Global Temperature Change, baseline in History

[Dancing David]

The thermometer record overlay is skewed as is freely admitted:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ipcc2007/ipcc2007.html

The HadCRUT2v instrumental temperature record is shown in black. All series have been smoothed with a Gaussian-weighted filter to remove fluctuations on time scales less than 30 years; smoothed values are obtained up to both ends of each record by extending the records with the mean of the adjacent existing values.
​

A stated conclusion in the text (Not even qualified to "NH only"):

it appears that the late 20th and early 21st centuries are likely the warmest period the Earth has seen in at least 1200 years
​

Drawn from a comparison of different meth0ds:

• Modern period - thermometers
• Past era - proxies

But are the proxies calibrated to thermometers? No. The so called "divergence problem". Where is the proxy data for the last half of the 20th century? The Briffa series continued to 2000, but the section past 1960 was truncated.

Sorry, I have enough to read on this forum. So i won't be reading another forum. I can read BAUT already when i have the time.

I understand what you are saying and I am slogging through stuff, it will take a while.

There are fewer data sets for the SH and the plot of the ones in the SH:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ipcc2007/fig612.html

Show two with big dips for the proxy at the end of the 20th century and four that are below the baseline.

But I am not looking for conclusion just the data and an understanding of the process.

 

[CapelDodger]

I saw a link to a cogently written hypothesis at ICECAP today explaining why human contributions to warming are insignificant.

Here is a direct link to the hypothesis.

I found it to be plain language and easy reading.

Links to the first three parts are embedded in the article. Might want to read those first.

I'll do this one.

"Stephen Wilde has been a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society since 1968."

Stephen Wilde is a weatherman.

"The first six articles from Mr Wilde were received with a great deal of interest throughout the Co2 Sceptic community."

I bet they did. Were I Stephen Wilde I'd be simply loving the attention.

This article attempts to consider the combined effect of the atmospheric greenhouse effect and oceanic oscillations. As far as I know no one has previously attempted to describe both phenomena as part of a single global temperature control system.

Wilde doesn't work in the climate field, but I'm still suprised at his ignorance of the work that's done there. It appears to him, apparently, that he has had a brilliant insight. He does seem to think a lot of himself.

He quotes Popper.

OK, that's the flavour of the man.

He explains solar-induced warming during a period of solar stability thus :

"An electric bar fire with a constant level of output in a room will cumulatively raise the room temperature for as long as the heat flowing from the fire exceeds the heat outflow from the room. Thus a net warming effect from the sun, even if it is in the form of a steady flow of energy from the sun over a few decades will cumulatively warm the Earth until the radiation of heat from the Earth rises to match the excess heat being received. As a result of oceanic time lags that could take some time. There is the mechanism.”

So, in essence, the world is still warming up to reach equilibrium with solar output level arrived at fifty years ago. That's one hell of a lag - five decades - to assign to decadal processes. What data he has to support it is anybody's guess.

That exchange led to this article via my attempt to find a more accurate analogy than that of the greenhouse effect. I soon realised that the oceans were more significant than the atmosphere since they hold solar heat in greater quantity and for much longer than the atmosphere. My conclusion was that we owe our existence not to an atmospheric greenhouse or blanket but instead to an oceanic hot water bottle. It is what I hope will become widely known as The Hot Water Bottle Effect (THWBE) in place of The Greenhouse Effect.

As Wilde isn't a physicist he appears unaware that would be no liquid oceans without the greenhouse effect, and we owe our existence to liquid water.

He doesn't explain why cloudy nights are (on the whole) warmer than clear nights, or how the oceans make Central Asian summer nights warmer than winter ones., which are obvious questions.

The recent global warming spell was never a result of any greenhouse effect. It was entirely a result of THWBE whereby heat already stored in the oceans and released by a positive phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation supplemented a historically high level of solar irradiation. With the Pacific Decadal Oscillation now in decline and solar irradiation now falling we are already in very different times.

Here he hands a hostage to fortune. We are already in different times, he says, so the cooling must be right upon us. His "hypothesis" can be tested over the next few years.

This article makes use of recent findings about the relatively short decadal or multi decadal (20 to 30 years) oceanic oscillations that, the writer contends, are short enough to bring the time scales involved in oceanic changes into line with the solar cycles of 11 years or so. It seems to the writer that spreading global oceanic cycles of up to 30 years in length across 3 solar cycles results in a close enough match to fit temperature observations over the past few hundred years and especially since 1961.

