Merged AGW without HADCRUT3

[Hallo Alfie]

Good move. The perfection of the insanity would be spoiled by commentary.

Hmmm...
Someone might be off their medication methinks.
Poor chap.

Don't expect the climate to have a continual forcing/response curve. The forcings and response are complex.

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9.html

Understanding and attributing climate change.

I don't think the IPCC reports can be seen as completely trustworthy anymore either. Not quite in the porn category yet, but edging that way bit by bit.

 

[Haig]

Peer reviewed impacts of global warming is not about AGW. Read the title of the blog entry. It is about the positive and negative aspects of GW (note the absense of A).


The Vikings were not spewing out massive anounts of greenhouse gases. So yes it wasn't humans then and no one would think so.

No one thinks that it is certain that global warming is due to us. The scientific consensus is that it is very likely that some component of it is us.

Yes, but the implication is climate change is our fault and my point is it may not be.

Piers Corbyn, and it seems the Russians, are saying the Sun is the main cause of climate change and to expect global cooling to continue:-

The Russian-Ukrainian project ASTROMETRIA to measurement of temporary variations of the shape and diameter of the Sun - the total solar irradiance, as well as of the fine structure and dynamics of the granulation on the Russian segment of the International Space Station

Scenario of the deep cooling of the climate

"We expect that after cooling of the upper ocean in 5-8 years (namely, in a decline phase of the 24th cycle in 2012-2015) earthmen will feel a very slow beginning of global cooling, and after decades – its more active phase. Due to thermal inertia of the Earth only after 15-20 years after beginning in about 2041 of a deep minimum of TSI – in 2055-2060 – the next climatic minimum and deep cooling of Earth climate will begin"

http://www.bobbrinsmead.com/e_Abdussamatov.html

 

[Reality Check]

I'm not cherry-picking the end-point. I'm just using the present moment. What else would I use? Picking ANY start point on the graph can lead to claims of cherry-picking. Suppose I pick 1940-present. That's an increase of about .2 degree over 70 years, which I don't believe is statisically significant warming. If I pick 1900-present, there's about .4 degrees of warming over a 110 year period. That doesn't seem to have had really much of an effect on us.

I am not saying that you are cherry-picking any ponts. It is possible for anyone to cherry pick their starting (and end) points to get any result.
The proper thing to do is to select a long range such as 1940 - present as just as you suggest.
The improper thing to do is to assume that the trend is linear. The graph you cited definitely is not. It starts out almost flat and is steepest in recent decades (just eyeballing).

Wait, why are you suddenly using a smaller trend size? What's wrong with 1900-present? If you want to go back only 20 years, why can't I suggest we go back 15 years, where there's been no statistically significant warming? The data set we have to work with is so small, people can use it to support vastly different claims.

I also went back 40 years - they were examples. Pick any range you like, do a proper (non-linear fit) and project it into the future. If you do a linear fit then the best that you can hope for is a minimum value for the trend.
15 years is too small IMO. Climate is about changes over decades which is why my first example was 20 years.

And how do we know it's non-linear?
If AGW is correct, I would expect an accelerating warming rate as we pour more and more GHG's into the atmosphere. Instead, we have a 40 yr flat trend (from 1940-1980), a statistically insignificant trend (from 1995-present), and a cooling trend (2002-present). I don't think you can hand-wave all that away with claims of "cherry picking".

http://www.newscientist.com/data/ima...1639-2_808.jpg
There is no real flat period from 1940-1980 - it decreases slightly from 1940 and then increases to be about the same as 1940 at 1980. So we could change the start and end point a bit and get any trend we want.

Once again you are back to using too small scales in your analysis . The years from 2002 are definitely "statistically insignificant" as far as climate is concerned. The problem with using from 1995 onwards is that includes the 1998 peak (caused if I remember correctly by El Nino?) and 15 years is IMO too small.

In any case the climate is not a linear system. It is a complex system with drivers (e.g. CO2), cycles (e.g. solar variations, El Nino), feedback, etc. Periods that increase slightly, decrease slightly and are flat are to be expected.

It is not hand-waving to say that a graph that looks to the unaided eye more like a power curve should not be fitted with a straight line.

According to the data, we already know what a half degree of warming is like because we've experienced it from the 1880's to the present. We're still around, global population has exploded, longevity has increased, etc. I don't really feel affected by the ravages of half a degree of global warming. Do you?

I do. I am sure that my greatgrandfather said that winters were colder then !
That we are still around has nothing to do with the climate. Global warming will not make the human race extinct.
That our population has expanded has nothing to do with GW - even if the worse happens it will have only a tiny effect on the global population.
That longevity has increased has nothing to do with GW, etc.

