Global warming

[fsol]

Below are two charts, one scatter, the other line. Both are using the same data.
Both result in the same trend. What is so difficult to understand?

Both charts show a warming trend? Admittedly, it is fairly small and not knowing what the values on the axis represent it could be really significant or not very significant.

You can't analyze much using a scatter diagram in this example; it looks like a messy desk.

In my experience scatter charts are more "honest" as they don't have imaginary lines linking the data points to fool your mind into making correlations that aren't there.

Edit: I'm not convinced correlations is the word I want there. Perhaps trends would be better?

No Schneibster, we have not yet reached solar minimum of SC23. It's not expected until Spring 2008 or later. They are not limited to 11 years either.

This relates to the chart that mhaze sometimes puts up showing the 60-80 year cycle?

I don't understand the fascination with that either. It clearly shows a warming trend from one cycle peak to the next, implying to me at least that there is something else going on as well causing the warming trend.

 

[mhaze]

This relates to the chart that mhaze sometimes puts up showing the 60-80 year cycle?

I don't understand the fascination with that either. It clearly shows a warming trend from one cycle peak to the next, implying to me at least that there is something else going on as well causing the warming trend.

For starters, notice that the often quoted number of 0.6 C for current century warming is measured trough to peak. Yes, there is a longer term upward factor present which is explainable by longer term climate cycles. There is no direct relationship that I know of between this curve fit and eleven or 22 year solar cycles.

 

[fsol]

For starters, notice that the often quoted number of 0.6 C for current century warming is measured trough to peak. Yes, there is a longer term upward factor present which is explainable by longer term climate cycles.

Which cycles please. I could just say that it was explainable by the addition of CO2 to the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels by man...and there the conversation would grind to a halt unless each of us expanded on their own points a little.

There is no direct relationship that I know of between this curve fit and eleven or 22 year solar cycles.

OK thanks. So many cycles, so little time to check who's talking about which particular one.

 

[mhaze]

I'll respond later today in detail, I am on the road on a little handheld now.

 

[David Rodale]

Both charts show a warming trend? Admittedly, it is fairly small and not knowing what the values on the axis represent it could be really significant or not very significant.

In my experience scatter charts are more "honest" as they don't have imaginary lines linking the data points to fool your mind into making correlations that aren't there.

Edit: I'm not convinced correlations is the word I want there. Perhaps trends would be better?

This relates to the chart that mhaze sometimes puts up showing the 60-80 year cycle?

I don't understand the fascination with that either. It clearly shows a warming trend from one cycle peak to the next, implying to me at least that there is something else going on as well causing the warming trend.

I can't imagine this being any easier to understand.

Both charts show a warming trend? Admittedly, it is fairly small and not knowing what the values on the axis represent it could be really significant or not very significant.

The charts are there only to illustrate the final stat results are equal. Please refer to the original post concerning the changing trend. Megalodon completely ignored the data after 1998 and evidently is missing the point. If you can find a scientist that contends the current trend is anything more than flat, please post the link.

In my experience scatter charts are more "honest" as they don't have imaginary lines linking the data points to fool your mind into making correlations that aren't there.

If you’re looking for cause and effect, yes. For analyzing relationships between two variables, a scatter diagram is very useful, as well as looking for root causes of an identified problem. Because time and temperature in this case are the variables, a scatter diagram is not useful. Does temperature affect time? No. Does time affect temperature? No. Can one cause the other? No. Are we looking for a relationship between them? No. Using a scatter diagram in the examples offers nothing useful in this discussion, and makes it virtually impossible to analyze the data; it’s a storm cloud of confusion. It does nothing at all to clarify the raw data. Where are you being fooled by the line chart? A scatter diagram won't improve that in this discussion.

This relates to the chart that mhaze sometimes puts up showing the 60-80 year cycle?

No. The only purpose of my post was to illustrate the trend has flattened.

I don't understand the fascination with that either. It clearly shows a warming trend from one cycle peak to the next, implying to me at least that there is something else going on as well causing the warming trend

The fascination (obsession?) with the temperature rise has been on the AGW side. Now that it’s not going as predicted, there must be an explanation. Met O has acknowledged the trend is flat and there will be cooling for the next few years. They hypothesize the oceans are causing a “temporary” stalling of AGW, but will return in earnest sometime after ~2009(?). Well, if oceans are causing the current flat trend and the coming “temporary” cooling, what is causing the oceans to cool? They certainly aren’t warming, and if the oceans aren’t warming, what’s going to cause the trend to reappear? It's a bit odd Met O's predictions just happen to coincide with Solar Cycle 24, but they don't mention SC23 or SC24. If SC24 is weak per Schatten, Chatterjee and others, they'll be back giving yet another reason, but of course never crediting the sun; that would be sacrilege.
low solar activity= global cooling
high solar activity = CO2 = "magic"?

