend from 1985 to present is caused only by anthropogenic greenhouse gases? Afraid not. There was a step change in global temperature as a result of the 1997/98 El Nino. It was maintained at the elevated temperature by the subsequent El Nino events in 2002/03, 2004/05, 2006/07, without an opposing La Nina since 2002 until 2007/08. If there is an anthropogenic component in there somewhere, it’s not discernable.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/08/did-9798-el-nino-cause-step-change-in.html
Perhaps Al Gore did have an effect then! A matter of hot air in the right place and time?
Bob, your graphs show an upward gradient prior to 1998, and the inflection at 1998 is less than the original slope of the graph. This original slope could easily represent AGW. You are also assuming there is no relationship between El Nino and AGW. This is a an assumption that you may need to reconsider in the future.
Countryboy, NT, SJT and Luke (who will soon be here) look at http://woodfortrees.org/notes#wti it shows all the information about satellite measurements you could want. My reading of it is that the world temperature has been static at about 0.4 since 2000 until about the last 12 months. Since then it has dropped so much we are approaching 1980 levels. The whole record is badly out of sync with GCMs. Please try and explain why it is so low. I am changing over coal fired heating and buying a SUV because I want things to warm up.
Slagging of and offering dumb arguments does not help your cause. All it does is confirm the view that you are evangelists without one independent thought amongst you.
Except for Luke, I seldom mess with you fellas, but NT, this is just ludicrous: ***which base period came first? GISS or everyone else?*** I’m not trying to pick a fight, but that one was just too infantile.
You know, we all know, that the trend line is just a game. Let me pick the beginning and ending dates for the anomaly baseline/base period, and then the beginning date for the comparison (ending can be current time), and we can prove anything. Up, down, and all around is possible.
BTW, what makes 1850 magic for Hadley, or 1880 for GISS, or 1979 magic for RSS/UAH? I guess that’s when climate started? God, protect us from the “true” believers for they will always misrepresent. [Whether they know any better or not!]
BTW, which part of the scientific method supports “unrevealed” processes over transparency?
CoRev
GISS was developed in the mid to late 70s, and once it started it chose (arbitrarily) 19510-1980 as a base period. The point is that the base periods chosen by other systems hadn’t even happened yet.
“You know, we all know, that the trend line is just a game. Let me pick the beginning and ending dates for the anomaly baseline/base period, and then the beginning date for the comparison (ending can be current time), and we can prove anything. Up, down, and all around is possible.”
This is simply wrong. It’s not a game. The base period is an arbitrary choice designed so that you can see trends against the base period.
“BTW, what makes 1850 magic for Hadley, or 1880 for GISS, or 1979 magic for RSS/UAH? I guess that’s when climate started? ”
This is similarly stupid. Those dates are the start dates for the datasets. We didn’t have data for prior to 1979 for the satellites, because they weren’t in orbit. Also note that RSS and UAH actually use several different satellites at different times. So the satellite that measures today is not the same as the one used in 1979.
The whole point of Jennifers post is to assert that UAH and RSS are superior to GISS and Hadley. THAT is infantile. And Cohenite’s suggestion (and your repeated claim) that there is a problem with GISS because they have a different base period is equally infantile.
Why don’t you go and find out the base periods for each and explain why they chose that period rather than this pointless blather that it is “Just a game”.
As to whether the process is unrevealed, I don’t know. Have you actually looked or are you parroting what you read on a blog somewhere?
DHMO
“My reading of it is that the world temperature has been static at about 0.4 since 2000 until about the last 12 months. Since then it has dropped so much we are approaching 1980 levels.”
Ummm what data set are you using?
Not sure why it was moderated out earlier, but Bob your graph shows a positive slope prior to 1998, and that slope continues after (with an upward jump) – Should you not consider that the initial slope is AGW?
Also make sure you state your assumptions. In this case you are assuming El Nino has no relationship to AGW.
The usual fluff from the gratuitous planetary salvationists but the simple fact remains, the global mean today is the same as it was in 1979. Ergo, the “warming” that was observed over the past three decades is no longer present. It has been cancelled. To quote John Cleese, it is an “ex-warming”.
That cancellation may prove to be temporary but that does not alter the fact that, in 2008, it has been cancelled. That is what a historical record of fact does. It is like stock prices, get used to it.
It is also a fact that this cancellation of past warming has taken place without any adjustment in CO2 levels. So it must be entirely of natural origin. And if the natural adjustment in temperature is of a scale that can completely negate all the observed past warming since 1979 then it is clear that the observed warming remained within the natural range of variation.
Game, set and match.
Patrick B said “Could we have some evidence to back up this libel on the reputations of hard working scientists all over the globe?”
Dr. Stephen Schneider, Discovery Magazine 1989
“On the one hand we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but…which means that we must include all the doubts, caveats, ifs and buts.
On the other hand, we are not just scientists, but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we have to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” which we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”
Now just search for any of the James Hansen’s suppressed 1400+ news conferences 🙂
James Hansen before the Iowa Utilities Board, 2007:
“If we cannot stop the building of more coal-fired power plants, those coal trains will be death trains – no less gruesome than if they were boxcars headed to crematoria, loaded with uncountable irreplaceable species.”
No alarmism there……..
Jennifer,
Your prediction is already happening:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2711
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/06/weather-stations-disappearing-worldwide/
http://climate.geog.udel.edu/~climate/html_pages/Ghcn2_images/air_loc.mpg
More here:
http://climatesci.org/2008/08/11/guest-weblog-a-comment-on-the-report-unified-synthesis-product-global-climate-change-in-the-united-states-by-joseph-d-aleo/
And we’re supposed to believe surface station data are “spot on”?
BTW, how many satellites were in use in 1935?
Who cares about which base period was selected first? Let me select it. Let me select the start date for the study period, and there will be unequivocal warming/cooling/or both.
Well its groundhog day and NT has been on the sarsparilla; all this nonsense about base periods and their shonkiness has been done before;
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003303.html#comments
WFR in their notes describe and compare all the indices after they have been weighted to adjust for the fact their beginnings are in different temperature periods; but this is still an adjustment which is related to means of the various anomalous overlap periods; it doesn’t consider the underlying climate phases which are determing those temperature anomalies; NT says “This original slope could easily represent AGW”; well actually that has been tested;
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/10/temperature-trends-and-carbon-dioxide-a-note-from-cohenite/#comments
The Douglass and Christy paper, after adjustments for ENSO, Volcanoes and solar shows a miniscule AGW effect; this has done for the period 1979-2008; lucia showed that for the period 2001-2008 with ENSO removed there was a cooling effect; that is, AGW was cooling; noone has explained that away; when you combine this with the Tsonis and McLean and Quirk papers describing the 1976 GPCS and the beginning of the +PDO or extended El NIno, and the White and Cayan paper describing how temperature trends can be created by ENSO, which Bob has graphed as well, AGW becomes superflous.
NT I asked a clear question you have chosen not to answer. Where would you put yourself lay preacher?
DHMO
it’s was a stupid question. I am no lay preacher.
Cohenite
You claimed there was something shonky in the choice of Base period.
Tell me, does GISS see a problem? Does Hadley? Do the people who run RSS see a problem? Does UAH? Have any of those organisations published there is some serious problem over the choice of base period? It’s just stupid Cohenite.
When you look at the data, there’s no difference. What is the difference you are looking at? How is GISS so vastly different?
All of those papers and blog posts assumes there is no relationship between ENSO and AGW. Why would you assume that?
Hey have you finally decide if CO2 must be correlated with temp yet?
All you can do is desperately scramble about to look for ANYTHING that shows there is no greenhouse effect. It’s desperate and funny.
Jennifer…if you look at the graph around 2008, does it not seem to be settling back into the trend it had prior to the 1998 El Nino? The 2008 study by Tsonis et al has mathematically correlated all the oceanic oscillations, including ENSO, and they seem to have concluded that the oscillations couple and decouple over decades, producing a corresponding global warming and cooling. Lindzen claims that could account for all global warming over the past century.
That 1998 ENSO artifact seems to have had a rebound effect on world temperatures in the ensuing years, and it seems we’re headed back to a relative normal trend.
I haven’t seen Ian Schumaker around for a bit, but take a look at his normalized graph of your graph. It’s figure 5 on this page:
http://www.ianschumacher.com/global_warming.html
When we get away from the hysterics of a few tenths of a degree C in global warming, and adjust the vertices to a more normalized temperature, Ian’s figure 5 brings home what a stupid fuss we are making about nothing.
Yes Gordon, Ian’s summary is very useful and his fig 5 raises one of the irreparable faults with AGW; namely the temperature correlation with CO2, which not only doesn’t exist but temperature movements over the 20thC have been historically slight and far less than required by AGW; another of the dismal aspects of AGW is the dreaded ‘tipping point’; noted AGW authorities like Barton Paul and NT have assured us all that runnaway is an impossibility, which begs the question as to what a tipping point is if the apocalypse of runnaway is off the table.
Gordon,
This whole CO2 issue is nothing but scientific incompetence – it’s the geochemical equivalent of making much ado about variations of some measurements within the limit of detection – is if element A has a detection limit of 5ppm, then the statistics would involve arguments based on variations < 5ppm.
This is really technically sophisticated numerology.
“This whole CO2 issue is nothing but scientific incompetence – it’s the geochemical equivalent of making much ado about variations of some measurements within the limit of detection – is if element A has a detection limit of 5ppm, then the statistics would involve arguments based on variations < 5ppm.”
No, it’s nothing like that at all.
Here’s a hint Louis. Someone has already explained why you are wrong in a previous post in this thread.
NT I put to you that http://woodfortrees.org/notes#wti is shown all the information about satellite measurements you could want.
It shows HADCRUT3, GISTEMP, RSS and UAH all adjusted to the same base line. They give a .6 high in 1998 followed by a drop to .1 or lower in 2000. It jumps back to .4 in 2001 where it stays until about 2006. Then it drops until now where it is about .1 above 1980 levels.
I asked why:
1. The whole record is badly out of sync with GCMs.
2. and why it is so low.
Your answer? “Ummm what data set are you using?”
Conclusion any statement you make is based on profound ignorance exacerbated by religious zealotry which causes you to have no independent thought. You only repeat the mantra again and again. Some boulders I have met have more insight into world around them than yourself.
So SJT, NT et al have acknowledged nothing in over 12 months about the pea&thimble of time grabs.
The whole point of the disgraceful Mannian episodes was to attempt to demonstrate the globe was cooler than the present before satellite and other data were available to measure this. That attempt simply vanished up its own infirm fundamentals.
Now we see the AGW proponents trying to justify arbitrary, and deliberately biassed, time grabs on the basis of “no previous data”. Yet even if we accept their wholly arbitrary time slice of 30 years for a “climate” (and some may remember that the question of why 30 was never acknowledged let alone answered), the last decade of NON-warming is 33% of this … and 33% is a significant sample size.
If we try 60 years, the AGW position is even worse. Try 100 years, or 1000 years, as Mann attempted.
Straw men, donkeys and asses. Empirical data eventually modifies even the most elegant of theories. Cohenite is correct of course – this time grab tricky-dicky stuff has been done over and over. The facts don’t change and the AGW adherents continue to deny their significance.
Once again we see a thread and discussion based in error.
The satellites do not measure low level temperatures, they do not measure the poles, they do not measure mountain regions, and they are not one consistent satellite with one consistent sensor but a litany of sensors and satellites some of which overlapped for little more than a handful of weeks. Early version of these data were so bad that they couldn’t even get the temperature trend in the right direction, and even now the UAH product has a dodogie seasonal cycle. It was only after the RSS group looked at the UAH data that this was finally – almost – sorted out – not withstanding the big questions which remain over the merging of NOAA 10 and 11 (and uncertainity of about 0.1C), the crook seasonal cycle in the UAH product, the in-filling of data which doesn’t exists (over the Antarctic for example), and the failure to account for stratospheric cooling which gives a cold bias.
