Merged Global Warming Discussion II: Heated Conversation

[Reality Check]

I think I have done a fair job of showing evidence of how the Global Warming Models have failed.

You have given no such evidence - just an unfounded opinion, Jules Galen..

And what's more strange, is that you and your buddies refuse to show how the Global Warming Models have been accurate over the past 20 years.
...snipped some lies and ignorant demands...

No - what is totally strange is how you can claim that when the actual evidence that Global Warming Models have been accurate over the past 20 years has been presented to you, Jules Galen. .

 

[Trakar]

Six Things Michael Mann Wants You to Know About the Science of Global Warming

http://billmoyers.com/2014/06/12/si...-to-know-about-the-science-of-global-warming/

Mann believes that climate change “skepticism” could not exist if the public had a better understanding of how science works — if they got that climatology is based on the same scientific method as any other field of knowledge.
BillMoyers.com spoke with Michael Mann, and here are six things he’d like you to understand about the scientific consensus on global warming.

1. Climate Scientists are the Real Skeptics
Mann: Too often we allow the forces of anti-science, the forces of denialism, or contrarianism, to somehow frame their position as one of skepticism. But denying mainstream, well-established science based on arguments that don’t stand up scrutiny, that’s not skepticism. That’s pseudo-skepticism.
Real scientists embrace skepticism because that’s what moves science forward. That’s the self-correcting machinery, to use the language of Carl Sagan, which keeps science on this inexorable course toward a better understanding of the way the world works. If your ideas are wrong, if your theories are wrong, if they don’t hold up, if the data don’t support them, if other studies don’t come to the same conclusion, then science moves on, and it searches for a better answer. Scientists are always trying to find holes in each other’s proposed ideas, or in their own proposed ideas.

Sounds like the same argument many of us have pushed for the better part of a decade here in this forum.

2. The Science of Climate Change is Based on Many Sources of Data and Many Different Methodologies
Mann: This is what attracted me to climate science. I started out as a theoretical physicist. But then I was captivated by the fact that there were scientists who were using physics and math to model this amazingly complicated system that we call the earth’s climate. I realized that there was an opportunity to work on this incredibly interdisciplinary problem that involves the physics of the atmosphere and the ocean and the ice sheets and the way they all interact with each other, and their interaction with incoming sunlight and the outgoing heat energy from the surface.
There’s also biology. You have to understand Earth’s carbon cycle, the balance of carbon in the atmosphere and ocean, which involves living processes. There is important chemistry; the chemistry of greenhouse gases, the geochemistry of the oceans.
Some people claim that climate models can’t be trusted because they haven’t made successful projections. That’s just dead wrong.
So this has become, in my view, one of the most interdisciplinary science problems that exists and that’s part of what makes it so exciting.

Again familiar and addressed repeatedly in this very thread not long ago in multiple responses such as this one.

3. The Models Have Proven Accurate
Mann: The science isn’t based only on a bunch of climate models, we also have a lot of observations. We can test the principles against what we see in the real world.
Some people claim that climate models can’t be trusted because they haven’t made successful projections. That’s just dead wrong. Climate scientists have a very strong track record of having made predictions like how much cooling we would expect after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, back in 1991. James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies successfully predicted the cooling that would be observed using a climate model. Hansen also successfully predicted two decades of warming in advance, using a climate model back in the 1980s that was quite crude.

Again, many here seem to repeatedly provide supporting evidence and testimony regarding these simple and amply acknowledged mainstream science findings.

3. The Models Have Proven Accurate
Mann: The science isn’t based only on a bunch of climate models, we also have a lot of observations. We can test the principles against what we see in the real world.
Some people claim that climate models can’t be trusted because they haven’t made successful projections. That’s just dead wrong. Climate scientists have a very strong track record of having made predictions like how much cooling we would expect after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, back in 1991. James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies successfully predicted the cooling that would be observed using a climate model. Hansen also successfully predicted two decades of warming in advance, using a climate model back in the 1980s that was quite crude.

but, but, Watt about all the things I've heard politicians and political pundits say?!