 

[Locri]

Which is very much about things being different this time.

I can see how you could interpret the way the correlation is presented as suggesting that CO2-variation is the driving force. It doesn't go into Milankovich cycles, but it is a brief introduction, and this page does need to be seen in the context of the first (which explains the inaptly named Greenhouse Effect).

Regardless of explaining the greenhouse effect, that section is misleading. It says very little about the history of Temp and CO2 relations, especially considering that it's supposed to be a brief introduction to people who supposedly don't know much about it, they wouldn't be able to draw the same conclusions you do based on what you know.

I can't guarantee satisfaction but ...

To my mind, the 800-ish year lag is a diversion. In that, it's a good example of the way the anti-AGW argument is presented. It's a lawyer's trick. (That's probably a British idiom, but every culture has its equivalent .) Bring up an irrelevance, get it talked about, and pretty soon people think it matters. OJ and the Bloody Glove, the Diana Inquest, that sort of thing. The Woods Hole presentation fades into insignificance in comparison.

No, it's not a trick. I'll go into this further on another response, but it is highly relevant.

Turn your critical eye on ClimateAudit and junkscience (et al). Look for the misleading presentations. It's a far easier crop to harvest than Wood Hole's.

Funny you bring up ClimateAudit... frankly, I see more transparency in action and more scientific reasoning and willing to admit fault there then I do at places like RealClimate.

 

[Locri]

Since both you and AUP commented on some of the same things, I'll hit them both here rather than being redundant.

The Mann et al reconstruction has been disproven? What about the independent reconstructions that support it, have they gone the same way?

The hockey stick has been re-investigated, and validated by independent researchers. http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/...Print_Ch06.pdf Chapter 6.6

It's a big drum the deniers always beat, but it doesn't even make the case for AGW. The rate of change that is measured is enough to make the case for concern.

I'm not sure the reconstruction proved anything to start out with. I read the section you mentioned, but it's not addressing the issue that McIntyre brought up from what I can see. It says that other people have managed to reconstruct the same graph using a method very close to Mann, right? The whole reason the hockeystick was discredited in the first place was because McIntyre could put in RANDOM DATA and it would result in a hockey stick.

So theoretically, a chimpanzee with a dartboard could reconstruct Mann's hockey stick. The issue isn't that it's hard to reproduce, it's that anything you throw at his method results in the same thing.

What's the relevance of the 800-ish year CO2 response-lag to the present situation?

800 year gap. It's a concept that seem to be hard for people to understand for some reason. CO2 can be a feedback, like water vapour, and that's what it usually is.

CD, your history on the subject must be a bit shaky. When the icecore graph initially came out and they didn't have such precise measurements on the timings (in order to realize the gap was there in the first place) they used that as evidence that CO2 is strongly tied to Temp and very likely is what caused it.

When the timings were narrowed down and they realized there was a 800 YEAR gap (that's a rather large gap you know) then they brought in the whole positive feedback thing. This is an example (as I said) of changing the goal posts.

And in regards to feedbacks... Please answer honestly, did either of you read the link I posted? A system with as much positive feedback as most AGW people are theorizing would be an inherently unstable system.

The fact is, if high CO2 causes such problems, why has the temperature been able to fall back to normal levels in the past when the CO2 levels are so high? The past is highly relevant here and to ignore it is to invite all sorts of problems. There are obviously some massive negative feedback mechanisms that scientists apparently only understand in a very minimal way.

What Hansen graphs?

Er, sorry... that was a slight misphrasing. I meant to refer to the recent correction of post 2000 temperatures. I find it rather odd just how quietly the correction was done (if you look on AGW sites) and how downplayed it is. People have obviously made mistakes, it's ok to say if you have but they are doing their damnedest to make it look like they were right all along.

There's been a thing going on recently about getting mhaze to admit that Pat Michaels blatantly lied to Congress back in 1998. Getting blood out of a stone is a doddle in comparison. Michaels's lying is there for all too see, courtesy of the Cato Institute, but mhaze won't have it.

I'm not mhaze, go talk to him about that. You are trying to derail the topic with this.

For now though, I have to go... I'll write more later.

