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Tropical Tropospheric Hotspots RIP

Spud1k

+5 Goatee of Pedantry
Spud1k
Joined
Apr 21, 2008
Messages
844
It's been less than a year after the supposed killer indictment of AGW theory was originally published, but after a sound thrashing in the literature, it seems to have been delivered a final kick in the nuts:

A recent report of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) identified a potentially serious inconsistency between modelled and observed trends in tropical lapse rates (Karl et al., 2006). Early versions of satellite and radiosonde datasets suggested that the tropical surface had warmed more than the troposphere, while climate models consistently showed tropospheric amplification of surface warming in response to human-caused increases in well-mixed greenhouse gases (GHGs). We revisit such comparisons here using new observational estimates of surface and tropospheric temperature changes. We find that there is no longer a serious discrepancy between modelled and observed trends in tropical lapse rates.
This emerging reconciliation of models and observations has two primary explanations. First, because of changes in the treatment of buoy and satellite information, new surface temperature datasets yield slightly reduced tropical warming relative to earlier versions. Second, recently developed satellite and radiosonde datasets show larger warming of the tropical lower troposphere. In the case of a new satellite dataset from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), enhanced warming is due to an improved procedure of adjusting for inter-satellite biases. When the RSS-derived tropospheric temperature trend is compared with four different observed estimates of surface temperature change, the surface warming is invariably amplified in the tropical troposphere, consistent with model results. Even if we use data from a second satellite dataset with smaller tropospheric warming than in RSS, observed tropical lapse rate trends are not significantly different from those in all other model simulations.
Our results contradict a recent claim that all simulated temperature trends in the tropical troposphere and in tropical lapse rates are inconsistent with observations. This claim was based on use of older radiosonde and satellite datasets, and on two methodological errors: the neglect of observational trend uncertainties introduced by interannual climate variability, and application of an inappropriate statistical consistency test.
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So to cut a long story short, the whole shebang was down to dodgy instrumental data, a selective approach to data comparisons and some questionable statistical techniques thrown in for good measure. I doubt the deniers will think much of this paper (nothing that has the likes of Solomon and Jones as co-authors can be trusted apparently), but at the same time I predict this particular so-dubbed 'AGW falsification' will quietly die over the coming months.

ETA: A couple of the above links (not the important ones) seem to have died, possibly because they might be in publishing limbo at the Journal of Climate. The doi numbers are 10.1175/2008JCLI2287.1 and 10.1175/2008JCLI2320.1. An in press version of the latter can be found here.
 
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LOL. Realclimate and the most notorious AGW'rs were saying that this signature was not a failure of the models: now it happens that it was but it was "reconciled". The real question is:
Why the warmers didn't take it as a falsification onf the AGW hypothesis when the paper came out? All I heard was character assasination for Douglass.

Now that they have a paper that they think refutes Douglass they recognize that it could have been a problem. Of course, Santers is still wrong (it seems that he didn't understood the problem in the first place). Douglass told me that he will publish a new paper about this, probably in the same journal. However, it takes 4-6 months for the publication process.
 
Lucifuge Rofocale said:
LOL. Realclimate and the most notorious AGW'rs were saying that this signature was not a failure of the models: now it happens that it was but it was "reconciled". The real question is:
Why the warmers didn't take it as a falsification onf the AGW hypothesis when the paper came out? All I heard was character assasination for Douglass.

Now that they have a paper that they think refutes Douglass they recognize that it could have been a problem. Of course, Santers is still wrong (it seems that he didn't understood the problem in the first place). Douglass told me that he will publish a new paper about this, probably in the same journal. However, it takes 4-6 months for the publication process.
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Yup, denial at its finest.

As for why no one thought it was a falsification when it came out, it's because it wasn't a falsification. I know. Hard to grasp, I can tell.
 
LOL, tell that it wasn't a falsification to the authors of the paper:
A recent report of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) identified a potentially serious inconsistency between modelled and observed trends in tropical lapse rates (Karl et al., 2006).
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Such juvenile reponses we hear from here!
Anyway, Is you position that there was no problem but that the "non existent" problem was also reconciled?
 
GreyICE said:
Yup, denial at its finest.

As for why no one thought it was a falsification when it came out, it's because it wasn't a falsification. I know. Hard to grasp, I can tell.
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Well, it was a potential falsification, but only in the sense that it could falsify the specific hypothesis that such a hotspot would exist.

Saying that 'no hotspot = falsification of anthropogenic global warming'!!, well, that was just silly.

There's more to AGW than just the presence or absence of a hotspot.
 