Despite these ongoing problems with the satellite data, the long term trend in the satellites and the surface data are the same to within uncertainties and ARE consistent with climate model simulations. This is based on peer reviewed science in real science journal by climate scientists. Not talking point on blogs and industry mags. The surface data and models have repeatedly revealed flaws in the satellite data – not the other way around.
Of course, if there really is an inconsistency between climate models, the satellite data and the surface data we would have already seen a reference to a real science paper. Instead we have E&E and the error ridden IJC 2007 paper which showed a misunderstanding of basic statistics and which used outdated data.
Hi David,
Can you let us know why the GISS data might have changed for Australia when it was initially thought the problem was with Russia, see http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/11/correcting-global-cooling-part-2/?cp=all
According to Bill Kininmonth:
“From Steve’s comments it appears that the Australian data were not in when GISS did the original analysis. It used to be normal practice for the Australian station summaries to be compiled in the National Climate Centre from field reports and sent as a block to GHCN, Asheville. Maybe the Melbourne Cup holiday meant the summary was late being dispatched. If that was the case, what was the basis for first guess field that, in the absence of real data, became the real solution. A mixture of last month’s pattern and climatology?”
Your thoughts?
David; you are disingenuous: “Despite these ongoing problems with the satellite data, the long term trend in the satellites and the surface data are the same to within uncertainties and ARE consistent with climate model simulations.”
Ignoring your nonsense about the satellites, the notion that ground based data is reliable is grotesque; they have to use Hurst scaling to achieve any semblance of consistency; and as both Watts and McIntyre have conclusively shown, the siting and methodology of ground based data collection is unreliable to say the least; then there is the issue with the concept of a GMST and last but not least from even a regional basis the GCM’s are useless; or have you forgotten Koutsoyiannis?
People here, despite being told a million times, still don’t seem to understand what GCM’s can and can’t do.
A GCM cannot tell you what is likely to happen in the short term.
A GCM cannot tell you what is likely to happen on a local scale.
Thank you.
Well, thank you Will; what a polite young man; if what you say is true, and I whole-heartedly agree, then why has AGW shanghied the GCM’s and used them for those very purposes. On another tact and I want to put this out there; if there is no chance increased CO2 will cause runnaway, and for NT’s benefit, let me define what I understand the AGW advocates mean by runnaway: Venus; if there is no runnaway, then what is a tipping point?
Cohenite,
Are you saying there are no problems with the satellite data?
Again you argue like a lawyer, the RSS and UAH data come from several different generations of satellites and there are all sorts of patch up jobs to make the data consistent.
And still you ignore the fact that the data basically show the same thing.
“the notion that ground based data is reliable is grotesque;”
Then why does it match so closely your precious satellite data? You are pushing the boundary of credibility Cohers…
Have you resolved how ENSO and AGW are unrelated? Your theory that recent warming can’t be attributed to AGW depends on there being no relationship between ENSO and AGW.
SJT,
It’s pointless, the bloggers here refuse to understand and simply indulge in point scoring. Cohenite has demonstrated a clear inability to understand with all his blathering about CO2 levels. We could repeat the answers an infinitum and he would still come back with “…Derrr but wad about da co2 level… It don match tha record..”
DHMO
“1. The whole record is badly out of sync with GCMs.
2. and why it is so low.”
1. I didn’t think it was ‘badly out of sync’ – and what models are you referring to?
2. I don’t know what you mean, in what way is it “so low”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/11/14/the-evolution-of-the-giss-temperature-product/
Leaving aside Davids’ religious fervour as to the sanctity of Peer Review, it would seem that his equally delusional faith in the reliability of the GISS ground based temp records, for example, is also shot full of holes.
Tell me David, just how is that if the GCM’s have been a catalyst for correcting the deficiencies/errors in other records, then why havnt they highlighted and had corrected the failures in organisation, process and design that have lead to the repeated publication of incompetent and unreliable outcomes,as highlighted at WUWT.
Or is it the case of one set of rubbish validating the other.
Whist you are about it, can you explain to the punters why it is that if the models are so soundly based upon peer revewed science as you repeatedly state, why is that they cant replicate any of the earths major climate oscillations to any reliable degree.
My understanding is that they do have the oscillations, but they are not the observed ones, that is, they happen at different times. Since oscillations don’t force the climate, that doesn’t matter.
NT; you are lapsing into condescension and name-calling; not pretty; and if I want non-sequiturs I’ll talk to Will; The satellites have been picked over with a fine tooth-comb; in their comparitive study Randall and Herman favour UAH but detail the faults of the satellites and the remedies which have been made;
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2007JD008864.shtml
And if you bother googling you will find a host of papers and studies dealing with the faults of the satellites and how improvements have been made starting with the paper by Christy, Spencer, Norris, Braswell and Parker in 2003; try and find equivalent studies and papers dealing with the manifest problems with GISS; oh, that’s right, there are none; that’s one ‘open mind’ you’ve got there NT.
Nor is it my fault that CO2, at best, follows temperature and more commonly appears to have no correlation with temperature at all; on this blog and elsewhere we have looked at how the AGW mechanism to explain how CO2 causes heating is deficient both theoretically and in terms of empirical verification; so it is not just the evidence but the theory of CO2 heating which is amiss; you don’t address these things; I think you are just here to insult; which is fine, I don’t mind a bit of slap and giggle but don’t get on your high horse and act all superior; that doesn’t wash.
SJT
You are right about GCM
“A GCM cannot tell you what is likely to happen in the short term.
A GCM cannot tell you what is likely to happen on a local scale.”
You just missed a couple
A GCM cannot tell you what is likely to happen in the long term.
A GCM cannot tell you what is likely to happen on a global scale.
In other words just a waste of time
They produce graphs of their virtual reality that has a detail in the short term and the CSIRO offers opinion of the future of local areas. All on the basis of GCM output.
The inability to exceed the blog drongo threshold has been well illustrated again by Cohenite and Mal – David has given you some very pertinent comments on issue with satellites. Reality all global measuring systems have issues. Go and read what he wrote again guys.
But it’s pretty basic isn’t it – CRU, GISS, UAH and RSS all tell basically the same trend story. GISS being higher having an Arctic component reflecting the last few years of temperatures and melting.
So all this utterly obsessive wiggle watching is really so tedious. And isn’t it great to have McIntyre working for free doing GISS’s error monitoring. Good use of his time. Keeps him off the streets.
GISS will have problems each month ingesting data feeds from many jurisdictions. It’s complex stuff. I would only take the monthly figures as interim until further checking and more data sets are in. But does it matter – has your understanding of the overall situation changed – not really as Woodfortrees will show you.
Only wiggle watchers obsess about October 2008.
As for Cohenite’s boorish comments about CO2 and correlations – well it’s about as skanky as you can get as a line of argument when you have multiple influences. Not even worth rebutting anymore.
Anyway still looking for that quality (not E&E) paper on how El Nino and PDO builds heat. We might be waiting for some time. LOL.
Meanwhile the massive Hadley research programs is rolling out investigating many of these issues our blogistas reckon they’ve solved. Better publish soon guys or be overrun by the machine.
zzzzzzzzzzzzz …..
NT, when you say: ***the RSS and UAH data come from several different generations of satellites and there are all sorts of patch up jobs to make the data consistent.***, you ignore the multitude of errors/problems with the ground stations/Sea readings. A short, and by no means comprehensive list includes: siting issues, calibration, different equipment, transcription errors, reading errors, timing errors, navigation/location errors (how good was ship nav before GPS?), moving locations, and on and on and on. BTW, can you explain to us why older date 50-100 YO still need corrections?
So, a handful of satellite data issues are nothing compared to the multitudes found in the Hadley/GISS data sets.
The issue is data quality. Clearly Sat data are more stable and reliable than the land/sea stations.
“Better publish soon guys or be overrun by the machine.”
Ah yes the same machine that has already produced such intellectual giants of the highest calibre such as Mann, Gore, Hansen, Flannery etc. via open and transparent systems of such impeccable integrity.
Wow– I am impressed.
“As for Cohenite’s boorish comments about CO2 and correlations – well it’s about as skanky as you can get as a line of argument when you have multiple influences. ”
Not so long ago Luke would have considered heresy to say CO2 wasn’t the main cause of, (insert here whatever the term is today), now all we hear from the faithful is “multiple influences”.
Why, just the other day NT said,
“You cannot expect a strong correlation between CO2 and global temp over geological time. There are too many other factors involved. HOWEVER, you can expect that a particular climate in the past has been influenced by the level of CO2.”
Makes no logical sense but let it be for the moment.
If is is indeed so, that CO2 is not the main culprit, specially the part that humans supposed to contribute, then why the fervor of trying to reduce it by killing economies?
Cohenite,
Don’t be a hypcrite about name calling. It makes for a more lively discussion anyway.
So first you claim the satellites are without peer, then start talking about the problems of them… Very strange.
My point is that ALL the systems have various problems, they ALL get manipuated to ‘correct’ them. AND they all basically move together. Despite the four measuring temperature differently (remember the satellites read temp a few hundred meters up), they all show basically the same thing.
You attempted to show that GISS was somehow out of whack or biased or whatever, but there’s no evidence. In fact the fact that it simply confirms what the other four data sets are saying should actually contradict you assertion that it’s biased.
CoRev,
No, I am not ignoring the problems with GISS. I am saying that all four have problems, all four apply corrections, and all four give us basically the same trends. The point of this original post was to cast doubt over the quality of GISS, there is simply no evidence for that. GISStemp, HadCrut3v and RSS and UAH all show basically the same thing.
“The issue is data quality. Clearly Sat data are more stable and reliable than the land/sea stations.”
Possibly true, but that won’t actually happen until someone makes a satellite capable of actually measuring temps at specific altitudes. The current satellites measure at various ranges of atmospheric pressure.
Marcus, I think you are inventing history. CO2 has laways been considered one of many influences, go and read any of the IPCC reports, or any early papers on AGW.
“CO2 is not the main culprit”
It is, for the present day. It is since the end of the last Glacial Maxima. But it isn’t throughout geological time.
NT,
“It is, for the present day. It is since the end of the last Glacial Maxima. But it isn’t throughout geological time.”
What happened to the multiple influences?? They suddenly disappeared? Why?
As Ian Mott so eloquently put it
“The usual fluff from the gratuitous planetary salvationists”
Yes I read the reports and it’s CO2, CO2 all the way.
You people change your stories more often than some change underwear.
SJT,
Blathering again? I have been proven wrong? Well either demonstrate with facts, not your usual non sequiturs.
He certainly has a highly developed skill at using words and phrases he has no understanding of.
Well, so I’m a boor and a hypocrite; let’s trace that spoor back to its source; luke says; “Anyway still looking fro that quality (not E&E)paper on how El Nino and PDO builds heat. We might be waiting for some time. LOL.” Here it is chuckles;
http:meteora.ucsd.edu/papers/auad/Global_Warm_ENSO.pdf (// excluded)
Flim flam man number 2, NT, says; “In fact the fact that it simply confirms what the other four data sets are saying should actually contradict you assertion that its biased.” “It” is GISS and this statement, apart from confirming that some science graduates should be flogged severely until they learn grammar and sentence construction, is wrong. GISS has always been warmer than the other indices and that is what this debate is about; however even the fact that GISS is always warmer than the other indices has been contradicted;
http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/ipcc-falsifies-gavin.gif
Now can either of you louche acolytes address the specific issue of the White and Cayon paper and the fact that for the last 7 years GISS has still shown a warming trend while the other indices haven’t?