 

[CapelDodger]

I'm not sure the reconstruction proved anything to start out with. I read the section you mentioned, but it's not addressing the issue that McIntyre brought up from what I can see. It says that other people have managed to reconstruct the same graph using a method very close to Mann, right? The whole reason the hockeystick was discredited in the first place was because McIntyre could put in RANDOM DATA and it would result in a hockey stick.

Any random data creates a hockey-stick?

So theoretically, a chimpanzee with a dartboard could reconstruct Mann's hockey stick. The issue isn't that it's hard to reproduce, it's that anything you throw at his method results in the same thing.

But we've actually observed the blade of the Hockey-Stick get longer over the last twenty years. Method has nothing to do with that.

CD, your history on the subject must be a bit shaky. When the icecore graph initially came out and they didn't have such precise measurements on the timings (in order to realize the gap was there in the first place) they used that as evidence that CO2 is strongly tied to Temp and very likely is what caused it.

Long before ice-cores became available the most commonly held theory was that Milankovich cycles - involving cyclical orbital variations - were the regular forcing behind the regular glaciation/inter-glacial pattern. The problem with that theory was that the associated variations in solar-input were too slight to explain the extent of climate change. Amplification by a positive CO2 feedback was one suggested explanation, with reasonable physical backing. Warming oceans will release dissolved CO2 by evaporation, as will marginal permafrost as it melts.

It was only with the ice-core data that this feedback could be quantified, and it is sufficient to nail Milankovich cycles as the main driver of climate change during this Ice Epoch (during which there have been many Ice Ages).

When the timings were narrowed down and they realized there was a 800 YEAR gap (that's a rather large gap you know) then they brought in the whole positive feedback thing. This is an example (as I said) of changing the goal posts.

I'm afraid it's you that has the history and the sequence wrong. CO2 feedback to Milankovich forcings was postulated before ice-cores were available. As I recall, Milankovich did his main work on this subject in the 20's. No goalposts have been changed. Milankovich (among others) did the work on orbital variations in an attempt to explain the observed regular glacial/inter-glacial cycle, but Milankovich cycles clearly weren't the whole story. CO2 feedback was posited as being another part of the story but the data wasn't there to confirm or dismiss it. With ice-cores the data became available. The lag wasn't surprising given that feedbacks, by definition, kick in after the initial event.

A good example of the scientific process at work.

And in regards to feedbacks... Please answer honestly, did either of you read the link I posted? A system with as much positive feedback as most AGW people are theorizing would be an inherently unstable system.

No it wouldn't, given the inertia of the world's oceans - thermal inertia and the dissolved-CO2 inertia. This is demonstrated by the 800 year lag in CO2 response to Milankovich warming.

The fact is, if high CO2 causes such problems, why has the temperature been able to fall back to normal levels in the past when the CO2 levels are so high?

What's a "normal" level?

Climate can cool,as it does during inter-glacials, despite CO2-load remaining relatively high. The cooling is down to other causes - Milankovich cycles being the theoretical front-runner - and CO2, being a positive feedback, responds after the event. As orbital variation reduces insolation the the climate cools, oceans gradually draw CO2 out of the atmosphere, the permafrost margin moves south drawing more CO2 out of the atmosphere, and the reduced greenhouse effect amplifies the cooling.

The past is highly relevant here and to ignore it is to invite all sorts of problems. There are obviously some massive negative feedback mechanisms that scientists apparently only understand in a very minimal way.

If there were massive negative feedback mechanisms we'd never see a shift from glacial to inter-glacial conditions. It's that shift which demonstrates that there are positive feedbacks, of which CO2-load is one. They're not evident in the short-term because of the system's inertia. CO2 can only migrate between ocean and atmosphere across the ocean surface, obviously, which slows the response.

Er, sorry... that was a slight misphrasing. I meant to refer to the recent correction of post 2000 temperatures. I find it rather odd just how quietly the correction was done (if you look on AGW sites) and how downplayed it is. People have obviously made mistakes, it's ok to say if you have but they are doing their damnedest to make it look like they were right all along.

Are you referring to the error in calculating late-90's temperature across the contiguous-48 US states? That's a recognised error, and nobody's trying to conceal it. (Whether David Rodale includes the necessary corrections in his "no warming this decade" graphs - courtesy, I suspect, of McIntyre - is another matter.) In global terms it means squat.

I'm not mhaze, go talk to him about that. You are trying to derail the topic with this.

It was you who introduced the idea that scientists won't admit their defeats. So I used it to poke mhaze with. That doesn't make me a bad person. OK, maybe I'm not a nice person ...

For now though, I have to go... I'll write more later.

I never doubted it .

 

[a_unique_person]

Agreed. But neither of which rationing CO2 on a global basis will have any effect on.