I've been through afew of the links he provides to his own "work", and nowhere have I found any kind of statistical work to back up such contentions. Wilde is of the "opinion", he "contends", things "seem" to him, but there's no substance. Plenty of references to "alarmists" and the incompetence of the IPCC (which, according to Wilde, completely ignores solar influences in all its works. Really. He says that somewhere in the verbiage).

Wilde explains planetary temperatures for us

It’s quite clear that overall planetary temperatures are a fine balance between solar energy coming in and that same energy being radiated away into space. Planets with atmospheres stabilise their surface temperatures at a level dependent upon the density of the atmosphere leaving the main variation in planetary temperature dependent on variations in the energy coming in from the local star. I have seen a suggestion that it is density of an atmosphere that matters, not composition, so CO2 may be an irrelevance unless it affects overall density but being such a small proportion of our atmosphere it could not do so. The density proposition certainly fits the observed surface temperature differences between Venus, Earth and Mars.

Wilde has seen a suggestion, but doesn't seem to have followed it up with any effort to understand the greenhouse efffect or, for that matter, planetary temperatures. He regards it as perfectly reasonable that a dense atmosphere which is transparent to infra-red will have a greater warming effect than a thin atmosphere of greenhouse gases. Radiative physics goes out the window, and who knows how much of thermodynamics; this guy is really stirring up the paradigm.

As I'm sure we're all aware, the density propostion doesn't fit the observed temperatures of Venus, Earth and Mars.

It just goes on and on; he knows nothing about the subject in hand, and says it over and over again. A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

 

[mhaze]

Sorry, I have enough to read on this forum. So i won't be reading another forum. I can read BAUT already when i have the time. I understand what you are saying and I am slogging through stuff, it will take a while. There are fewer data sets for the SH and the plot of the ones in the SH:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ipcc2007/fig612.html

Show two with big dips for the proxy at the end of the 20th century and four that are below the baseline.

But I am not looking for conclusion just the data and an understanding of the process.

Indeed, those CA blogs are very long and involved. But the general point is made: This very chart has been studied and discussed in great depth. So it, and others like it, are quite well understood. The studies they display, each one individually is not intimidating. Gathered together on a spagetti graph, it is an absurb proposition to attempt to extract information from said spagetti graph. You are led in a direction of knowing nothing, not something. Suggest pulling Moberg, Mann, Jones...a couple of the actual studies.

NH is 2/3 land 1/3 water with an aqueous pole, SH is 1/3 land 2/3 water with a land based pole. To get the best looking "hockey stick", restrict your reconstruction to NH......gee, that's what they did.....

 

[Dancing David]

Indeed, those CA blogs are very long and involved. But the general point is made: This very chart has been studied and discussed in great depth. So it, and others like it, are quite well understood. The studies they display, each one individually is not intimidating. Gathered together on a spagetti graph, it is an absurb proposition to attempt to extract information from said spagetti graph. You are led in a direction of knowing nothing, not something. Suggest pulling Moberg, Mann, Jones...a couple of the actual studies.

NH is 2/3 land 1/3 water with an aqueous pole, SH is 1/3 land 2/3 water with a land based pole. To get the best looking "hockey stick", restrict your reconstruction to NH......gee, that's what they did.....

I know you can do it, lets avoid the political statements, I don't want to start another thread now.

 

[mhaze]

Stephen Wilde is a weatherman.
I bet they did. Were I Stephen Wilde I'd be simply loving the attention.
Wilde doesn't work in the climate field, but I'm still suprised at his ignorance of the work that's done there. It appears to him, apparently, that he has had a brilliant insight. He does seem to think a lot of himself......It just goes on and on; he knows nothing about the subject in hand, and says it over and over again. A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Ah, Capeldodger at his finest. Let's post your analysis on his blog and see his response, shall we? (we can leave out the smears, they won't do in polite society)

Shall you have the honors, then?

 

[Dancing David]

been trying to find stuff on the solar radience right now, not enough to make a choice on the driving potential other than it exists:
http://www.astro.phys.ethz.ch/papers/fligge/solfli_rev.pdfIs rather inconclusive, although it seems to focus on solar models. It might show a small increase over time but they hedge the conclusions rather strongly.