SJT,
I case you might not have notices, but your foot is bleeding. Gunshot wound? You must really be careful what you right here, it could lead to all sorts of self inflicted wounds.
If there is one person here who is easy to ignore, Louis, it’s you.
Well usually we’re just treading water here doing a bit of ad homming just to keep one’s hand in and razzing Louis and Malcolm for sport (why coz they deserve it) – but occasionally Cohers does chuck in a live round.
Not bad Cohers – and from our old mate Warren White too. V good. I actually sat up straight for a change. Those Scripps dudes are pretty clever eh ? – like Tim Barnett for example too – LOL !!
Of course there’s something in that paper for everyone hey?
Anyway Hadley are onto it – hurry on the next IPCC report then.
Honi soit qui mal y pense
Don’t think Malcolm’s list of AGW groupies and glitterati will be doing the publishing though.
“My understanding is that they do have the oscillations, but they are not the observed ones, that is, they happen at different times. Since oscillations don’t force the climate, that doesn’t matter.”
So SJT the oscillations do occur, but at different times,ie ten years ago ! but that doesnt matter, because oscillations dont force climate.
The ENSO for eg, only makes the temp and rain fall patterns change over about half the planet but it doesnt matter that the GCM’s cant predict the timing and strength of it because we Nintendoists class the ENSO as a none forcer.
Doesnt sound even remotely credible to me.
“Don’t think Malcolm’s list of AGW groupies and glitterati will be doing the publishing though”
Yes you are right for once Luke, but another bunch of shonks will soon appear out of the dungeons of darkness and secrecy that is Peer Review of the selected ones, by the selected, only to be eventually found out by bloggers, and people like McIntyre et al, and many others from the real world.
By the way I assume you do know the translation to Honit soit qui mal y pense. Certainly applies to the groupies.
The White paper referred to by Cohenite is one that the warmanistas wont like, and will probably ignore.
The last para particularly, will cause some apoplexy and I quote:
“This may come as a surprise to many readers. It suggests that global warming and cooling on decadal, interdecadal, and centiennial period scales can also occur in the absence of extraterrestial and anthropogenic forcing”
Well that has just tossed the claims of the IPCC over the last 20 years into the bin.
Wont make may difference though. Wong and Rudd wont be getting any advice contrary to current dogma
I think that Luke and SJT with respect to David’s reply are correct. However, I would say that David’s was read but its impact was not understood. “” the failure to account for stratospheric cooling which gives a cold bias.”” This cooling issue is in its way as big an issue as the microsite issue or intake issue for surface measurements. It has been said many times, but needs repeating, that there are problems with data when used for purposes it was not designed for. Period. Consider that if the cooling is not properly taken into account, the reason that GISS and the satellite anomoly constructions don’t match is because GISS is correct and the satellite reconstruction is wrong.
All the products have been heavily processed. None are just the “data”. Which is the more correct, or as has been pointed out in the blogsphere before, shortterm trends between the products vary. However, as an average and over time, they agree.
However, there are known artifacts in all the reconstructions not just the satellite.
To Patrick B.
To Patrick B.
Most of the hard working scientists whose plight you decry aren’t sitting in their computor labs twiddling the dials of the models and coming up with ” parameterizations”. They are drilling holes in ocean floors, lakes and tree trunks. They are working in labs looking at the isotopic concentrations, chemical composition and relative numbers of temperature sensitive organisms. They are looking at cloud cover, relative humidity and cosmic ray effects. Their work is showing what happens in the real world, not what is projected by super computors that say a priori that water vapor has a positive feedback effect on the effects of CO2. The patient scientists working with real world data are coming up with a completely different picture from that of the computor modelers and for that they are ignored and reviled. As a biologist I have been appalled by the “studies” in biology where field work is replaced by computer based “thought experiments”. As a biologist with training in Paleoclimatology I am equally appalled by the trumping of the findings of hundreds of scientists about climates of the past by a rather small group of computor modeling groupies that call themselves scientists because they know their way around a computor. If one reads papers these papers based on computor modeling carefully, that lack of basic understanding of biology, oceanic chemistry and climates of the past is almost always apparent.
The Bureau provides most if not all its temperature data freely over the WMO’s GTS to NOAA etc. In addition the NCC provides CRU at UEA a full copy of the Australia max temperature, min temperature, and evaporation data at the end of each month.
The temperature data for every Australian station is freely available in real-time to every person on planet earth with internet access via http://www.bom.gov.au .
The greater warming of GISS records is supposed to be because of its coverage of the rapidly warming Arctic; but this coverage is in the form of interpolation not actual data; the Arctic is diverse and different current and wind effects have produced different temperature effects in recent years, which even NASA acknowledges; now, of course, Arctic ice is returning to 1979, the begining of the +ve PDO, levels; GISS’s interpolations are not only not based on actual data, nor consider the diverse Arctic conditions but are also subject to the convoluted adjustments which have been described by Watts;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/09/23/adjusting-pristine-data/#more-3208
In regard to John Pittman’s comments about stratospheric cooling; I must say this cooling, as noted primarily by satellites, has given me pause; it is a supposed AGW fingerprint because the AGW model says that ACO2 layer trapping of SU, upward LW, will not only create a THS, but also extend the photosphere, or CEL. vertically into the stratosphere where the accumulating ACO2, due to a lack of a LTE, can unload its LW into space and by doing so have an energy deplenishing effect and cooling at that level. There has been no THS so a stratosphere cooling spot (SCS) was at least 1/2 a result. This is where it becomes a bit complicated and I will ignore the Fu et al study which merged troposphere and stratosphere temperatures because it has been adequately dealt with by Christy and Spencer. Volcanoes have a complex effect on the atmosphere’s temperature both at different levels and over different timespans; as I understand it, the orthodoxy is that volcanoes cause troposphere cooling because of particulate reflection of SW and stratosphere warming because the particulate absorb the high energy wavelength radiation; here is a graph of the lower stratosphere temprature after El Chichon in ’82 and Pinatubo in ’92;
http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Stratosphere1278-1204.gif
Both the eruptions show an immediate heating effect consistent with the theory but then there is a drastic dropping off; is this due to the resumption of the AGW effect or is it due to another effect of the eruption, namely SO2 ozone-destruction? This ozone depletion has been well documented with extra UV reaching the ground and enhanced photosynthesis as a result; some other factors to consider; Lucia has done a couple of posts about the duration of volcanic effects, and 7-9 years is likely; this dovetails with Pinutubo because since 2001 stratosphere temperatures have been moving back up while surface temperatures have been declining (with the exception of GISS, of course); since 2000 there has been a decline in solar activity and PDO phase has changed but ACO2 is still increasing; at the very least it shows that AGW is of far less consequence than natural factors, which is contrary to AGW.
John f. Pittman said…”…the reason that GISS and the satellite anomoly constructions don’t match is because GISS is correct and the satellite reconstruction is wrong”.
The first mistake you made John, was to hold up SJT and Luke as examples of the truth. The second mistake you made was to compare satellite data to the alarmist pap coming out of GISS. James Hansen runs GISS and one of his mathematicians, Gavin Schmidt, runs his computer models and realclimate, an activist blog. Did you not read the blog article of how GISS recently muddled up temperature measurments in Russia, leading them to make a huge error in the temperatures for October 2008?
That wasn’t the first mistake coming out of GISS. Before that, they had to be corrected by Steve McIntyre when they claimed 1998 was the warmest year in North America. It turned out to be 1934. Hansen himself made a grave error in 1988 when he claimed future temperatures well in excess of what actually came about. He made an error with regard to Arctic warming as well. He also sticks to his strange ‘tipping point’ theory even though global atmospheric temperatures have increased no more than a net 0.25 C in 30 years and have not increased in a decade.
Schmidt was quick to lay the recent error by GISS elsewhere. He did admit that he received the information from a blogster at wattsupwiththat (wuwt) and took a shot at Steve McIntyre while he was at it. In doing so, he revealed that GISS makes little effort to verify the sources of global temperatures sent to them and that the GISS record seems to be done more grudgingly than enthusiastically. In other words, they don’t seem to have a lot of interest in getting it accurate.
The most egregious mistake you made was refering to the satellite data as a reconstruction. Is that what they call it at RC? The data is collected by NOAA for weather predictions and Christy and Spencer were smart enough to ask for it. NOAA readily agreed and handed it over. In the 1990’s, Christy and Spencer won awards for their work but modern modelers have taken great pains to discredit their work.
How can data collected from direct measurements of microwave radiation from oxygen molecules in the atmosphere, that covers 95% of the atmosphere, be classified as a reconstruction? Any data collected by telemetry has to be adjusted to correct for anomalies in the environment and the instruments, but the work is done on real data, not reconstructed data. When the data is collected, it is compared to radiosonde data and data collected by other satellite people like RSS. They all agree!!
That’s a far cry from GISS going through the temperature records and adjusting them to fit AGW theory. If it hadn’t been for Steve McIntyre and wuwt, GISS would have gotten away with their nonsense. As it stands, anyone interested in science will now have to take a long, hard look at anything coming out of GISS.
Pull the other one Gordo.
Let’s see – beloved UAH
Let’s ponder all the errors in the UAH data have been found by others – the orbital decay, the wrong signed diurnal cycle, and the NOAA 10/11 splice. Cooling that became warming.
Yes the Arctic must not have warmed – that would explain why it’s melted eh? ROTFLcopter.
All the measurement systems now basically tell the same story. You guys are just detritus feeders looking for particles of crap to get excited about. Pure partisan bullshit.
“that would explain why it’s melted eh? ROTFLcopter”
and it’s refreezing back to normal would explain an expected cooling in the arctic, wouldn’t it – not the heating as represented by GISS for October.
hang in there Lukey – not much further to go before you can crawl out of here.
You’re offering – a datum point as winter approaches against a multi-year trend — LOL !
“Expected cooling” – you have a model or forecast system do you. Talk about talking it up. More pixie (no bull) dust.
You don’t sound convinced. 🙂
you didn’t notice how useless that graph was from Lucia?
It is looking at such a short timespan, it even claims the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are dropping. Amazing.
Gordon Robertson. You have several strawmen. First, you said “was to hold up SJT and Luke as examples of the truth.” I never said they were examples of truth. We have a saying around here, “Even a blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while.” So, even SJT and Luke can be correct. On occasion, if it suits you. I find their deflection of the questions, and answering a different question, a lot more telling in my personel expierence conversing with them.
Second, you said “The second mistake you made was to compare satellite data to the alarmist pap coming out of GISS. James Hansen runs GISS and one of his mathematicians, Gavin Schmidt, runs his computer models and realclimate, an activist blog. Did you not read the blog article of how GISS recently muddled up temperature measurments in Russia, leading them to make a huge error in the temperatures for October 2008?” Yes, I did read it as it was occurring at both WUWT and CA. Personal attacks similar to what Gavin and Hansen do, are objectionable. Period. The real question is why, starting about 2000, do the satellite “constructions” (since reconstructions, though a truthful statement, bothers some) diverge from the surface “constructions”? This was my point. Why? Is it becuase one set is wrong, or that both sets are correct? MY opinion is that both sets are close to correct. The satellites are measuring an atmospheric cooling. The surface measurements are measuring surface flatlining. My opinion is that the atmospheric change preceeds the surface change. However, the difference is so small that only time will tell.
I know about the history of CA and WUWT, not just Schmidt and recent events. But so what, they looked foolish then, they look foolish now. It doesn’t suprise me. Their work, at present, whether any like it or not, is accepted as mostly correct, by large numbers of people with the training and expertise to pass judgement. However, do not take that the above statement means that everything or anything published by them will stand the test of time. Verification and validation is ongoing in science.