The reasons the southerly weather patterns are changing is climate change.

 

[a_unique_person]

I'm not sure the reconstruction proved anything to start out with. I read the section you mentioned, but it's not addressing the issue that McIntyre brought up from what I can see. It says that other people have managed to reconstruct the same graph using a method very close to Mann, right? The whole reason the hockeystick was discredited in the first place was because McIntyre could put in RANDOM DATA and it would result in a hockey stick.

So theoretically, a chimpanzee with a dartboard could reconstruct Mann's hockey stick. The issue isn't that it's hard to reproduce, it's that anything you throw at his method results in the same thing.

It's been validated since then, using a different statistical method, with pretty much the same result, a line that looks like a 'hockey stick'.

 

[a_unique_person]

CD, your history on the subject must be a bit shaky. When the icecore graph initially came out and they didn't have such precise measurements on the timings (in order to realize the gap was there in the first place) they used that as evidence that CO2 is strongly tied to Temp and very likely is what caused it.

When the timings were narrowed down and they realized there was a 800 YEAR gap (that's a rather large gap you know) then they brought in the whole positive feedback thing. This is an example (as I said) of changing the goal posts.

I don't know where you got that story, but it's complete fiction. It's well known that CO2 is usually not a driver of climate change, but a feedback. The ice core data is useful in associating warm periods with CO2 levels. That is, CO2 is a factor in the hotter periods of the earths history. If it is a forcing or a feedback is another issue.

 

[a_unique_person]

Er, sorry... that was a slight misphrasing. I meant to refer to the recent correction of post 2000 temperatures. I find it rather odd just how quietly the correction was done (if you look on AGW sites) and how downplayed it is. People have obviously made mistakes, it's ok to say if you have but they are doing their damnedest to make it look like they were right all along.

The data is always imperfect. If it was never updated or revised, I would be worried.

 

[CapelDodger]

Regardless of explaining the greenhouse effect, that section is misleading. It says very little about the history of Temp and CO2 relations, especially considering that it's supposed to be a brief introduction to people who supposedly don't know much about it, they wouldn't be able to draw the same conclusions you do based on what you know.

It actually says a lot about the correlation between temperature and atmospheric CO2-load, given the context - that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and the greenhouse effect has a strong influence on climate. Nowhere does it claim that variation in CO2-load drives historical climate-change, but it does point out that the recent change in CO2-load is unprecedented in recent geological history.

What I find remarkable is that anyone would be swayed towards the anti-AGW argument by this particular presentation while not being swayed against said argument by, for instance, Pat Michaels - something of a leading light in anti-AGW circles - blatantly lying to Congress back in '98. Since when the Hansen et al model Michaels lied about has continued to prove itself as seriously impressive given the very limited computer resources available at the time.

No, it's not a trick. I'll go into this further on another response, but it is highly relevant.

Yes, it is a lawyer's trick. It's relevant because of what it tells us about the anti-AGW argument - take refuge in the past, in Antarctica, off-planet if it comes to that (which it has) - but not because it's relevant to AGW. A is for Anthropogenic.

Funny you bring up ClimateAudit... frankly, I see more transparency in action and more scientific reasoning and willing to admit fault there then I do at places like RealClimate.

Frankly, that doesn't surprise me. "John Daly is dead, long live Steve McIntyre."

I'm revealing my age by that. Time was that this John Daly character played the central role thate McIntyre - still in short trousers back then - seems to play now. This was when denying that there'd be any warming was good enough; these days the intervening warming has to be explained away. It's a greater challenge, which John Daly wouldn't have been up to (he'd have tried, I'll give him that, Daly was very committted; in terms of his own reputation he died at the right time, just like Robert Kennedy) but McIntyre is. Better educated, better funded, more intelligent, but focused on the past - on what hasn't happened before, as if what's happening now ever did. Which it didn't.

I think we can all agree that HomSap and the associated industrial society is a unique event. Atmospheric CO2-load being increased by a third for reasons unrelated to climate change - but very much related to industrial society. Nobody will find that in any ice-cores.

That's what we're faced with, and are experiencing. A new situation. There's no refuge in the past, no old-folks' wisdom to refer to. The best we have to go on when predicting the outcome is the accumulated knowledge called Science. That's what we had twenty years ago, and it hasn't proved wanting in the meantime.

 

[CapelDodger]

I'll respond later today in detail, I am on the road on a little handheld now.

That's pretty much as I picture you; little, and handheld.

 

[CapelDodger]

If you can find a scientist that contends the current trend is anything more than flat, please post the link.