4. If Anything, Global Warming is Probably Worse Than Scientists Say
We asked Mann about a peer-reviewed paper published in 2012 in the journal Global Environmental Change. It reviewed several studies and found that at least some of the attributes of global warming had been under-predicted by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The authors of the study concluded that scientists tend to err “on the side of least drama.”

Mann: As Naomi Oreskes describes in that study, there’s an innate tendency in the world of science to be conservative, because the greatest risk is to stick your neck out there with a hypothesis that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Scientists are intrinsically conservative because they don’t want to be proven wrong. If you are perennially wrong, if your predictions are perennially bad, it will reflect negatively on your reputation as a scientist.
We may have been too conservative — the climate models may actually be underestimating the rate at which some changes are taking place.
Now, add to that innate scientific reticence all of the additional pressure from a very well-funded and well-organized disinformation campaign by industry interests looking to discredit the case for concern over climate change. They go after individual scientists. They attack them, they vilify them. They haul them up before Congress — scientists find themselves in the hot seat in hostile hearings, led by politicians who are in the pay of the fossil fuel industry.

David Suzuki on the War Against Climate Scientists Climate change deniers try to make the public think that it’s the small group of contrarian scientists who are being subjected to a kind of McCarthyism. But that draws attention away from the real story, which is that it’s the scientists conveying what the science has to say about climate change who are being attacked.

So we may have been too conservative — the climate models may actually be underestimating the rate at which some changes are taking place. For example, the loss of ice from the west Antarctic ice sheet — there were some recent studies suggesting that that’s taking place sooner, and with a greater magnitude, than originally predicted.

Imagine that, the words echoed so often in this thread are accurate reflections of the opinions and considerations of the leading climate scientists on the planet!

5. A Scientific Consensus Isn’t Like a Popularity Contest

Mann: I think the process of science is foreign to the public because it’s so different from the 24/7 news cycle-driven world that we live in, where we are inundated with rapidly changing information. That’s not the pace at which science operates.

Every once and a while there’s some contrarian paper that gets published in a journal and immediately the climate change contrarians trumpet this new study and it gets air-time on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, and inevitably — in almost every case that I can think of — the study turns out to have been fundamentally flawed.

But it may take a year before a peer-reviewed article assessing that particular study is published. It takes time for scientists to independently look at the data, test the hypotheses, and either replicate or refute an analysis in a previously published article.

Scientists also present findings at meetings, and other scientists may criticize them, they may ask questions or make comments. There’s feedback that takes place at these scientific meetings.

So what happens is, over the course of years — with many meetings and exchanges and the peer-reviewed literature — these things get sorted out. Studies either get replicated or refuted on a time-scale that reflects the slow gears of science.

But it becomes very easy for those looking to throw doubt and confusion into the picture to select some late-breaking study, take it out of context, milk it for all it’s worth and neglect the fact that there’s a much larger body of scientific research upon which our understanding is based... (read rest at above link)

Science is driven by the interpretation the data suggests not the interpretation those paying for the study desire the data to reflect.

6. Climatologists are Beginning to Recognize That They Have to Speak Up
Mann: I wrote an op-ed in The New York Times earlier this year in which I made a very strong and impassioned plea to my fellow scientists to be willing to advocate for an informed public discourse. Not that they need to advocate for specific policies to deal with climate change, but to be willing to step up and participate in the larger public discourse over what we know about the scientific evidence.
Part of the reason for the attacks against me and other scientists who have participated prominently in the public discussion is to send a warning signal to other scientists who might think about speaking out. But if we don’t speak out, then we leave a vacuum in the discussion. And that vacuum will be filled by industry-funded disinformation — the anti-scientific claims of industry front groups and their paid advocates. All of society suffers if scientists are not willing to participate in this discussion.
Part of what makes me optimistic about the outlook for this larger discussion is that the younger generation of scientists seems far more engaged in outreach and communication. They’re far more likely to participate in social media and do what they have to to get their thoughts out into the public sphere.

Part of what makes me so pessimistic is all the pessimism I see in many of our younger researchers and students when they begin to actually perceive and understand the climate problem facing us both as a nation and as a species.

 

[Reality Check]

...The Science is Settled: Anthropogenic Global Warming is not a Science. (at least not yet)...