Some of the negative effects of global warming (of even 0.5 C IMO) fall into the category of the straw that broke the camel's back.
For example the IPCC commited commited a real blunder in citing the WWF report on the Amazon forest. They should have cited the papers that the report was based on (including some that the WWF foolishly did not cite). What the IPCC and peer-reviewed science say about Amazonian forests

The WWF correctly states that 630,000 km2 of forests were severely drought stressed in 1998 - this figure comes from Nepstad 1999. However, the 40% figure comes from several other papers by the same author that the WWF failed to cite. A 1994 paper estimated that around half of the Amazonian forests lost large portions of their available soil moisture during drought (Nepstad 1994). In 2004, new rainfall data showed that half of the forest area of the Amazon Basin had either fallen below, or was very close to, the critical level of soil moisture below which trees begin to die (Nepstad 2004). The results from these papers are consistent with the original statement that 'Up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall'.
Subsequent research has provided additional confirmation of the Amazonian forest's vulnerability to drought. Field measurements of the soil moisture critical threshold found that tree mortality rates increase dramatically during drought (Nepstad 2007). Another study measured the effect of the intense 2005 drought on Amazonian biomass (Phillips 2009). The drought caused massive tree mortality leading to a fall in biomass. This turned the region from a large carbon sink to a carbon producer. The paper concluded that 'such events appear capable of strongly altering the regional carbon balance and thereby accelerating climate change'.

The last paper also emphasises the role of feedback in creating more climate change.

 

[Reality Check]

Yes, but the implication is climate change is our fault and my point is it may not be.

You are wrong.
Peer reviewed impacts of global warming is not about AGW. Read the title of the blog entry. It is about the positive and negative aspects of GW (note the absense of A and the fact that it is not mentioned in the entry).
There is no implication that climate change is our fault.
This is what the author wrote to introduce the list:

If the IPCC's mistaken prediction that the Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035 taught us anything, it's that we should always source our information from peer reviewed scientific literature rather than media articles. Consequently, I've spent the weekend overhauling the list of positives and negatives of global warming so that all sources were peer reviewed. The list is by no means comprehensive and I welcome any comments mentioning other impacts of global warming found in peer reviewed papers (good or bad). Please include a link to either the abstract or if possible, the full paper. Note to skeptics - here is an opportunity to pad out the positive column if you can find peer reviewed papers outlining any benefits of global warming.

 

[Reality Check]

BTW Malerin, the blog I cited before also has the conventional reason for why It cooled mid-century.

 

[a_unique_person]

I'm not cherry-picking the end-point. I'm just using the present moment. What else would I use? Picking ANY start point on the graph can lead to claims of cherry-picking. Suppose I pick 1940-present. That's an increase of about .2 degree over 70 years, which I don't believe is statisically significant warming. If I pick 1900-present, there's about .4 degrees of warming over a 110 year period. That doesn't seem to have had really much of an effect on us.



Yeah, that's a nice website, thanks! I'm using HADCRUT3 (cause it was the first choice), and going from 1900-2010. This is resulting in around .4 degrees of warming.



Wait, why are you suddenly using a smaller trend size? What's wrong with 1900-present? If you want to go back only 20 years, why can't I suggest we go back 15 years, where there's been no statistically significant warming? The data set we have to work with is so small, people can use it to support vastly different claims.

And how do we know it's non-linear? If AGW is correct, I would expect an accelerating warming rate as we pour more and more GHG's into the atmosphere. Instead, we have a 40 yr flat trend (from 1940-1980), a statistically insignificant trend (from 1995-present), and a cooling trend (2002-present). I don't think you can hand-wave all that away with claims of "cherry picking".



According to the data, we already know what a half degree of warming is like because we've experienced it from the 1880's to the present. We're still around, global population has exploded, longevity has increased, etc. I don't really feel affected by the ravages of half a degree of global warming. Do you?

How you feel is evidence of nothing.

 

[Malerin]

I am not saying that you are cherry-picking any ponts. It is possible for anyone to cherry pick their starting (and end) points to get any result.
The proper thing to do is to select a long range such as 1940 - present as just as you suggest.
The improper thing to do is to assume that the trend is linear. The graph you cited definitely is not. It starts out almost flat and is steepest in recent decades (just eyeballing).


I also went back 40 years - they were examples. Pick any range you like, do a proper (non-linear fit) and project it into the future. If you do a linear fit then the best that you can hope for is a minimum value for the trend.
15 years is too small IMO. Climate is about changes over decades which is why my first example was 20 years.


http://www.newscientist.com/data/ima...1639-2_808.jpg
There is no real flat period from 1940-1980 - it decreases slightly from 1940 and then increases to be about the same as 1940 at 1980. So we could change the start and end point a bit and get any trend we want.