[snip]

The only purpose of my post was to illustrate the trend has flattened.

What is it you're pushing, flat or flattened? Have you abandoned all hope of a negative trend?


Megalodon has already demonstrated why scientists contend that the current trend is positive. On this very thread. No link required.

 

[Schneibster]

Below are two charts, one scatter, the other line. Both are using the same data.
Both result in the same trend. What is so difficult to understand? You can't analyze much using a scatter diagram in this example; it looks like a messy desk.

That's because you don't know how to make scatter charts. Look at Megalodon's. That's how you make a scatter chart.

No Schneibster, we have not yet reached solar minimum of SC23. It's not expected until Spring 2008 or later. They are not limited to 11 years either.

Again, since you didn't read it the first time:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3063394&postcount=1917
Look in the middle of the post. There are two links to the arrival of the minimum in July and the start of the next cycle in August.

I don't know why I bother; you obviously can't read.

 

[Schneibster]

It's interesting how L&F cherry picked data to support their hypothesis and ignored data and other research contradicting it. Isn't that true?

You'll need to provide a link to show that they did. I read their data gathering techniques, and followed up in their referenced sources, and I see no evidence to support your claim.

Can IPCC now claim it now has a high level of scientific understanding of solar?

I have no idea. As far as I can tell, we're not discussing any of the IPCC reports; we're discussing LF2007. Since it came out after the latest IPCC report, we'll need to wait for the next one to see if they pick up on it.

BTW, it's not warming.

Prove it. You haven't so far.

 

[mhaze]

The reasons the southerly weather patterns are changing is climate change.

Some have said that and some have said that climate change was not the case, among the scientists who have studied the matter, as you well know.

 

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by CapelDodger
There's been a thing going on recently about getting mhaze to admit that Pat Michaels blatantly lied to Congress back in 1998. Getting blood out of a stone is a doddle in comparison. Michaels's lying is there for all too see, courtesy of the Cato Institute, but mhaze won't have it.
​

I'm not mhaze, go talk to him about that. You are trying to derail the topic with this.

Interesting. I have received the oral testimony of Hansen from 1988, and it is quite different than expected. There is one or two pages which are a bit blurred, and I'm going to have to ask for them to be redone.

But just looking at this, here are my preliminary comments. I'm not sure how to address JREF Warmers arguments about "Michaels lying", because although they are of like mind that some type of lying happened, their comments are all over the map on how exactly it happened. Then again, that really doesn't matter, does it.

There were no lies by Michaels.

 

[Megalodon]

Megalodon completely ignored the data after 1998 and evidently is missing the point.

Thank you... now any doubts that you are a liar are dispelled.

...it’s a storm cloud of confusion. It does nothing at all to clarify the raw data.

This comment applies brilliantly to whatever argument you think you are making.

No. The only purpose of my post was to illustrate the trend has flattened.

Another lie. You claimed that the 98 El Niño caused the 30 year warming trend. When I proved you wrong, you claimed that plotting the data from 98 on would cause the trend to be flat or negative. Knowing your tactics I plotted the trends from 96, 97, 98 and 99, and you still came up with the accusation that I ignored the data after 1998. In the meantime, you managed to claim that the future trend will be negative, despite your appaling record with the data you have access to.

So I assume that your only purpose is to look like a fool, which you manage quite nicely.

The fascination (obsession?) with the temperature rise has been on the AGW side. Now that it’s not going as predicted, there must be an explanation.

There is. It was provided.

Met O has acknowledged the trend is flat and there will be cooling for the next few years. They hypothesize the oceans are causing a “temporary” stalling of AGW, but will return in earnest sometime after ~2009(?). Well, if oceans are causing the current flat trend and the coming “temporary” cooling, what is causing the oceans to cool? They certainly aren’t warming, and if the oceans aren’t warming, what’s going to cause the trend to reappear?

First of all, they are warming, only at a slower rate than the atmosphere (suprise, suprise).

Second, there is a very large pool of ancient cold water surfacing every day - you might want to check thermohaline circulation - that, coupled with a period of low solar activity, could possibly have stalled the warming. But since you don't seem to be familiar with this mechanism (thus asking what is causing the oceans to cool), I will take the scientists opinion on the matter.

It's a bit odd Met O's predictions just happen to coincide with Solar Cycle 24, but they don't mention SC23 or SC24. If SC24 is weak per Schatten, Chatterjee and others, they'll be back giving yet another reason, but of course never crediting the sun; that would be sacrilege.
low solar activity= global cooling
high solar activity = CO2 = "magic"?

Now you are just rambling...