A big rant about the science being settled when no science is ever settled shows a bit of ignorance, Jules Galen.

Anthropogenic Global Warming has overwhelming evidence for it. This evidence is so overwhelming that 97% of climate scientists believe that AGW is happening.

 

[Reality Check]

So...when Climate Data doesn't conform to the Model, then Climate data is altered so it fits the Model....is that the latest "Trick"?

Jules Galen, what is your evidence for this serious charge of scientific fraud, i.e. that Climate Data has been changed to fit models.

This unsupported assertion that there was a "Trick" is presumably the amazing trick of ignoring data that was known to be wrong . Proxy temperatures reconstructed from tree cores were known to not match instrumental temperatures from around the 1960s. So a plot of these proxy temperatures was extending using the more reliable instrumental temperatures and clearly captioned.
Please tell us that you do not support the idiocy of plotting data that is known to be wrong, Jules Galen!

 

[Reality Check]

The Congress of the US is not going to pass squat to curb the emission of these "Green House" Gasses - which haven't proven to be of any harm anyways.

Oh dear the ignorance just gets worse, Jules Galen: "Green House" Gasses have been "proven" to be harmful!
Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming

Direct observations find that CO2 is rising sharply due to human activity. Satellite and surface measurements find less energy is escaping to space at CO2 absorption wavelengths. Ocean and surface temperature measurements find the planet continues to accumulate heat. This gives a line of empirical evidence that human CO2 emissions are causing global warming.

Addressing your ignorance about climate models and their reliability yet again, Jules Galen
How reliable are climate models?

In 1988, James Hansen projected future temperature trends (Hansen 1988). Those initial projections show good agreement with subsequent observations (Hansen 2006).
...
Hansen's Scenario B (described as the most likely option and most closely matched the level of CO2 emissions) shows close correlation with observed temperatures. Hansen overestimated future CO2 levels by 5 to 10% so if his model were given the correct forcing levels, the match would be even closer. There are deviations from year to year but this is to be expected. The chaotic nature of weather will add noise to the signal but the overall trend is predictable.

My emphasis added.

ETA: And the delusion that you can tell the Congress of the US what to do or have a crystal ball saying what they will do .

 

[Reality Check]

And the future looks good, too - I just don't see any meaningful legislation on the horizon.

Perhaps you should get a job that does not involve spouting propaganda about "climate alarmism", Jules Galen, and might involve learning about climate science.

There were 179 bills focusing specifically on climate change had been introduced in the 113th Congress (2013-2014).

As of May 2014, 179 bills focusing specifically on climate change had been introduced in the 113th Congress (2013-2014). Many more bills touch on energy, environment, transportation, agriculture and other areas that could have an impact on or be affected by climate change. The list below, however, contains for the most part only those bills whose authors explicitly reference climate change or related terms

and the 113th Congress ends on January 3, 2015.
So halfway through and maybe 90 climate-related bills still to be read?
For example: S.332 - Climate Protection Act of 2013 - in committee.

 

[Trakar]

My conclusion: Nobody said it was easy. I stand for what I said, Niño starting, keeping weak and going up again some time two month around New Year.

Traditionally a Christmas event, thus the name, that's probably a safe bet.

...more importantly to some things I've been reading lately, we may be looking at a longer than typical event, with possibly several "pulses," similar to what you seem to be describing.

 

[macdoc]

Australia is reporting a weakening.

El Nino Seen Delayed by Australia as Ocean Warming Eases
By Phoebe Sedgman Jun 17, 2014 3:25 AM ET 4 Comments Email Print

Australia remains on El Nino alert even as a slowing in Pacific Ocean warming may push back the onset of the weather event that brings drought to the Asia-Pacific region and heavier-than-usual rains to South America.