Once again you are back to using too small scales in your analysis . The years from 2002 are definitely "statistically insignificant" as far as climate is concerned. The problem with using from 1995 onwards is that includes the 1998 peak (caused if I remember correctly by El Nino?) and 15 years is IMO too small.

In any case the climate is not a linear system. It is a complex system with drivers (e.g. CO2), cycles (e.g. solar variations, El Nino), feedback, etc. Periods that increase slightly, decrease slightly and are flat are to be expected.

It is not hand-waving to say that a graph that looks to the unaided eye more like a power curve should not be fitted with a straight line.


I do. I am sure that my greatgrandfather said that winters were colder then !
That we are still around has nothing to do with the climate. Global warming will not make the human race extinct.
That our population has expanded has nothing to do with GW - even if the worse happens it will have only a tiny effect on the global population.
That longevity has increased has nothing to do with GW, etc.

Some of the negative effects of global warming (of even 0.5 C IMO) fall into the category of the straw that broke the camel's back.
For example the IPCC commited commited a real blunder in citing the WWF report on the Amazon forest. They should have cited the papers that the report was based on (including some that the WWF foolishly did not cite). What the IPCC and peer-reviewed science say about Amazonian forests

The last paper also emphasises the role of feedback in creating more climate change.

I'll respond in depth later. I DO appreciate you pointing me to that website. Generating the graphs is interesting, although my math is so rusty I don't understand a lot of the functions.

 

[Malerin]

How you feel is evidence of nothing.

That was a bit of a facetious point I made. Let me make the real point:
The Earth has warmed about a degree (or less) in the last 100 years. We (humans) have apparently "weathered the heat" with no ill effect at all. Do you dispute this?

 

[Malerin]

BTW Malerin, the blog I cited before also has the conventional reason for why It cooled mid-century.

Thanks.

What really concerns me about all this is, we really don't know what kind of strange feedback loops are out there. Suppose the Earth warms another degree (or even less) and we trigger some horrible positive feedback loop. If you're in uncharted terrirtory, you take carfeul steps, so I am sypmathetic to much of the AGW agenda. I also think MHaze has a point: hasty solutions can have unintended consequences.

 

[BenBurch]

Not adding more more CO2 than we MUST is not a "hasty solution."

 

[macdoc]

Malerin

Suppose the Earth warms another degree (or even less) and we trigger some horrible positive feedback loop

Do really understand what you wrote there?? That's exactly the risk we face but from your tone I don't think that's what you meant.

The one real big risk IS the positive feedback loop of methane release from the tundra, taiga and coastal clathrates.....

Melting permafrost could trigger 'unstoppable' climate change
Melting Arctic permafrost could trigger "unstoppable climate change" as it releases ever increasing levels of methane gas, scientists have warned.

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Published: 7:00AM GMT 26 Mar 2009

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/en...could-trigger-unstoppable-climate-change.html

This has been the major risk all along and you want to bumble along and do nothing in case of what exactly ???????

 

[BenBurch]

Puts Malerin clearly in the "alarmist warmer" camp, though I don't think that's what he really meant. (If it is, say so!)

 

[easycruise]

No, the reputation of their institution is on the line; the people running the inquiry have no personal stake in this issue at all. They have no reason to stand behind this guy if they think he's a fraud.

You're not following the money! No personal stake? Sure they do. Every cent of grant money is valuable. Don't be so naive and recognize this for the whitewash it is..

"Criticism directed at the conduct of the investigation is being spearheaded by Steven Milloy, a former Fox News contributor and publisher of Junk Science, a Web site dedicated to debunking global warming research. It was set up to be a total whitewash and the panel made no effort to investigate," Milloy said. "They didn't even interview the recipients of the e-mails. It is ridiculous."

He charges that the panel did little more than look at the e-mails Mann sent and that, despite claims that "hundreds of hours" of time had been put into the investigation, only two people were actually interviewed. "None of them had any direct knowledge of the e-mails," he said.

"The only interviews cited in the report other than Mann's are with Jerry North and Donald Kennedy," he said. "Both are Mann's supporters and none have anything to do with the charges. Kennedy was the editor of Science magazine, and North helped Mann defend the 'hockey stick' graph. Yet Phil Jones, who got the e-mails, wasn't contacted."

Steve McIntyre of the Web site Climate Audit also charged that the panel looked at papers that were already publicly available. "They did not examine any of Mann's correspondence that was not already in the public record," he said. In effect, he argued, the panel didn't use any of its investigatory powers to plumb deeper.

Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative research and educational institute, proposed that the state legislature conduct an independent investigation of the charges and Mann's research.

A spokesman for the foundation said it was a "conflict of interest" for Penn State to investigate itself. Republican State Rep. RoseMarie Swanger also called for a separate investigation to be conducted by the state.""
----------------------------

 

[BenBurch]

The Conspiracy Theory forum is down the hall to the left, right past the drinking fountain.