This one is very interesting:
http://climate.gsfc.nasa.gov/publications/fulltext/Beer_et_al._SSR2006.pdf

And has been mentioned in some threads here, but my head is now overloaded and I will have to try again tomorrow.

 

[Dancing David]

Ah, Capeldodger at his finest. Let's post your analysis on his blog and see his response, shall we? (we can leave out the smears, they won't do in polite society)

Shall you have the honors, then?

Cease fire!


Please. If it annoys you then ignore it or counter it, preferably in another thread.

 

[mhaze]

Figure 3 is the same as Figure 1 from a later Solanki article I posted earlier.

Two characters at the end of Ref 1 html cause it to not come up.

No doubt due to the cumulative effects of consuming Beer in class (Ref 2).

And soon the chattering semi human bots arrive.

 

[CapelDodger]

Cease fire!


Please. If it annoys you then ignore it or counter it, preferably in another thread.

I didn't intend to pursue it here, but I couldn't just let it pass, it's so juicy . BobK can take it to another thread; there's never any shortage.

Have you given much thought to the melting permafrost? It's a once-in-eleven-thousand-year event, which may not tell us what the baseline is but does tell us that we're adrift of it.

 

[CapelDodger]

been trying to find stuff on the solar radience right now, not enough to make a choice on the driving potential other than it exists:

It's possible to put a limit on solar variability by observation of past climate. Ice Ages correspond with Milankovich cycles, despite the fact that the Milankovich forcings are very slight. Those forcings depend on changes in insolation - as does solar variation. If solar forcings were of a greater degree than the Milankovich forcings it would show up in the record - in fact, it would probably swamp the Milankovich pattern. If they were similar, it would also show up. So we can reasonably conclude that solar variation is not a big player.

 

[TrueSceptic]

Ah, Capeldodger at his finest. Let's post your analysis on his blog and see his response, shall we? (we can leave out the smears, they won't do in polite society)

Shall you have the honors, then?

I'd like to see that, and see how Wilde's host responds.

Wilde is an amateur weather enthusiast. He does not claim otherwise.

BTW it is Wilde that I referred to recently as "rising without trace". I know him from another forum.

 

[CapelDodger]

I'd like to see that, and see how Wilde's host responds.

I don't do requests. No special reason, I just don't. It's not me.

Wilde is an amateur weather enthusiast. He does not claim otherwise.

BTW it is Wilde that I referred to recently as "rising without trace". I know him from another forum.

I'm sure BobK or mhaze would be more than welcome if they took it to the Permafrost thread. The Polar Bear thread is a bit crowded out with the biocab thing. Everybody wants a piece of that.

 

[Dancing David]

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_142244864dd9207e02.png[/qimg]

Figure 3 is the same as Figure 1 from a later Solanki article I posted earlier.

Duh. And cool.

That pair seems to get the most google hits.

Two characters at the end of Ref 1 html cause it to not come up.

No doubt due to the cumulative effects of consuming Beer in class (Ref 2).

And soon the chattering semi human bots arrive.

Please save your vitriol for another place.

 

[mhaze]

Duh. And cool.
That pair seems to get the most google hits.
Please save your vitriol for another place.

You are doing pretty good so far, keep it up. Now shall we for a moment examine which of the spaghetti may be removed permanently from the chart, and the discussion? Tree rings have long been criticized as a proxy to temperature. Loehle did the following study, excluding tree rings in the meta analysis, and found strikingly different results. But was it valid?

Study: Tree ring data has significant shortcomings as climate proxy

Loehle, C. 2007. A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies. Energy & Environment 18(7-8): 1049-1058; and Loehle, C., and J.H. McCulloch. 2008:

and

Correction to: A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies. Energy & Environment 19(1): 93-100

Full PDF:

Climate histories are commonly reconstructed from a variety of sources, including ice cores, tree rings, and sediment. Tree-ring data, being the most abundant for recent centuries, tend to dominate reconstructions. There are reasons to believe that tree ring data may not properly capture long-term climate changes...

First graph - Non tree ring proxy Loehle
Second Graph-Mann 1998 with tree rings


​

As shown by the recent work off Helliker, tree rings cannot be relied upon. Loehle was right.