Robert think of what you said. They are “direct measurements of microwave radiation from oxygen molecules in the atmosphere, that covers 95% of the atmosphere”. They are not measurements of the near surface temperature of the earth. Just as near surface temperatures of the earth are not measurements of the earth’s temperature. They are “constructions” and proxies for an idealized quantity called global temperature anomolies.
I think everyone should take a long hard look at all the “constructions” and proxies. Not because of who did the work, but rather in the interest of better science, and our economy. I absolutely agree with any who want to complain that the science is not settled enough for the world to spend upwards of $10 trillion US annually for a minor or non-existant problem, if that is indeed the case. And I also agree, if any AGW proponents can’t stand the public heat and scrutiny on this issue, they should get out of the kitchen, and out of the way. However, if CO2 will lead to global problems, then we (everybody in the world has a stake… me, you, Hansen too) need to plan accordingly.
So you wouldn’t “expect” the arctic to cool if the sea ice is refreezing to normal levels?
No wonder you believe in AGW – you’ believe whatever suits you!
“it even claims the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are dropping. Amazing”
Will, you are a nong, you definitely haven’t found an acorn this time; Lucia’s graph is useful because it shows 2 things; firstly that GISS is out of kilter with the other indices; the land ones because of base periods and a tainted data collection and adjustment method; with the satellites because they are more accurate; and secondly, because she shows that temperature is trending down over a significant period of time which, as the cooling continues, becomes longer because the trend will progress backwards; the reason for this is that those warming periods in the past become relatively shorter compared with the current cooling trend and the overall upward trend is forced down by the present and future cooling (unlike GISS which has to retropsectively adjust past temperatures downwards so as to increase the upward trend). But I doubt you will understand how dubious GISS is Will because you think her graph deals with CO2, it doesn’t; the CO stands for Cochrane-Orcutt which she has used, along with OLS, Ordinary Least Squares, to calculate the graph; very thorough is our Lucia, unlike her critics.
So John what is it you really believe, that we should adapt to climate change ( natural or otherwise) or try and ADAPT the climate to suit our particular prejudice?
Should those trillions of dollars be wasted on trying to change the climate or adapting to drought, fire and floods when they occur?
I believe that the small increase in temp over the last 100–150 years (.6c) is mostly natural because of 1. The recovery from the LIA which according to Wiki caused a drop in temp of at least 1 degree C ( still .4C remaining)
2. The dominance of warm phase PDOs and el ninos over the last 100 years.
3.The earth has been subjected to more solar radiation over the last 100 years than at any time in the last 11,000 years.
4. I don’t believe that a hotspot has been found in the real atmosphere ( in real time) and Spencer’s team cannot find a positive feedback to increased co2.
But once again I don’t believe the fairy tale of AGW and further stupid nonsense of wishing for some future beneficial change by wasting trillions of dollars on a proiblem that my first point above cancels out completely.
Let’s use our money wisely through adaptation and not waste it on the delusionary nonsense of AGW.
Here we go again – “recovery” – what exactly does recovery mean Neville?
I’ll no answer as don’t know but it sounds good.
I like your list Neville – 4 points nibbling at another 1000 points of corroborating evidence. You should try to publish it mate. E&E would take it.
And gee John F Pittman – SJT and I didn’t realise you were such an important person – as your devoted research assistants in residence, we long for your next request which we should get about answering promptly. Sorry did I mean that. What I meant was up yours you self-righteous impertinence.
SJT – there’s no doubt – the denialists on here are right up themselves. They actually think they’re running the place.
Suzanne Morstad, (above) makes a very good point. There are thousands of qualified scientists doing great work in fields associated with climate research, as well as many other disciplines.
However, if they don’t dance to the AGW tune, they are sneered at and reviled; in much the same way as poor Galileo was.
Here in Australia, the CSIRO is making redundant dedicated and well qualified scientists and researchers doing real work for the benefit of the Nation, while at the same time spending millions of dollars expanding research into “global warming”.
But isn’t it sweet, with Hansen and his GISS being caught out fiddling the books to produce the globes “hottest October on record”. A sort of a GISS one month Hockey Stick to replace Mann’s 1000 year model.. And every bit as shonky.
And in trying to make up for being caught out for slipping in Russian September figures, they now claim to have found a new ‘hot spot’ over the arctic. Having never been able to prove their fabled ‘hot spot’ over the tropics, why not move it to the arctic?!!
Christopher Moncton has a great opinion piece in yesterday’s London Daily Telegraph, which is worth a read.
With the present cooling/flatlining, I think you will find that the economics indicate that the crossover from adaptation to mitigation is now about 2100 to 2150.
As to Luke’s “there’s no doubt – the denialists on here are right up themselves. They actually think they’re running the place”, since China and India have told the world they will continue until they emitt as much as the US does, 1.3 billion+1.1 billion, won’t take much many more and indeed the denialists will be running the place. Wait, they already are. EU, US are now postponing their climate change initiatives. Didn’t Canada also postpone theirs, they got sued over it. Hasn’t even AGW proponents indicated that subscription to Kyoto protocols by the signatories also been a failure. Yep. Looks like we are running the place. Must be why all that CO2 is being emitted.
Luke the LIA ended 100 to 150 years ago, now what don’t you understand about recovery?
Every reference I’ve seen estimates the drop in temp during the LIA at about 1C–1.5C, so our increase in temp over the last 100 years doesn’t seem at all unusual does it?
An end to something means a new beginning and in this case it means an increase in temp, or perhaps you’d expect a full bore ice age and a further drop in temp of 6C+?
Let’s spend money on adaptation and new technology like more efficient batteries for electric vehicles, solar homes providing power for the homes and grid whatever, but please don’t go wasting money trying to change the climate.
luke; for someone who has announced such scientific Edsels as being ‘the’ evidence, the smoking gun, the fingerprint, as the following you take a rather incongrously triumphant tone;
Luke’s smoking guns;
1 Philipona; lovely guy; shame about, well everything really.
2. Fawcett and Jones; temperatures are higher with ENSO removed; a truly great fantasy paper.
3 Anything by Cai and Cowan; so many acronyms, so little time.
4. The Dai, Trenberth and Qian effort which showed the PDSI was determined by ENSO not AGW.
5. The Vecchi paper which showed that an AGW El Nino look-a-like was the trouble; it looked like El Nino, it acted like El Nino but the GCM’s said it wasn’t El Nino.
6. Sabine; whose detective work on where the ACO2 went contradicted DOE statistics but conformed to AGW theory about the longevity of atmospheric CO2 residency; you just can’t evict the pesky stuff.
7. Santer; you liked him, you pinned your hopes on him and he cruely broke your heart.
8. Ruddiman; you are at your best when you are manipulating the past, which is what this chap does; do you both work for GISS?
9. Luthi; and past CO2 levels; your evil twin, NT, took up the cudgels on your behalf in respect of Luthi because ‘greenhouse’ was mentioned somewhere in the paper; pity it also mentioned major deviations between CO2 levels and temperature and regionalised tipping points not global ones, which also shot down Glikson; but hey, CO2 is not the issue any more, is it?
10. So many choices; what is your favourite luke?
Whoa!! Lots of talk on this thread about which data set is correct: satellite or GISS. You’re missing something. Recall that 70+% of the globe is ocean and that GISS has been using what they cite as Reynolds-Rayner-Smith SST data since Dec 1981. That’s Optimally Interpolated (OI) SST data, BTW, much of which is derived from satellites. The big question then is, how much difference is there between satellite data of oceans and troposphere?
Cohenite – seriously mate – I’m just laughing. So here we have some anonymouse lawyer from Newcastle (unpublished) who just coincidentally finds something wrong with the 1000s of papers producing multiple lines of evidence. All your stuff is the same old same old. It’s all fringe science and you’ve lost all credibility with anyone who matters – you’re just another activist at this point.
Neville feels a “recovery” is necessary and doesn’t see why it’s funny.
Nasty Sid is now accusing GISS of fraud. ROTFL – good stuff for a churchgoer
It’s all good theatre guys. Meanwhile unmoved by all your outpourings the serious science effort moves on (and you’re not in it).
BTW – the first person to mention Galileo means by definition they’re wrong.
Cohenite wahcks out a top ten again!
Good work son!
I like your dismisal of Luthi… Yes , very sciency.
Have you recovered from having your heart broken by Scotese and Berner?
I want to ask you a question. Let’s say this a court trial. Now we have some evidence, namely the CO2 levels. Now the expert witnesses, who made the graphs that show the CO2 levels all declare that it impacts the climate and that there is a greenhouse effect. But the defense lawyer says “But hang on the correlation is wrong”. To which the expert witnesses reply “that doesn’t matter as there are other factors, CO2 is one of those factors”. To which the defense lawyer replies “But hang on the correlation is wrong”, so the expert witness says “Yes, but that’s because there are other factors. See, in the past the sun was cooler and the continents were in different positions. So the correlation can’t be expected.” To which the defence lawyer says “But hang on, the correlation is wrong”, The expert witness looks at the Judge, who shrugs, then looks back at the defence lawyer. The expert witness says “I just answered that point”. The defence lawyer says “But hang on the correlation is wrong”. The expert witness says “Are you actually listening to what I am saying?” The defence lawyer says “But hang on the correlation is wrong”.
Do you see what is happening Cohenite? I think you’re losing this case.
Actually your side lost it a while ago, but hey keep up the fight I am sure it’s a worthy cause.
Bob
“Whoa!! Lots of talk on this thread about which data set is correct: satellite or GISS. You’re missing something. Recall that 70+% of the globe is ocean and that GISS has been using what they cite as Reynolds-Rayner-Smith SST data since Dec 1981. That’s Optimally Interpolated (OI) SST data, BTW, much of which is derived from satellites. The big question then is, how much difference is there between satellite data of oceans and troposphere?”
The most interesting thing about this discussion, Bob, is that people sem to think that any of the datasets is ‘correct’ how on Earth would anyone know which one was ‘correct’? Especially when, as you point out, they measure different things.
All I see going on here is weak attacks on GISS because it is perceived as being ‘higher’ (though not in 1998), it’s such a strange argument. You have four datasets, measuring different things, using different processes, to determine the anomaly from an average (base period) global temp. It’s remarkable that they are so close. This should be reassuring, but for some reason this blog has decided that if one of the anomalies is higher, it must be wrong. It’s bizarre.
Luke
“Neville feels a “recovery” is necessary and doesn’t see why it’s funny.”
It’s amazing isn’t it? I guess the LIA was like an illness… 🙂
Neville, why would the climate ‘recover’ – was there something wrong with it?
I’ve said it before but I think at long last Ive learned my lesson, never argue with infants and fools because they just don’t understand.
Irrationality and unreason paraded with pride by fundamentalists and fanatics who truly BELIEVE that they can change the climate.
Just think of the billions ( Aust) of scarce dollars diverted from health, education, research, infrastructure etc that will be wasted trying to fix the climate by this generation of leftwing nutters.
Neville, what is a recovery from the last ice age? What does that mean?
It sounds to me like irrationality and unreason…
NT always seems to start off with a reasonable, sensible discussion of the issues, then always seems to end with remarks that are completely unbalanced and unreasonable. I always start reading those posts with a “yeah, that is perfectly fair and logical” going on in my mind, but by the end of the post, some kind of reality phase change has occurred and I’m left wondering what kind of planet NT actually lives on. Every post seems to end with a non sequitur of some kind.
I won’t challenge cohenite on the technical issues. He knows his stuff too well. But he also seems so heavily invested emotionally in the issues, I do wonder if he can view things in a balanced way and be opened minded to the full body of evidence.
Shame you guys couldn’t meet somewhere in the middle…
NT’s court scenario does sound interesting.
Actually there is a very strong push from Branch levels in the Lib. and Nat. Parties to take as policy to the next Federal election a policy undertaking to hold a Royal Commission to investigate whether ‘Man made global warming is an evidence based fact’. And on winning Government, to implement it.