 

[mhaze]

You're not following the money! No personal stake? Sure they do. Every cent of grant money is valuable. Don't be so naive and recognize this for the whitewash it is

....... Jerry North and Donald Kennedy," he said. "Both are Mann's supporters and none have anything to do with the charges. Kennedy was the editor of Science magazine..........Republican State Rep. RoseMarie Swanger also called for a separate investigation to be conducted by the state.""
----------------------------

Donald Kennedy? Isn't that the Kennedy that was involved in a million dollar fraud on some university money? Had to leave the position because of it, and got the cushy editor job afterwards?

Seems like there might be a story there...

 

[Reality Check]

Thanks.

What really concerns me about all this is, we really don't know what kind of strange feedback loops are out there. Suppose the Earth warms another degree (or even less) and we trigger some horrible positive feedback loop. If you're in uncharted terrirtory, you take carfeul steps, so I am sypmathetic to much of the AGW agenda. I also think MHaze has a point: hasty solutions can have unintended consequences.

My impression is that climate scientists have a good grasp on what kind of strange feedback loops are out there. Many of them mean that increasing temperatures lead to feedbacks that increase temperatures more. macdoc mentioned methane release.

mhaze forgets that doing nothing also can have unintended consequences (and that delayed solutions can have unintended consequences ). IMHO it does not matter what the primary cause of global warming is (a natural effect or manmade). Our addition of GHGs to the atmosphere is partially responsible for the global warming. Reducing those emissions will mitigate global warming to some degree. The rest is politics, e.g. is it worth spending X billion dollars now just to save Y billion dollars 20 years from now (and maybe a few lives).

That blog actually has quite a lot of information on it. Remember what I said about trying to fit a linear trend to non-linear data? Have a look at Could climate shifts be causing global warming? The 2009 Swanson et al paper has a graph where the known natural variations in temperature are removed from the GISS dataset. This leaves manmade (and unknown natural) variations. The data closely resembles a quadratic curve. This indicates that global warming is accelerating.

 

[mhaze]

My impression is that climate scientists have a good grasp on what kind of strange feedback loops are out there. Many of them mean that increasing temperatures lead to feedbacks that increase temperatures more. macdoc mentioned methane release.

mhaze forgets that doing nothing also can have unintended consequences (and that delayed solutions can have unintended consequences ). IMHO it does not matter what the primary cause of global warming is (a natural effect or manmade). Our addition of GHGs to the atmosphere is partially responsible for the global warming. Reducing those emissions will mitigate global warming to some degree. The rest is politics, e.g. is it worth spending X billion dollars now just to save Y billion dollars 20 years from now (and maybe a few lives).......

Incorrect. In fact, I need some help here. If you are wronger than wrong, what is that? Figure it out and let me know.

About the same time, take note that when you quantify your "mitigations" you will find totally ridiculous non sustainable equations of cost versus "merit".

Totally ridiculous is the correct phraseology, like it or not. I noted before that you'd a tendency toward the slippery slope of the precautionary principle, and here you go again.

What you must do is not say "reducing those emissions will mitigate global warming to some degree" but quantify this and the cost, within bounds, and determine if the result reaches anything close to engineering feasibility.

Consider for a moment why it is that major WarmerChurch blogs such as Realclimate carefully avoid the subjects of economic feasibility of mitigation, including things like the Stern Report. What is the reason?

 

[Malerin]

Puts Malerin clearly in the "alarmist warmer" camp, though I don't think that's what he really meant. (If it is, say so!)

I'm not losing sleep over it, but I admit it IS a risk (specifically what Macdoc was talking about- that's been in a few SciFi books I've read). Practically, there's probably not much we can do. America can cut it's GHG emissions by 90% and India and China will be more than happy to make up for our missing GHG's. China, in particular, has shown a criminal disregard for the environment.

 

[Haig]

You are wrong.

There is no implication that climate change is our fault.
This is what the author wrote to introduce the list:

No, I think you are wrong. look at the last line in the author's introduction:

"Note to skeptics - here is an opportunity to pad out the positive column if you can find peer reviewed papers outlining any benefits of global warming."

(bold added) Seems loaded to me and hense the implication that climate change is our fault or at least we are the trigger. The skeptic view is not that there is no climate change but that we may not be it's cause.

 

[a_unique_person]

Thanks.

What really concerns me about all this is, we really don't know what kind of strange feedback loops are out there. Suppose the Earth warms another degree (or even less) and we trigger some horrible positive feedback loop. If you're in uncharted terrirtory, you take carfeul steps, so I am sypmathetic to much of the AGW agenda. I also think MHaze has a point: hasty solutions can have unintended consequences.

We are already in unchartered unintended consequences territory, nobody intended CO2 doubling to cause the AGW problem.