Helliker, Brent R., and Suzanna L. Richter, 2008. Subtropical to boreal convergence of tree-leaf temperatures.
Nature. 2008 Jun 11; : 18548005

Abstract

Blog Discussion.

The internal temperature of leaves, whether in the tropics or a cold-clime forest, tends toward a nearly constant 21.4 degrees Celsius (71 degree Fahrenheit) -

A main assumption underlying the use of delta(18)O to reconstruct climate history is that the temperature and relative humidity of an actively photosynthesizing leaf are the same as those of the surrounding air. Our data are contrary to that assumption...
​

Further evidence that tree ring reconstructions must be tossed is provided by a recent study of a mixed species forest in Switzerland based on infrared thermal imaging. Measured across an entire growing season, the forest canopy temperatures were found to be 4C to 5C higher than the cool, ambient air in the Swiss Alps.

Now back to the subject at hand, the spaghetti graph of IPCC 6.4, a slight variation of which is referenced here in this thread from the NOAA website. At the very first glance it appears indicative of scientific confusion, not understanding,



Confused after looking at that? You should be. And now the mess may be unraveled. We may proceed to remove spaghetti studies that relied on tree rings. Isn't it nice to move forward? Soon there may only be meatballs left on the plate.

Unless this is a woo woo woo discussion.

 

[Dancing David]

You are doing pretty good so far, keep it up. Now shall we for a moment examine which of the spaghetti may be removed permanently from the chart, and the discussion? Tree rings have long been criticized as a proxy to temperature. Loehle did the following study, excluding tree rings in the meta analysis, and found strikingly different results. But was it valid?

Study: Tree ring data has significant shortcomings as climate proxy

Loehle, C. 2007. A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies. Energy & Environment 18(7-8): 1049-1058; and Loehle, C., and J.H. McCulloch. 2008:

and

Correction to: A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies. Energy & Environment 19(1): 93-100

Full PDF:

Climate histories are commonly reconstructed from a variety of sources, including ice cores, tree rings, and sediment. Tree-ring data, being the most abundant for recent centuries, tend to dominate reconstructions. There are reasons to believe that tree ring data may not properly capture long-term climate changes...

First graph - Non tree ring proxy Loehle
Second Graph-Mann 1998 with tree rings
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_1422448775924cc099.png[/qimg]

​

As shown by the recent work off Helliker, tree rings cannot be relied upon. Loehle was right.

Helliker, Brent R., and Suzanna L. Richter, 2008. Subtropical to boreal convergence of tree-leaf temperatures.
Nature. 2008 Jun 11; : 18548005

Abstract

Blog Discussion.

The internal temperature of leaves, whether in the tropics or a cold-clime forest, tends toward a nearly constant 21.4 degrees Celsius (71 degree Fahrenheit) -

A main assumption underlying the use of delta(18)O to reconstruct climate history is that the temperature and relative humidity of an actively photosynthesizing leaf are the same as those of the surrounding air. Our data are contrary to that assumption...
​

Further evidence that tree ring reconstructions must be tossed is provided by a recent study of a mixed species forest in Switzerland based on infrared thermal imaging. Measured across an entire growing season, the forest canopy temperatures were found to be 4C to 5C higher than the cool, ambient air in the Swiss Alps.

Now back to the subject at hand, the spaghetti graph of IPCC 6.4, a slight variation of which is referenced here in this thread from the NOAA website. At the very first glance it appears indicative of scientific confusion, not understanding,

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_1422447b70a6a0221a.png[/qimg]

Confused after looking at that? You should be. And now the mess may be unraveled. We may proceed to remove spaghetti studies that relied on tree rings. Isn't it nice to move forward? Soon there may only be meatballs left on the plate.

Unless this is a woo woo woo discussion.

So you just have to be a jerk and make rude comments, how wonderful.

I will read up on the dendrochronology, and see what i think, sounds reasonable. But wait, didn't you cite dendrochronolgy in the Finnish tree study?

Hmmm, so why not just talk about it and leave out the rude stuff, are you a fanatic as well?