With the powers that a R C has, witnesses can be called and compelled to give evidence under Oath, and can be jailed for telling fibs. The Commissioners could be drawn from a panel of distinguished ex High Court Judges, and could be assisted by a panel of scientists with the necessary expertise, but have no pecunary interest in the Industry.
Hopefully such a Finding would save this country countless billions of dollars in trying to kill a bogyman that doesn’t exist.
NT
“Neville, what is a recovery from the last ice age? What does that mean?”
Are you being deliberately obtuse, or is it your natural state?
What it means is, that before the LIA there was a certain avg. temp, which dropped to a lower level.
With the passing of the LIA, the temperature is recovering to that previous level.
Thanks Will,
You know we live on the same planet…
I guess the problem is that I approach the issues in the Original Post seriously, but then the responses I get are so… Ludicrous, that I can’t help but poke fun. Do you actually think that there is some wild variation between all four datasets? Do you think that any of them are “correct”?
Marcus, you are assuming that the temp prior to the LIA was somehow ‘normal’. And that the LIA was somehow a deviation from that ‘normal’ state.
“With the passing of the LIA, the temperature is recovering to that previous level.”
Why did the LIA pass? Why couldn’t temps have continued down? What was so special about the climate prior to the LIA? Why did temps have to bounce back up?
Will,
“I won’t challenge cohenite on the technical issues. He knows his stuff too well.”
I thought Cohenite knew what he was talking about. But his reading is pretty shallow. He keeps quoting authors as if they support his view, but when you read their work you find that they support a contrary view.
He also didn’t understand commutivity, which suprised me…
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commutivity
Neville – the issue of “recovery” should be pretty simple for you to explain. But suggesting there needs to be an ongoing recovery is pure rhetoric. Sounds good but means what?
As for more warm PDOs and El Ninos – well I think you should put the data. What are the numbers o’ Neville?
What you do have which Cohenite likes to duck is a declining Walker circulation, multi-event El Nino clusters, a changing SAM and changing STR. But of course as know-alls and “results adjusters” you guys don’t even give these changes a look.
Really who cares what GISS come up for October 2008 – how tediously small in the scheme of things. And they goofed on the Rusky data did they – oooo wa ! Oh diddums. Shock horror. Sort of like a Royal Commission into spilt milk while not noticing the stress cracks in the building. All about risk management guys….
NT
“Why did the LIA pass? Why couldn’t temps have continued down? What was so special about the climate prior to the LIA? Why did temps have to bounce back up?”
natural variations as before, and long after we are dead and gone, I guess?
Are you by any means insinuating that it was AGW???
John F. Pittman…I was having a bad day and may have wrongly assumed you were part of the crusade from realclimate. If I erred, I apologize.
You said…”The real question is why, starting about 2000, do the satellite “constructions” (since reconstructions, though a truthful statement, bothers some) diverge from the surface “constructions”?
I put that down to GISS messing with the temperature record. This recent major blunder of GISS, about October 2008 being really warm, revealed that GISS doesn’t pay a lot of attention to the record because they don’t have the funding. They had to be corrected once by Steve McIntyre when they claimed 1998 was the warmest years on record in North America, while it is still 1934. GISS wants 1998 to be the warmest year in a bad way because it would support their activism.
According to Christy’s site, nothing has changed in the satellite data recovery and any errors, which accounted for a tenth of a degree or so, in the tropics, have been worked out. I acknowledge the data manilulation for things like orbital variations, solar warming of the instruments, etc. are complex, but I would hardly call that a construction or a reconstruction. They are using the actual data from the MSU telemetry and adjusting it for known variations in the atmosphere.
They have to do the same thing with Mars shots, or in putting up any satellite. Natural perturbances have to be accounted for and worked out. The question arises as to how accurate the data is after those things are worked out. Christy compared his results to certain radiosondes and found agreement. He also works with the RSS team (surprise…some scientists actually cooperate), and between them, they have ironed out the inconsistencies, which were minor to begin with.
You mentioned that satellite temperature data does not measure near surface temperature. I took the following from the UAH site at :
http://www.uah.edu/News/climatebackground.php
“An expert in microwave sensors, Spencer teamed with Dr. John Christy from The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) to analyze the data. They concentrated on data from two altitude ranges: The lower troposphere, from sea level to about six miles high, and the lower stratosphere above 10 miles”.
There’s no reason why the satellites can’t measure temperatures down to the surface since they are detecting microwave radiation from oxygen molecules. When you come to think of it, however, where are surface stations located? Anywhere up to 5 metres ‘in the atmosphere’. They are not measuring surface temperature, they are measuring atmospheric temperature near the surface.
There are several differences between them and the satellites. For one, the surface stations cover the globe sparcely whereas the satellites cover 95% of the atmosphere by sweeping it as they pass. For another there are only a couple of satellites run under one agency, NOAA. The surface stations are run by all sort of people from different countries and we are dependent on their accuracy. Many of the surface stations are on the oceans as well.
I agree with you on proxies, but I would not call satellite data a proxy. The word proxy means ‘in place of’. Obviously we have no direct data from 1200 AD for CO2 levels and temperatures, so we use proxy data from ice cores and tree rings etc. The satellites measure temperature directly, just like weather balloons or surface stations. It’s done in real time and is not a proxy.
I don’t trust proxy data. It is interesting, but unprovable.
Marcus,
“natural variations as before, and long after we are dead and gone, I guess?
Are you by any means insinuating that it was AGW???”
Natural variations is like saying God did it. It doesn’t explain anything really.
I don’t know why the LIA happened. It may have been part of the cycle that leads into glacial periods (this has happened several times over the last few million years, due to Milankovitch Cycles). It may have been due to a drop in Solar insolation, I am not sure.
It wasn’t AGW, as AGW requires an anthropogenic input of large amounts of greenhouse gases. This didn’t happen substantially until the industrial revolution.
Gordon,
The satellites don’t measure temp directly, they measure it indirectly. Also they don’t measure the temp at any particular height but average it over a range of pressure (which may or may not be at the same altitude around the globe).
GISStemp, and RSS and UAH are simply measuring different things.
Marcus,
Here’s some new research that discusses the LIA
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBC-4TJ5YVT-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=73aec100a2d70b4775a2c4e34975e161
Here’s the Abstract
“The last 6000 years are of particular interest to the understanding of the Earth System because the boundary conditions of the climate system did not change dramatically (in comparison to larger glacial–interglacial changes), and because abundant, detailed regional palaeoclimatic proxy records cover this period. We use selected proxy-based reconstructions of different climate variables, together with state-of-the-art time series of natural forcings (orbital variations, solar activity variations, large tropical volcanic eruptions, land cover and greenhouse gases), underpinned by results from General Circulation Models (GCMs) and Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity (EMICs), to establish a comprehensive explanatory framework for climate changes from the Mid-Holocene (MH) to pre-industrial time. The redistribution of solar energy, due to orbital forcing on a millennial timescale, was the cause of a progressive southward shift of the Northern Hemisphere (NH) summer position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). This was accompanied by a pronounced weakening of the monsoon systems in Africa and Asia and increasing dryness and desertification on both continents. The associated summertime cooling of the NH, combined with changing temperature gradients in the world oceans, likely led to an increasing amplitude of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and, possibly, increasingly negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) indices up to the beginning of the last millennium. On decadal to multi-century timescales, a worldwide coincidence between solar irradiance minima, tropical volcanic eruptions and decadal to multi-century scale cooling events was not found. However, reconstructions show that widespread decadal to multi-century scale cooling events, accompanied by advances of mountain glaciers, occurred in the NH (e.g., in Scandinavia and the European Alps). This occurred namely during the Little Ice Age (LIA) between AD 1350 and 1850, when the lower summer insolation in the NH, due to orbital forcing, coincided with solar activity minima and several strong tropical volcanic eruptions. The role of orbital forcing in the NH cooling, the southward ITCZ shift and the desertification of the Sahara are supported by numerous model simulations. Other simulations have suggested that the fingerprint of solar activity variations should be strongest in the tropics, but there is also evidence that changes in the ocean heat transport took place during the LIA at high northern latitudes, with possible additional implications for climates of the Southern Hemisphere (SH).”
“The satellites don’t measure temp directly”
I see this statement around a lot on various blogs but never can work out what the point of making it is. Thermometers don’t measure temperature directly either. They measure the rate of expansion or contraction of mercury, typically, which is only a proxy for temperature. You’re not really saying anything, surely, unless you think the measuring device is inaccurate. In which case, where’s the evidence?
NT: “Have you recovered from having your heart broken by Scotese and Berner?” What heart?
NT, I would love to get you guys in a courtroom; as to commutivity; I have rebutted you on this ‘point’ in relation to the Motl piece on Tave and Teff and the Pielke paper; but this is typical of the GISS syndrome, which you apparently have: reinvent the past; commutivity applies to equations not numbers says NT, so I looked at the IPCC equation for climate sensitivity which combined Tafe and Teff;
(1)dH/dt=f-T’/^
Where H is the heat content of the land-ocean-atmosphere system, f is the radiative forcing, T’ is the change in GMST in response to the change in H and ^ is the climate feedback parameter which defines the rate at which the climate system returns forcing to space as IR and/or changes in albedo. Pielke Snr objected to this equation because of its inadequacy in spatially representing Teff or SB as represented by H. Lucia, in an elegant solution, refuting eli’s objections, accommodated Pielke’s concerns by extending the equation so that it no longer represents a single point but the multiple SB points on the planet; the equation won’t transpose so you can look at it here;
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/spatial-variations-in-gmst-eli-rabbett-vs-dr-pielke-sr/
If you bother looking at the link you will see that the extended equation maintains the order of the key variables but qualifies them in the context of the equation; commutivity is therefore irrelevant and Motl is vindicated. BTW Lucia confirmed the Pielke calculated variation between Tafe and Teff of at least 20% and up to 46% for f (the measure of CO2 forcing, or the GH effect.).
You see Will Nitschke, NT and Luke and will robinson and the other katzamanna kids aren’t here for science; they’re here to be very naughty boys.
cohenite,
Hey don’t label me as belonging to any one group.
I’m doing my best to be unpopular with everyone.
Cohenite,
what physical object does the IPCC equation for climate sensitivity represent? If it’s the earth then the equation is somewhat incomplete omitting the now known input of millions of amperes of electric current recentl announced by NASA (FTE pheonomena).
Will,
So I am correct, yes? Satellites don’t measure directly.
I said it becuase people like to pretend that the satellite data is far more accurate, which is the point of this post, no? And the point I have been making the whole time is that you can’t actually compare the accuracy of the data, because 1. they measure different things, and 2. there is no known ‘correct’ version. The whole debate is kind of weird too, as they all show basically the same data.
Cohenite, you proved you weren’t in it for the science at the end of our long extended Misko 2008 discussion. Remember? It’s funny that you claim you are here to learn, when quite obviously you aren’t. You ask questions then ignore the answers you don’t like. Did you research whether or not GISS has published on errors in their system?
I have an idea for some research for you, that way you can show you are here to learn about the science. Ok, so here’s a question you may want to research (in your own time of course).
“Why doesn’t the CO2 level of the atmosphere always correlate with surface temp?”
I know, interesting question and I am surprised no one has asked it before. Maybe you could even investigate a couple of time periods, maybe the Eemian? Perhaps even the Ordovician?
Tell you what, why don’t you do some research and get back to us? Then you can prove that you’re here for the science. Of course, this wouldn’t be just pointing out the discrepancies, it would be an actual literature review where you discuss the various theories.
NT said…”The satellites don’t measure temp directly, they measure it indirectly”.