GreyICE said:
Thread closed, irony limit reached.
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:D

(Not that there's any limit to the amount of irony a thread can carry.)

So, the fat lady has sung on this one. What next I wonder? Because I've no doubt there will be a next - I just can't predict what it'll be, or where.

Fat ladies have sung on Antactic cooling, expanding glaciers, the troposphere, Mars and (some of) the outer planets, the Sun, and the entire cosmos (in its ray manifestation). Where to look next? The deep oceans? The Book of Revelations? Basingstoke? irony
 
No, the original paper only pointed out a possible flaw in the model. The question then arose; 1. Was it seeing a real effect and 2. If it was seeing a real effect, where did the heat move to? In no way did it negate GW or AGW, just challenged the details. In other words, what science is supposed to do.
 
Lucifuge Rofocale said:
LOL. Realclimate and the most notorious AGW'rs were saying that this signature was not a failure of the models: now it happens that it was but it was "reconciled".
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What? Care to explain that?

Lucifuge Rofocale said:
The real question is:Why the warmers didn't take it as a falsification onf the AGW hypothesis when the paper came out? All I heard was character assasination for Douglass.
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Actually, no. That's not what the real question is because real science isn't motivated by this whole pro vs anti AGW thing. Douglass' work had identified a discrepancy. Either the models, the observations or his analysis was to blame in some shape or form. After investigation it turned out that it was everything but the models that was at fault.

Anyway, Reaclimate's beef was on two fronts; a problem with Douglass' methods but also the fact that he hadn't taken account of instrumental artefacts that had been identified years before he published.

Lucifuge Rofocale said:
Now that they have a paper that they think refutes Douglass they recognize that it could have been a problem.
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Wrong. Like I said above, the problem in the data was identified long before Douglass' paper came out.

Lucifuge Rofocale said:
Of course, Santers is still wrong (it seems that he didn't understood the problem in the first place). Douglass told me that he will publish a new paper about this, probably in the same journal. However, it takes 4-6 months for the publication process.
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I await his rebuttal with baited breath. Doesn't change my prediction.
 
BenBurch said:
No, the original paper only pointed out a possible flaw in the model. The question then arose; 1. Was it seeing a real effect and 2. If it was seeing a real effect, where did the heat move to? In no way did it negate GW or AGW, just challenged the details. In other words, what science is supposed to do.
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The Douglass et al paper (et al including Singer) was what we'd expect : not an attempt to improve the science but an attempt to create doubt and uncertainty about the science (and about reality). The Karl et al paper was genuine science, as you've described it above.

It's quite possible that the scientific understanding of the tropical atmosphere is missing something, which the discrepancy between measurements and models has revealed. Or it may be that the discrepancy reveals a problem with the measurements. This is red meat to real science. Douglass et al are not engaged in real science.

Which is not an ad hominem critique of the Douglass et al paper, it's an observation on the general behaviour of Douglass, Christy, and Singer (Pearson I know only by the company he keeps in this case, but that doesn't reflect well on him, frankly). The paper itself has been trashed quite adequately by qualified scientists, aka

B. D. Santer , P. W. Thorne , L. Haimberger , K. E. Taylor , T. M. L. Wigley , J. R. Lanzante , S. Solomon , M. Free , P. J. Gleckler , P. D. Jones, T. R. Karl, S. A. Klein, C. Mears, D. Nychka, G. A. Schmidt, S. C. Sherwood, F. J. Wentz

Oh look, Karl's in there, the guy that didn't realise he'd refuted AGW back in 2006. irony

We are so into the end-game with a winning position :). Not that that's any comfort to the world at large, of course, but I'm just in the game for the sake of it.
 
Spud1k said:
I await his rebuttal with baited breath. Doesn't change my prediction.
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I very much doubt we'll see it at all. Douglass has already had to retreat from the whole mid-troposphere to the tropical mid-troposphere. What line of resistance can he have to fall back on?

What the hey, in 4-6 months we'll know. To be generous, let's give him a year (the Santer et al paper took ten months from blog to publication). It'll give us something to talk about after next year's Arctic summer.
 
CapelDodger said:
To be generous, let's give him a year (the Santer et al paper took ten months from blog to publication).
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You are being far too generous. If the problem with Santer's work is that obvious, he could have a publication in GRL out in short order. If that'd take too long, a paper in ACPD could be published online tomorrow. And let's not forget that if the implications are as earth-shattering as some people think them to be, Science and Nature would be fighting to be first to get in there. As far as I'm concerned, he can either put up or shut up.
 
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