While there has been some easing in the outlook, climate models indicate an El Nino will probably develop by spring, which begins in September in Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology said on its website today. The alert indicates at least a 70 percent chance of the event developing this year, it said. The bureau had said June 3 that the pattern would be established by August.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...-australia-even-as-pacific-warming-eases.html

good for US tho apparently

El Niño expected to benefit U.S. agriculture, economist says
Date:
June 16, 2014
Source:
Kansas State University
Summary:
An El Niño would help U.S. crop production, but could negatively impact worldwide production, a senior agricultural economist says. "El Niño is generally favorable to crop production in the United States because it brings extra rain and moisture into the core crop-growing areas," he said. "We're just coming out of a four-year drought cycle in the United States and we'd like to get back to what we call trend-line yields and big crop production so there's plenty for everybody."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140616111018.htm

Unfortunately - the RRR seems to hang over California quite Damoclean

Rainy season ends in California; exceptional drought continues to intensify
Filed in Uncategorized by Daniel Swain on June 1, 2014 • 203 Comments
Overview of recent weather conditions

April and May were very dry months for much of California. In most of the major population centers, little or no measurable precipitation occurred during the entire month of May.
Occasional thunderstorms did bring highly localized downpours –mostly confined to the Sierra Nevada mountains–but overall precipitation was well below average for both April and May. Now that June has arrived and there’s still no rain on the horizon, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the incredibly dry 2013-2014 “rainy” season is over.

Warmest year on record to date

In addition to the exceptionally dry conditions, temperatures in California have consistently been at their highest levels in recorded history for at least the past 6 months. NOAA previously confirmed that California experienced its warmest winter in at least 119 years of record-keeping, and more recent data suggests that 2014 is now the warmest year to date.

http://www.weatherwest.com/archives/tag/ridiculously-resilient-ridge

and that was the rainy season

My my the agricultural commodity brokers will be fretting....

 

[a_unique_person]

No...I think you are mistaken. See...the Money is on our side. All the Big Corporations and Rich Donors are giving plenty of money to the anti-AGW cause - and the cause is spending it on the politicians who make the laws.

So, our side has the Money and we've got the Political Power. Plus...Global Warming has halted since 1998 and this just makes it better for our side.

Money, Political Power, Science, Weather: it's an unbeatable combination. It's the Four Horsemen of Doom for Climate Change.

Just don't take it personal.

I wondered how it works, thank you for explaining it.

Warming has not halted, BTW, even if you cherry pick the best starting point available.

http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1998/to:2013/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1998/to:2013/trend

 

[CapelDodger]

ETA: And the delusion that you can tell the Congress of the US what to do or have a crystal ball saying what they will do .

It's reasonable to believe its Republican members will do what they're paid to do, and Jules Galen is probably right about what that is. The US Republican party is, after the all, the most openly marketed political party in the developed (and post-developed) world.

The delusion is that the world gives a toss about the US Congress. This derives, I suspect, from the delusion that the US is the world.

 

[CapelDodger]

...more importantly to some things I've been reading lately, we may be looking at a longer than typical event, with possibly several "pulses," similar to what you seem to be describing.

An intriguing possibility. Even without an El Nino 2014 will probably be the warmest yet (on the surface), with 2015 even warmer. Two successive records would surely concentrate minds wonderfully. Wouldn't they? Yes, of course they would.

Just in time for the 2016 US Elections. Jules Galen's "Mission Accomplished" may turn out to be as misplaced as another which springs to mind.

 

[aleCcowaN]

It wouldn't surprise me at all global temperatures rising 0.25°C in just two years and then rising an additional 0.1°C during the rest of the next two decades (next denialist meme?). Earth system models offer such kind of outputs with scenarios resembling the foreseeable path of emissions . Certainly, relatively "cool" years like 1999, 2000 and 2008 seem to be distant memories now. In fact, if the rest of the year were month by month like the average of the 20th century, this year would still be as warm as 1996.

Last niña-ish 12 months -ending last April- match all warmest years (strong niño 1998, niño-ish 2005) but niño 2010.

 

[macdoc]

I had noticed what appeared to be a bit more frequent La Nina since 1998 and it got me wondering if the additional ocean heat would not increase vertical movement but it's inverted from what happens in the atmosphere with a cold cap on a hot bubble leading to thunderstorms.

Is there a mechanism from increased vertical mixing??

Looks pretty complex

http://oceansjsu.com/105d/exped_climate/8.html

Has the deep ocean warmed faster than expected? A faster rate of burying heat would buy time at least.