NT…MSU means Microwave Sounding Unit. It detects microwave emissions from oxygen molecules in the atmosphere. The strength of the emissions are directly related to temperature.
I grabbed the following link from Google. It was the first that came up and just happened to be from the RSS site. I have a detailed explanation from Christy pr Spencer but I have a cold and can’t be bothered looking for it.
http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html
In the introduction, they claim:
“The MSUs are cross-track scanners with measurements of microwave radiance in four channels ranging from 50.3 to 57.95 GHz on the lower shoulder of the Oxygen absorption band. These four channels measure the atmospheric temperature in four thick layers spanning the surface through the stratosphere”.
If you look at a thermometer, how does it work? It relies on the expansion of mercury. A thermister, used in radiosondes, is a semiconductor device that varies its resistance with temperature. That’s very convenient and accurate with telemetry because it would be very difficult to read a mercury thermometer electronically and a thermister is not affected by atmospheric pressure. Neither of those devices could be said to measure temperature directly either. To do so, you’d have to find a way to measure the kinetic energy of air molecules directly.
Measuring the microwave radiation given off by oxygen molecules is just as accurate as hanging a thermometer in a box or a room, or putting a thermister in a radiosonde. In fact, it might be more accurate because you’re measuring the microwave radiations of the oxygen molecule which is a direct result of the agitation of it’s atomic structure. I don’t see how you could get any closer to measuring its kinetic energy, which is its heat.
I understand that GISS is measuring different temperatures than UAH or RSS and that’s not an issue to me. The point is this: if the atmosphere is being heated by CO2 to the point where it has a high enough temperature gradient to warm the surface, then the troposphere needs to be warmer than the surface. GISS is measuring the surface, as is Hadley, but GISS is showing higher readings. The people who run GISS are known activists and it seems more than coincidence to me that their temperatues read higher. Why else would they try to re-write the record in North America so that 1998 looks warmer than 1934? It just doesn’t make sense that 1934 is the warmest year if CO2 is warming the atmosphere.
The satellite data from both RSS and UAH are indicating that the troposphere is about one-third the surface temperature, and that’s after all the corrections have been made. No one has explained how a troposphere that is 1/3 the temp of the surface can radiate enough heat to warm the surface to a higher temperature than the surface temperature that created the tropospheric warming in the first place.
As Spencer and others have pointed out, the physics used by many climate scientists is just plain wrong. As G&T pointed out, the talk of a net energy flow contradicts the laws of thermodynamics. I’m not saying this to be contrary or negative, but putting 4000 scientists in a forum and expecting truth based on sheer numbers was a mistake. Even putting 40 in a room could be disastrous because human nature being what it is, certain scientists will try to run the proceedings their way and others will too gladly follow.
We’ve set science back a long ways and it will take a long time to recover fully.
NT,
Sorry, your long winded reply said the same as I did.
Natural forces.
WE the people had nothing to do with it.
Dress it up all you like, the bottom line we are concerned with here, (at least I’m anyway) whether humans have much, if any influence on the climate.
Specifically it comes down to CO2, not many months ago it was the MAIN influence, now the goal posts have been shifted, and it’s been relegated to “being part of”.
My main concern is the governments policy, and they only talk about CO2!!
But the atmosphere is layered. If they are referring specifically to the Lower Troposphere, which can’t be directly measured, it has to be interpolated.
Gordon, we are more in agreement than disagreement.
So you agree, that the satelliet data measures a thick portion of the atmosphere and averages it. Ok, good.
And we agree that GISS and the satellites measure different quantities. Good.
Now, you say that “GISS is measuring the surface, as is Hadley, but GISS is showing higher readings.” Have you looked at the difference in the Base Period? So Hadley uses 1961-1990, whereas GISS uses 1951-1980. Now the GISS period is cooler, so it’s anomaly looks higher (GISS uses this anomaly because when they started 1990 hadn’t happened yet). When you reduce them to the same Base period there is still a small difference, but that can be accounted for by the fact they use different stations. Please note that it doesn’t matter that GISS shows a higher anomaly. It doesn’t mean GISS thinks the world is partciularly warmer than Hadley.
“The people who run GISS are known activists and it seems more than coincidence to me that their temperatues read higher. Why else would they try to re-write the record in North America so that 1998 looks warmer than 1934? It just doesn’t make sense that 1934 is the warmest year if CO2 is warming the atmosphere.”
This is just garbage. They didn’t try to rewrite the records, in fact they corrected their records to show that 1934 was warmer (in the continental US) than 1998. The last sentence is just confusing, the Global anomaly has been above 1934 for quite some time.
Marcus,
No, it specified what caused it. It said the Milankovitch Cycles and changes in Solar Insolation.
“Specifically it comes down to CO2, not many months ago it was the MAIN influence, now the goal posts have been shifted, and it’s been relegated to “being part of”.”
No you have misunderstood.
Over GEOLOGICAL time, it is ‘part of’.
Over recent time (since the last glacial maxima) it would be the main influence.
“My main concern is the governments policy, and they only talk about CO2!!”
This is another misunderstanding. They discuss other ghg’s such as methane and nitrous oxides, and chlorocarbons. They are given a weighting, a so-called carbon dioxide equivalent. Basically the Government is discussing many factors, including land clearing for example.
“Over recent time…. it (CO2) would be the main influence.” Yes, you are finally right NT; according to AR4 the total radiative forcing of all GHG’s is 2.63Wm-2 and CO2 is given a RF of 1.66Wm-2, or 63%. So, why don’t you should how CO2 and temperature are correlated in a consistent fashion with AR4 over the last 100 years or so.
Louis; I have no idea what the IPCC figure for climate sensitivity represents, other than what I have described above; let’s see if NT can back it up with real evidence.
NT – you have to love this nutter stuff from the chirpy squirrels. Priceless drongoism.
““The people who run GISS are known activists and it seems more than coincidence to me that their temperatues read higher. ”
Known activists …. “oooooooooo wa”
Cohenite,
The key phrase is “climate sensitivity of what physical object”.
Presumably the Earth, but which part of it ? If it’s the atmosphere in isolation, (and that is implied in the methodology), then they need to show that the atmosphere is thermally independent of the earth’s mass.
It’s much the same way as stating that if I sit on a billion tonne ice berg, then my thermal state has nothing to do with the ice I am in contact with.
Climate science makes no allowance for geophysical inputs – the only energy input is the thermal radiation from the sun.
This limited view arises when you are trained to only think with one or two ideas. Broaden your intellectual horizons and alternative solutions become apparent.
It’s really the deductive method at it’s best – ignoring the necessity of being founded in some primary empirical fact.
You can’t blame them for thinking like that either – they are the epitomes of state education in which knowing what to think is more important than anything else.
Cohenite,
“So, why don’t you should how CO2 and temperature are correlated in a consistent fashion with AR4 over the last 100 years or so.”
I think it’s done pretty well… CO2 is going up, so is temp…
Cohenite
Don’t say I don’t do anything for you…
Here’s Hansen’s take on the correlation between CO2 and temps, from 1981 (talks about the future opening on the NW Passage): http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/213/4511/957
Here’s Hansen’s take in 1999: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1999/1999JD900835.shtml
And here he tells us that Volcanic events can give short term pertubations over the CO2 effect (in 1978): http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/199/4333/1065
And here he tells us it will all happen when he published in 1974
http://www.ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0469/31/1/pdf/i1520-0469-31-1-118.pdf
And this one might be where GISStemp started (published in 1983 – which would make a base period of 1961-1990 or 1979-2000 rather difficult, no?)
http://www.ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0493/111/4/pdf/i1520-0493-111-4-609.pdf
And here he shows the energy imbalance for the greenhouse effect:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/308/5727/1431
It’s amazing the amount of literature out there… If only one looks.
Sorry, you may need to remove some of the ‘www’ from the pdf adresses.
Cohenite knows this NT – but being an obscurantist suits the game.
But it’s endless fun pointing it out to him, Luke.
Then watch as he does a lawyer wiggle to squirm his way out…
And here’s some more evidence that GISS is heavily biased against any cooling trend.
http://www.wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/11/giss-land-ocean-index-dives-in-jan08-matches-trends-for-uah-and-rss-satellite-data/
NT, your WUWT reference above, was before the data was altered, and conveniently overlooks the fact that subsequent to that particular WUWT post, more posts have pointed to:
1. Dopey siting of stations in the USA and Russia.
2. Shonky retro active cooking of the books
3. Complete absence of any professional level QA , the sort of stuff that would be common place in most other endeavours and companies, including mining companies
4. Primitive programming
5. etc
All this pointing to a complete lack of any best practice standards and all to prop up for what will amount to the second most expensive con job in history. It is a subprime mortage fiasco all over again.
You have treat anything that Hansen has his hands on with deep suspicion, when he is the guardian of the very data he needs to underpin his own activist antics.
That alone fails almost all good practice standards –but then anything goes in the good old US of A, as we have already seen with the subprime fiasco.
You knuckleheads; I’d like to stay and play but I’ve got people to sue, so some quick rebuttals to Dr Hansen from NT’s links (those which work);
1.”The global surface temperature in 1998 was the warmest in the period of instrumental data.” (from the 1999 paper); Lot’s of qualifications there; instrumental period, surface temperature; but Watts has a good refutation, and also sums up GISS ‘adjustments’;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/11/14/the-evolution-of-the-giss-temperature-product/#more-4143
2. “The warmth of 1998 was too large and pervasive to be fully accounted for by the recent El Nino” (also from the ’99 effort); noone said it was;Miskolczi gives a temperature response to a doubling of CO2 of 0.26C; and the Douglass and Christy paper which removed ENSO (and areosols, but not solar) allowed a CO2 response of 0.07C PD.
3. Following on from the above, Hansen opines in the 1981 paper; “The global temperature rose by 0.2C between the middle 1960’s and 1980, yielding a warming of 0.4C in the past century. This temperature increase is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect due to measured increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide”. Well, no it is not; AR4 allocates a forcing to CO2 doubling of 3.7Wm-2 (Table 6.2) and a temperature response of 2-4.5C or 3C best estimate; CO2 has increased by 40% over the last century which should have translated to a temperature increase of 1.2C; show me a graph from GISS or anywhere which shows a temperature increase of 1.2C. ; this GISS graph shows a temperature increase from 1900-2000 of 0.4C (holy moly, Hansen is right; pity about AR4), but maybe its an unadjusted one;
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/smooth.jpg
Note the impeccable source.
4.Finally, in his 2005 paper, Hansen intones that his modelling indicates the Earth is now absorbing 0.85+-0.12 Wm-2 more energy from the sun than it is emitting to space. Not according to HARTCODE and the Cabauw verification of Miskolczi. In addition there is no evidence that the oceanic pipeline, as the primary lag/storage component, exists and Trenberth’s lags of 3 months for oceanic/atmosphere temperature response has also been verified. All those papers dealing with the GPCS, Guildersen and Schrag, McPhaden and Zhang, Wijffels and Myers ( note I haven’t even referred to Quirk and McLean) show an instant temperature response to the upwelling change and PDO phase shift; as the White and Cayon paper shows, ENSO is sufficient to explain the bulk, if not all, of climate change in the immediate past.
“Knuckleheads” – I love it when Cohers gets all affectionate. But isn’t suing people nasty – shouldn’t you be trying to mediate and negotiate first?
Anyway so much stress about GISS – so why don’t we just stop talking about it – there are other measures. However – does it matter – are our 4 measures of global temperature telling that much of a different story with respect to long term trends. Surely there are more important issues. And of course there are – all this Hansen business is just an attempt to limit the debate to minutia.
Cohenite
Why are you “rebutting” them? And wow, what rebuttals they are… Very… poor.