ETA:
In a brief period I found that there are uses of dendrochronology that are not dependant upon the O*18 intake, so I would say that you sure don't couch your language very carefully, perhaps 'the dendrochronology methods used in this graph may be subject to error.' So rather sweeping in your generalization, but thank you for the critigue of the study i showed earlier, I will read more of your sources.

here is a small sample of what i found:
http://wolfweb.unr.edu/homepage/fbiondi/Biondi2001lowres.pdf
http://wolfweb.unr.edu/homepage/fbiondi/JofClimate2001.pdf
http://wolfweb.unr.edu/homepage/fbiondi/BiondiEtal1999.pdf

 

[Dancing David]

I read the Loehle paper here:
http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025

very cogent in it's critique of the use of tree rings to determine temperature. Yet I did not see the 'throw it in the dustbin' part, maybe that was a leter version? Still very cool and interesting to read.

the Helliker and Richter anstract is interesting as well.

So these then leads to at least two questions:
1. Are there ways that dendrochronology can be used usefully to add to climate pictures , if the temperature may not be accuarte through this methd. In what cases might it be accurate or how could it be used?
2. In the NOAA 'spaghetti graph' did the dendrochronology rely on the O*18 to determine temperature?

So please just tone down the confrontational stuff a little Mhaze, and please avoid the sweeping statements. It makes it easier to read.

 

[a_unique_person]

I read the Loehle paper here:
http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025

very cogent in it's critique of the use of tree rings to determine temperature. Yet I did not see the 'throw it in the dustbin' part, maybe that was a leter version? Still very cool and interesting to read.

the Helliker and Richter anstract is interesting as well.

So these then leads to at least two questions:
1. Are there ways that dendrochronology can be used usefully to add to climate pictures , if the temperature may not be accuarte through this methd. In what cases might it be accurate or how could it be used?
2. In the NOAA 'spaghetti graph' did the dendrochronology rely on the O*18 to determine temperature?

So please just tone down the confrontational stuff a little Mhaze, and please avoid the sweeping statements. It makes it easier to read.

A comment on the Loehle paper.

http://thatstrangeweather.blogspot.com/2007/11/open-letter-to-craig-loehle.html

 

[mhaze]

I read the Loehle paper here:
http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025

very cogent in it's critique of the use of tree rings to determine temperature. Yet I did not see the 'throw it in the dustbin' part, maybe that was a leter version? Still very cool and interesting to read.

the Helliker and Richter anstract is interesting as well.

So these then leads to at least two questions:
1. Are there ways that dendrochronology can be used usefully to add to climate pictures , if the temperature may not be accuarte through this methd. In what cases might it be accurate or how could it be used?
2. In the NOAA 'spaghetti graph' did the dendrochronology rely on the O*18 to determine temperature?

So please just tone down the confrontational stuff a little Mhaze, and please avoid the sweeping statements. It makes it easier to read.

Hill and mountainside treelines have strong merits.

I'll find the list of of studies and links used in that chart.

Not just O18-the problem clearly extends to measuring "tree rings"

 

[lomiller]

It's possible to put a limit on solar variability by observation of past climate. Ice Ages correspond with Milankovich cycles, despite the fact that the Milankovich forcings are very slight. Those forcings depend on changes in insolation - as does solar variation. If solar forcings were of a greater degree than the Milankovich forcings it would show up in the record - in fact, it would probably swamp the Milankovich pattern. If they were similar, it would also show up. So we can reasonably conclude that solar variation is not a big player.

Keep in mind that Milankovitch Cycles are linked to *when and where the forcings occur* not necessarily how strong they are or obliquity and precession wouldn’t make any difference at all. Orbital eccentricity is the only cycle that has any effect on net forcing and even that isn’t constant (increased part of the year, decreased part of the year for a slight net increase/decrease).

 

[lomiller]

Study: Tree ring data has significant shortcomings as climate proxy

Loehle, C. 2007. A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies. Energy & Environment 18(7-8): 1049-1058; and Loehle, C., and J.H. McCulloch. 2008:

and

Correction to: A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies. Energy & Environment 19(1): 93-100

Energy and Environment is not a real peer review journal. It’s essentially a publication platform for “AGW skeptics” with a peer reviewed label slapped on it.

From the wikipedia entry on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_and_Environment

The journal is not listed in the ISI's Journal Citation Reports indexing service for academic journals.[1]. According to the WorldCat.org database, the journal can be found at 26 libraries worldwide, mostly at universities