 

[Trakar]

It wouldn't surprise me at all global temperatures rising 0.25°C in just two years and then rising an additional 0.1°C during the rest of the next two decades (next denialist meme?). Earth system models offer such kind of outputs with scenarios resembling the foreseeable path of emissions . Certainly, relatively "cool" years like 1999, 2000 and 2008 seem to be distant memories now. In fact, if the rest of the year were month by month like the average of the 20th century, this year would still be as warm as 1996.

Last niña-ish 12 months -ending last April- match all warmest years (strong niño 1998, niño-ish 2005) but niño 2010.

I sincerely hope that we are all wrong. A little thermal stimulus (so to speak) would be a good way to help incentivize U.S. voters and lawmakers, but it will do so at the expense of a lot of pain and suffering among people the globe over. That is a high price to pay when merely trying to get reasonable people to pass reasonable regulation and legislation.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Is there a mechanism from increased vertical mixing??

Looks pretty complex

"Pretty complex" is quite the understatement (an then some) <--- the whole previous sentence is an understatement

Has the deep ocean warmed faster than expected? A faster rate of burying heat would buy time at least.

The figure you have used many times, showing heat content in the upper 60% of the world ocean is explained within error margin by all the radiative imbalance at top of the atmosphere.

It's an essential component of the climate sceptic toolbox: 1 W/m2 of radiative imbalance means 1.6 x 10E22 Joules/year trapped.

But another essential in the toolbox is that the world ocean needs 4.7 x 10E24 Joules (300 years of the previous imbalance) to go +1°C as an average.

You may find some elements you're looking for in extended data figure 3 of Recent global-warming hiatus tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling. No large version freely available on-line, but it is clear knowing what is searched for, unless someone inadvertently dropped it here (p. 9).

Well, the kind of thing I like to discuss, but, you know, can I?

 

[Alphaba]

Hot spring?

2014 probably has seen the warmer spring ever since 1891, according to the Climate Prediction Division of Japan Meteorological Agency (preliminary value):

 

[aleCcowaN]

There go 1998 and 2010 in that graphic. Farewell to them.

Still, February 1998, with its 12.2°C continue to be the beginning of a so-called pause in warming, in spite last May average is going to show some 14.9°C. Deniers -and only deniers- have much to answer for this.

 

[aleCcowaN]

I had noticed what appeared to be a bit more frequent La Nina since 1998 and it got me wondering ...

I forgot to mention this, from a source I think you appreciate, related to the paper I linked above.

Anyway, I stand with IPCC AR5 WG1 report, and the total radiative forcing trend being about 0.25 +/- 0.15 Wm^-2decade^-1, with positive anthropogenic overcoming negative natural.

 

[aleCcowaN]

I sincerely hope that we are all wrong. A little thermal stimulus (so to speak) would be a good way to help incentivize U.S. voters and lawmakers, but it will do so at the expense of a lot of pain and suffering among people the globe over. That is a high price to pay when merely trying to get reasonable people to pass reasonable regulation and legislation.

Out of every possible scenario, I think this one would be a blessing. A Spanish proverb says "God squeezes but he doesn't strangle". A much warmer 2015 and a horribly destructive hurricane season by, say, 2019, would be a Hiroshima bombing, the way to save ten times the lives. Cars have killed 50 million people and nobody is thinking in banning them, just making them safer.

 

[OCaptain]

Ah....it's TSI now!

I get it....when the models don't work, find something to blame it on. First, we hear that heat is hiding out in the Oceans....bad, bad Heat....shame on you. Then, we hear that the TSI may be to blame....Oh Noes!

Seriously, though...both factors - not taking into account TSI and Deep Ocean Heat Trapping (or...whatever) may contribute to the models having failed. I'm sure future models will try to more fully take these factor into account. However, what it also demonstrates is that the science is not mature enough to predict Global Warming.

As a result, maybe we should wait a few years and learn some more about how the Climate really works before we declare an emergency....don't ya' think?

It's not the fault of climate science that you don't know what you're talking about.

It's yours. Now, you can continue bashing your head against the wall or you can take this as a learning opportunity.

Which will you do now?