You’re using your “lawyer skillz” again. All you ever do is attempt to cast doubt over what has been done. It’s really intriguing. It’s as if you think by saying that because someone thinks Hansen is wrong, he is wrong.
Does this mean you do see the correlation between CO2 and recent warming?
That’s why I posted them, rememeber what we were discussing?
“ENSO is sufficient to explain the bulk, if not all, of climate change in the immediate past.”
This is because for some reason you have decided there is no relationship between ENSO and AGW. This is a very poor assumption, and one that is not justified.
“CO2 has increased by 40% over the last century which should have translated to a temperature increase of 1.2C; show me a graph from GISS or anywhere which shows a temperature increase of 1.2C. ; this GISS graph shows a temperature increase from 1900-2000 of 0.4C ”
Ok, so now a real scientist would actually attempt to answer this, rather than just throwing their hands in the air saying “well it’s wrong then isn’t it”.
Did you look for any explanations? No… You’re not here for the science Cohenite, you are here to spread doubt.
Not a problem Gordon. As others have pointed out, we don’t measure temperature, we measure expansion of mercury, or increase in resistance, for examples. One thing I do agree with is that surfacestations.org has shown that the standards have not been followed. The reason of course is that without standards, including calibration of the instrument to a known standard, these expansions of mercury or increases in resistance have problems. Of course, that does pose a problem for satellites. Have they been handled correctly for GISS, or other metrics? Don’t know, but it is a valid question to ask.
NT:
Quite correct, none of us sceptics are here for the science because it isn’t science.
cohenite…re Hansen and the 1998 El Nino warming.
When Hansen started this hysteria in 1988, it was another strong El Nino year. Hansen is an astronomer and seems to make many of his assumptions on his experience as an astronomer. You know what Louis says about the field of astronomy. They think electromagnetic fields in the universe exists without electric fields, even though stars like our Sun spit our electric fields (electrons) that travel far beyond the solar system.
The more I hear about Hansen and the more I read his logic, the more I think he should be replaced at NASA GISS before he brings the house down.
John F. Pittman said…”….we don’t measure temperature, we measure expansion of mercury, or increase in resistance..”
As I pointed out to NT, the microwave radiation detected by the satellite MSU units is probably the closest to real temperature measurement we have gotten so far. When oxygen molecules in the atmosphere are heated, they emit microwave radiation that is proportional to the warming. There are complexities in that, however, since pressure gradients push the spectral lines of radiation together at higher pressures. So, a certain amount of data manipulation is necessary to see what is what.
If you put a thermometer in a room, you locate it away from the heat source so it is measuring ambient temperature rather than the heat source. With a satellite MSU, there are apparently ways to detect different layers of the atmosphere, but as the RSS team claim, the current measurements are not precise enough for global warming measurements at a point in space. The newer AMSU units can measure more layers and are more accurate. however, the satellites were put up there for weather data not global warming data.
Christy and Spencer were looking for average tropospheric temperatures, specifically sharp changes in the average that would reveal the ‘hot spot’ in the troposhere predicted by climate models. If such a hot spot could be detected, it would lend credence to the modeler’s claims that CO2 was warming the atmosphere. That hotspot has not only not been found, the average temperature of the troposphere has barely warmed since 1979. If the current dip experienced in 2008 persists, we could be headed back to the static average from 1979 to about 1997.
It makes far more sense to me that the oceans control global warming. As one meteorologist put it, the oceans behave like a huge hot water bottle. Roy Spencer has claimed it is the movement of heat through precipitation systems that creates the greenhouse effect, not a radiative balance. He has recently provided evidence that ENSO plays a large part in global warming.
NT said…”CO2 is going up, so is temp…”
NT…I took a look at Deltoid, where the lunatic fringe assemble and have held my nose and looked at realclimate where people get censored for being skeptical. Although I have nothing to say in how this blog is run, I do welcome your input, and your right to offer it.
Just once, I’d like to see a coherent explanation from you to support your statement above. If CO2 is warming the atmosphere, why has the net atmospheric temperature remained constant for ten years? Please refrain from using the gibberish from RC or Deltoid, just offer a good scientific explanation of why the atmosphere has stopped warming. While you’re at it, try to explain how an atmosphere that is 1/3rd the temperature of the surface, on average, can possibly warm the surface.
ps. these are not trick questions. I’m just trying to see if you have answers or whether your just being argumentative.
“Just once, I’d like to see a coherent explanation from you to support your statement above. If CO2 is warming the atmosphere, why has the net atmospheric temperature remained constant for ten years? Please refrain from using the gibberish from RC or Deltoid, just offer a good scientific explanation of why the atmosphere has stopped warming. While you’re at it, try to explain how an atmosphere that is 1/3rd the temperature of the surface, on average, can possibly warm the surface.”
First of all, get the idea out of your head that ten years is a significant length of time in the scheme of things. Second the ten year span is only useful if you cherry pick your time from a monster spike.
Gordon, I answered these questions on the previous page. Look at the links I gave. They give good explanantions for the various factors that affect temp. And also why you shouldn’t expect the monthly temps to increase steadily with increasing CO2. I have discussed this exact thing at length with Cohenite, I predict that you will do what he does and just ignore the explanations and persist with just repeating the same question.
“why has the net atmospheric temperature remained constant for ten years?”
What does this mean exactly? What is net atmospheric temperature?
NT: “Did you look for any explanations? No… You’re not here for the science Cohenite, you are here to spread doubt.”
It’s a sceptic’s job to point to doubts. Why complain about that? Only a religious person fear’s doubt. What is the point of complaining about Cohenite casting doubt when all you do is cast doubt on Cohenite’s assertions in return? Shouldn’t a fair response be to try to answer the question or reply with educational information, not employ the same tactics? I’ve noticed you and Luke seem to do this all the time. I.e., complain about cherry picking then immediately engage in cherry picking when it suits your purposes five posts later? Doesn’t that just make you hypocrites?
I’m not defending Cohenite. And I find some of the sceptical arguments on this thread simplistic or disingenuous also. But perhaps because you’ve appointed yourself as Chief Corrector of Mistakes a higher standard of argumentation from you might be required to win hearts and minds…?
Speaking of temperatures, for a reality check, at my place today in SEQ it was min 13.5c, max 16.5c. Cold and wet.
This AGW is killing me.
More to the point; why is diesel $1.40 a litre when oil is $54 a barrel? and why is diesel 25% dearer than ULP?
Is this the CSIRO’s doing? Eight bucks a litre to solve AGW?
“I’m not defending cohenite.” I’m shattered; it’s because you think I was grouping you with the Witchfinder General’s department, isn’t it; well I can assure you I wasn’t.
Anyway, if NT can tell me where I went wrong here I shall die a rich man;
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/10/temperature-trends-and-carbon-dioxide-a-note-from-cohenite/#comments
I have seen Luke produce posts that must have taken a considerable amount of time to put together, and roundly ignored. Sniping is much easier, and more productive.
I think you have your answer there. “If I just pick the data that suits me, then I’ll get the answer that suits me”.
SJT, NT, Luke have all used the same argument: ***I think you have your answer there. “If I just pick the data that suits me, then I’ll get the answer that suits me”.*** But, when we get right down to the GMST and the correlation to CO2 (or anything else,) it’s all cherry picking and arrogance.
To talk about climate in such minimal time frames, 1 Century, 2 centuries, even 10 millenia, is just ludicrous, and arrogance of the highest order.
Yes, man has effected the climate. No doubt about it. Is it about CO2? I doubt it. Dirty, nasty cherry pickers! Well, maybe not dirty. Don’t know y’all well enough.
Will; just on this point about lucia and cherry picking the results; she used two statistical analysis, the one recommended by Schmidt and another to have impartiality; both results obtained -ve temperature trends and Schmidt was seen no more because his method produced the lowest trend; honestly, NT and lucky luke berate me for being an activist but the twisting by you guys is ridiculous; if there was a statistical correlation between CO2 and temperature, as AGW asserts, how could anyone deny it; show me where it is? If temperatures were indisputably going up, who could deny it? I have shown you the GISS record over the last century which shows an 0.4C increase; this is absurdly inconsistent with AGW and IPCC theory; bashing up on me doesn’t change this; the point about GISS is that they are surrepstitiously adjusting the past temperature record to interfere with their own trend; I have shown you evidence of this but you ignore it; you guys are from another planet: Venus; that explains your knuckleheads.
Will
“It’s a sceptic’s job to point to doubts. Why complain about that? Only a religious person fear’s doubt. What is the point of complaining about Cohenite casting doubt when all you do is cast doubt on Cohenite’s assertions in return? Shouldn’t a fair response be to try to answer the question or reply with educational information, not employ the same tactics? I’ve noticed you and Luke seem to do this all the time. I.e., complain about cherry picking then immediately engage in cherry picking when it suits your purposes five posts later? Doesn’t that just make you hypocrites?”
It’s a skeptic’s job? there is a job for skeptics?
I have given up on Cohenite, because I have approached him the way you suggested. I have supplied him with copious quantities of literature, including references to explain why the warming isn’t up to his expectations. He just ignores it or dismisses it (see his “rebuttals” of the Hansen papers I posted).
I am not fearful of him or his assertions. You may read it that way, but that’s in your head.
“Shouldn’t a fair response be to try to answer the question or reply with educational information, not employ the same tactics?”
I did exactly that when I posted the Hansen papers and he dismissed them by linking to Anthony Watts’ blog.
Will I argued the paleoclimate record with Cohenite for a long time, he started using reconstructions by Berner and Scotese and attempted to persuade me that these demonstrated there is no link between CO2 and temp, but when you read the authors work they fully support that there is a link between CO2 and climate.
Why are you criticising me for my arguing style?
Cohenite
http://www.data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
This shows about a 0.7C increase from 1900 – 2007
“this is absurdly inconsistent with AGW and IPCC theory; bashing up on me doesn’t change this;”
I thought in Lucia’s latest post she had it in the 95% confidence interval.
http://www.rankexploits.com/musings/2008/comparison-of-12-month-running-averages/
“the point about GISS is that they are surrepstitiously adjusting the past temperature record to interfere with their own trend; I have shown you evidence of this but you ignore it;”
This is nonsense. How is it surreptitious? What a load of baloney. I explained to you the reasons for that. For example data arrives late or is later found to be incorrect.
And this doesn’t chaneg the fact that all the datasets show the same thing.
You’re quite sanctimonious aren’t you NT? What I said about Berner and Scotese is that their graphs contradicted any conclusions about CO2 and temperature correlation; something you appear to agree with over ‘geologic’ times, as you describe it; your first link doesn’t work but I have seen it; GISS is the only indices which shows an increase from 1998-current; that is the issue isn’t it; look at HadCrut for instance;
http://i32.tinypic.com/2s01m5y.jpg
Your lucia link shows good (95%) confidence between the models and observed temperature between TAR and AR4, that is between 2000 and 2007; 1998 and 2008 kill them and in that we get back to the issue of where you start and end your statistical base, something I’ve been harping on for some time.
Anyway, I’m not here to win anyone’s good opinion, so grow up and try to mount a fair dinkum argument.
Cohenite
you said “I have shown you the GISS record over the last century which shows an 0.4C increase;”
You are wrong. The GISS record does not show that, as I showed you above. Will you accept that or will you pretend that this graph only shows a 0.4 increase? http://www.data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
Moaning that it’s wrong doesn’t change the fact that what you claimed was wrong.
HadCrut also shows about 0.6 increase over the last century. Your figure of 0.4 is simply wrong.
“Your lucia link shows good (95%) confidence between the models and observed temperature between TAR and AR4, that is between 2000 and 2007; 1998 and 2008 kill them and in that we get back to the issue of where you start and end your statistical base, something I’ve been harping on for some time.”
No, you are wrong. She says despite the recent drop in 12 month average, it is STILL within the 95% confidence interval.
Here’s what she wrote:
“Using the simple eyeball test, we see temperatures dropped [after] publication of the document, but remain within the ±95% uncertainty intervals for all weather in all models. ”
Your claims were wrong.
“What I said about Berner and Scotese is that their graphs contradicted any conclusions about CO2 and temperature ”
And you are wrong about that. They note the apparent lack of correlation between CO2 and temp over geologic time and then explain why that is. You have chosen to simply ignore their analysis.
“1998 and 2008 kill them and in that we get back to the issue of where you start and end your statistical base, something I’ve been harping on for some time.”
How did they die? Seem very much alive to me.
data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
Just add the http etc yourself.
NT “What is net atmospheric temperature”?
Net atmospheric temperature is the trend. If it’s above average one year and below average next year, the net average is the average of those years. So, the net average since 1998 is essentially zero, It’s actually +0.04 (not including 2008). That means there has been no net warming since 1998, even though the warming/cooling has been cyclical.
SJT has suggested a longer period is required to assess the trend but I think 10 years is very significant. If CO2 has been increasing at 0.6% per year, then the temperature trend should have shown a significant positive trend. It has not and that makes no sense. The same thing happened prior to 1970, when global temperatures dipped even though CO2 was rapidly increasing. Tsonis et al have directly related those global variations in the past century to ocean oscillations (AMO, PDO, ENSO, etc.) coupling and decoupling.
As I pointed out in previous posts, we are essentially adding 1 molecule of CO2 to 100,000 molecules of air every five years, and that’s using the IPCC figure of 380 ppmv. Once again I ask the simple question: how can anthropogenic CO2, which is 3% of a gas that is 0.03% of the atmosphere, be responsible for 10 to 25% of greenhouse warming? Why don’t we get off this crap science and start looking closely at the effect of the oceans?
I’ll try to look at your links but what I’m seeing as explanations is moving the goalposts. One red herring the modelers tried to introduce was aerosols. They claimed it is actually warming far more than the thermometers and satellites claim, but mysterious aerosols are cooling the atmosphere. The boots were put to that arguement when it was found the northern hemisphere, where most of the aerosols are produced, was warmer than the southern hemisphere.
Another arguement being presented by Keenlyside et all, which realclimate agrees and disagrees with, is that the AMO is cooling the planet and reversing the effect of anthropogenic warming. So, on the one hand they admit the oceanic oscillations can control global warming yet on the other they persist with their model generated theory that CO2 has a major effect.
I don’t represent oil companies and I want nothing to do with them. I have an interest in cutting back on anthropogenic emissions and I had that interest long before this hysteria began. I want to see some good science done before we have idiots like Arnold Schwarzennegar and Al Gore running inane global warming programs that are unnecessary and hurtful to the economy. Remember that Al Gore’s claim to fame as vice president for 8 years was harrassing rock groups over so-called satanic lyrics. We know what Arnold is known for. I’d rather see that money put into long term projects that will address alternate fuels, etc.
NT…I tried reading some of your links and some are inaccessible without paying for them. There’s no way i’m paying to read an article by Hansen. Some are just plain inaccessible.
I was wondering why you include an article from 1981 ( titled “Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide”). He admitted in 1998 that he’d been wrong with his previous predictions, claiming his model had lied to him, or something to that effect. Presumably he programmed them circa 1988 based on those earlier theories.
In the 1999 article he says “We suggest that further warming in the United States to a level rivaling the 1930s is likely in the next decade, but reliable prediction requires better understanding of decadal oscillations of ocean temperature”.
That’s a mouthful. He actually admitted that temperatures rivaling the 1930’s were yet to come. Would you not think a smart scientist would go, Hmmmm! Would he not wonder why it had been hotter in the 1930’s before global levels of CO2 took off? Hansen was wrong again. There was no warming trend in the next decade because there were enough cooler years to offset the warmer years. There were spikes similar to those in the 1930’s in North America, but 1934 is still the warmest year. Why??
The important part of his statement, however, is the reference to a better understanding of decadal oscillations of ocean temperature. We are just starting to get that better understanding now, after the IPCC shot itself in the foot by claiming it was 90% likely the fault of humans. Why did the IPCC insist on going exclusively with model predictions over natural variables like the oceans?
In Hansen’s 2005 paper, he tells us to expect a 0.6 C increase in the future but I couldn’t read anymore because I’m not paying. He’s off to a pretty shaky start with his prediction. Here we are nearly 4 years later and temperatures are holding steady or declining in the short term. Note that his 0.6 C is quite a downward revision from his earlier predictions. Since the IPCC and modelers are still predicting anywhere from a global warming of 1.5 C to 4.0 C in the next 50 years, do you think maybe Hansen knows something they don’t know?
I don’t understand your inclusion of Hansen on volcanos. You’re not seriously putting them forward as reasons for the no warming trend in the past decade?
Gordon,
If you remove the www from the link and add the http business they should work.
There are so many questions amongst you posts, I don;t have time to answer them. Maybe you should research the questions yourself.
To be honest, none of the points you mention are anything new and if you look you will find answers to all your questions.
NT; Lucia said that the models matched the observations to a 95% confidence level between 2000 (TAR) and 2007 (AR4); can someone else have a look at NT’s link to Lucia and adjudicate on this?
Going back to my GISS graph and the Hadcrut graph; NT is taking the period from 1900 to 2008 to achieve a temperature increase of 0.7C; he is correct. But this is still far below the 1.3C required by AGW; and it doesn’t take into account ENSO, Volcanoes and base period taint, or insolation; to explain and incorporate these factors I have linked to my post on 20thC temperature but NT and others ignore it, a back-handed compliment I suppose. If you look at Hadcrut and take the period from 1878 to 2008, the temperature has risen 0.4C; if you take the period from 1944-2008 the temperature has risen 0.12C, for a period of 64 years; that illustrates my point about starting and finishing points, OK?
Cohenite
She has placed the error lines on the graph.
“The figure below compares the 12 month lagging average GMST to the 12 month running averaged based on the average of 29 IPCC AR4 runs that included volcanic forcing before 2000 and project past 2000 using the A1B SRES”
The two fainter blues lines are the error bars, you can see that the observations still line within the error lines.
“If you look at Hadcrut and take the period from 1878 to 2008, the temperature has risen 0.4C; if you take the period from 1944-2008 the temperature has risen 0.12C, for a period of 64 years; that illustrates my point about starting and finishing points, OK?”
That is terrible, you have picked the spike year 1878 (which is clearly out of step with all others around it, it was an el nino year I think it cause terrible famines in India). If this is how you conduct your analysis I shudder. Why did you do that? If you picl any other year around the turn of the century it’s about 0.6
“and it doesn’t take into account ENSO, Volcanoes and base period taint, or insolation; to explain and incorporate these factors I have linked to my post on 20thC temperature but NT and others ignore it, a back-handed compliment I suppose.”
Cohenite, you can’t link to your own post and expect me to take you seriously. There have been many papers written on exactly what you are describing, why would I read your blog post? Why do you persist in pretending it hasn’t been researched. Again, for some reason you think that ENSO has nothing to do with global warming. ENSO is just a system for redistributing heat – it doesn’t create it.
Cohenite. Why don’t you email Lucia and ask her.
“ENSO is just a system for redistributing heat – it doesn’t create it.” Very true NT but you have obviously forgotten the discussion you had with Bob Tisdale about accumulating heat during an El Nino dominated period; here is what White and Cayon have to say about it;
“Thus global warming and cooling during Earth’s internal mode of interannual climate variability arise from fluctuations in the global hydrological balance, not the global radiation balance. Since it occurs in the absence of extraterrestial and anthropogenic forcing, global warming on decadal, interdecadal, and centennial scales may also occur in association with Earth’s internal modes of climate variability on those scales.”
As to Lucia; here is my proposed question:
In respect of your graph, is it fair to say that the average of the models shows a correlation with observed temperature to a 95% confidence level for the period between the TAR, 2000, and AR4, 2007 only; or do you mean to say that correlation exists back to the beginning of the graph, 1971?
Cohenite
Oh don’t remind me of that excruitiating encounter with Bob. It’s fine that there is more heat around when there is an El Nino, but that doesn’t mean that El Nino has created the heat. It is a mechanism for heat redistribution. And you White and Cayon also state that.
Ok, so they think that the period of warming through the 20th Century is due to a redistribution of heat. Good for them it makes me wonder where the heat came from. Where was the heat in the Centuries prior to the 20th it was cooler for a long time prior to the 20th? That would mean that the heat for the 20th century would’ve had to have been somewhere else from between around the 10th Century till now (assuming that the MWP was as warm as now). Do they have a process for hiding heat for a thousand years? Do you have a link to that paper?
That’s a weird question, why use the word “correlation”?
This is what she said she was doing:
“Simply comparing the observations of global mean surface temperature (GMST) to the value predicted right now can be shown to have less statistical power when used to detect deviations, but it’s still worth looking at.”
So perhaps your question should be:
Do the observations of GMST fall outside the 95% confidence interval of the value of GMST predicted for the time period of your graph?
OK, put it; and if no, then we’ll have to figure out how to marry that with Koutsoyiannis.
Question put and answer received; make what you want of it.
Roger? hmmm.
I’ll make a paper crane I think.
Wonder why she used the less ‘strong’ test. Maybe she should post on a more rigorous one.
I was listening to the news last night and there was a graph, showing earnings per share. The journalits was noting that after each recession the earnings per share average would drop below the ‘trend line’, rather than stopping at the trend line… He seemed to think this was some great observation. Made me laugh out loud.
NT “There are so many questions amongst you posts, I don;t have time to answer them”.
NT…you don’t have the time or you don’t have the answers? I only respond to you because you insist on making comments about my posts, but that’s about as far as it goes. You have no in-depth understanding of science and you have no intention of learning. All you do is spew old rhetoric from the likes of Hansen and realclimate. I’m waiting for you to offer one original thought, but I doubt if you have the courage to go that far out on a limb.
What a strange notion. If the science is sound, then it bears repeating. It might sound a little boring after the hundredth time, but it can’t be any more than what it is.
SJT…how do you manage to make responses that have absolutely nothing to do with the post you’re commenting on? It is certainly worth repeating science that has truth as its basis, but you and NT are regurgitating consensus, even when observation refutes your consensus. That’s what makes both of you ideologs as opposed to students of science.
Gordon,
SJT excels at the non sequitur because he doesn’t understand the science. But not to worry, the consensus is collapsing daily.
The debate about global warming is surely not the point. It is really about using a non-renewable resource as a primary energy source for the world economy and in the process stop polluting the atmosphere. No-one argues about the need for a non-polluting and renewable energy source do they?
Tonygpc – the real point is more – if global temperature is changing, has it got anything to do with human activity. I’m yet to see any scientific data that supports this hypothesis. This site is focusing more on what the temperature is doing (I suspect we’re coming into a cooling period), However, some people seem to be assuming that, if it’s increasing, humans are to blame. Have a look at temperatures for the past few thousand years – they could go up or down, with nothing anthropogenic about it. I agree with reduction of pollution (CO2 doesn’t fit into this category).
Dear Jennifer,
Sorry but I am a complete novice and frightened as heck. I am sitting in Seattle where the glaciers were 3 miles high in the last ice age. I look out my windows at the snow covered mountains that have been bare for years. I was a global warming believer, now I am not so certain.
After reading what T. Landscheidt and Rhodes Fairbridge have written. I find what they had to say is far more convincing than any global warming or NASA scientist has to say. Unfortunately the issue is so one sided at the governmental level.
The stock market realizes what is coming. When this summers harvests colapse and next falls snows return. I am sure there will be a reason they have to cut off our fuel, food and electrical supplies due to all the global warming.