Merged AGW without HADCRUT3

[macdoc]

 

[Hallo Alfie]

Yes, it's much easier to label everyone who disputes your viewpoint as a "crank". Does this approach seem to be working, with more and more people agreeing with you, and controversy lessening?

Seems to have had the opposite effect in many cases.

There is no lack of dim bulbs about...

Science is not about popularity, or are you parking yourself with virgin birth crowd on this..

Careful, your ideology is showing

and in the climate science circles....questions about the reality of AGW are long past answered.

Seems they are not, in spite of your ongoing foot stamping.

 

[macdoc]

Care to back any of your inanities up with some content instead of innuendo?

What ideology would that be?

What fundamentals regarding AGW remain unanswered in the climate science community and who are you relying on for your "informed opinion"?

 

[Hallo Alfie]

Care to back any of your inanities up with some content instead of innuendo?

What ideology would that be?

What fundamentals regarding AGW remain unanswered in the climate science community and who are you relying on for your "informed opinion"?

Macdoc.

If you can throw around "deniers", "denidiots", "CTers" etc with gay abandon, I can use similar tactics. No?

 

[CoolSceptic]

Lolz. More funny stuff from Burch and the gang.

So, after years of browbeating about how sceptics never publish in the peer review literature, I present a sceptical argument in the self same literature they refer to; and suddenly, they don't wanna debate. Of course, blaming the messenger for not being polite enough is a lot easier than addressing the science, isn't it?

Even funnier are those that try to respond by quoting blog posts. I thought the consensus crowd got upset about science being done through blogs rather than the literature? Ah, only when it *suits* them, of course. That realclimate post is a hoot. It would never get published because the arguments in it are worse than shallow. Test models against a null hypothesis provided by... the same models!?!? LOL. Incestuous testing FTW! Can't see how that would *ever* give the wrong answer (/sarc).

For those who gripe about physics and statistics, here's the bad news. You can't just build a model and test it against itself. That is just plain stupid. You have to validate models against REAL OBSERVATIONS. But here's the rap. Real observations have uncertainties in them. And you need statistics to handle those uncertainties. The physics and the statistics are inextricably linked - testing the models is a statistical issue, as clearly explained by Demetris in the RealClimate thread comments.

This isn't rocket science (unless you're a climate scientist, of course).

As ever, lots of flannel from a variety of pro-AGW posters who do little more than demonstrate their own inability to grasp the concepts under discussion here. Kudos to TellyKNeasuss for being the only one to actually try to understand and engage on the science.

 

[CoolSceptic]

Hmm, IIRC Rybski et al. argued that the Hurst phenomenon could not account for the rapid warming of the last few decades.

Correct, and the follow on article (Koutsoyiannis et al) explains where they Rybski et al failed to account for uncertainty in their estimates of statistical parameters. I was presenting the debate out in full.

Halley also argued this

http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...210&md5=1ea6b42b06e8239b9ef14d27bbfcf6b6#bb10

Indeed, Koutsoyiannis also made a similar case but warned against the obvious problems with the paleoclimate reconstructions. Halley has a very clear piece in the body of this paper where he explains the underlying problems with the paleoclimate reconstructions, and why his results cannot be relied upon without these issues resolved. It is a shame he glosses over that point in his abstract and his conclusions.

Halley also notes that simply changing versions of the instrumental record results in the effect being measured halving. Since such small changes in the input data can have such a large effect on the results - and since the paleoclimate reconstructions are even worse (with non-overlapping confidence intervals), Halley is an interesting step on the journey but a long way from the final answer. Usefully, Halley recommends improvements that can be made to the reconstructions to make his analysis more credible.

But! Most importantly, Halley acknowledges the presence of LTP in the climate system - just as Rybski and others have. Indeed, I'm not aware of anyone who has looked at this issue and not concluded that LTP is an essential part of the climate make up. This is in direct contrast to the claims of the likes of realclimate - and some posters here. This is important and highlights the ignorance of those who would argue this is a statistical point, not a physics point. (Incidentally, the physics behind LTP is underlined in Kolmogorov's 1941 paper "on the intermittency of turbulence"). This has *much* wider consequences than the detection of AGW, it has implications also for dealing with climate as a chaotic system, estimation of boundary conditions and natural variability (especially feedbacks).

I personally have a problem with the Cohn and Lins approach because they compute all their statistics from a time series in which the forcings are not constant. Maybe naivety on my part?

Indeed, and Koutsoyiannis argues that the type of approach taken by Rybski et al is preferable since detecting trends is probably the wrong way to test series containing LTP. However, the question is whether the net forcings can be separated from the natural variability, the problem is one of detection and does not require constant forcing.

Another concern that might be a reflection of ignorance is whether it is simply enough to establish that the mean annual global temperature change is within the bounds of natural variability or if one has to also establish that regional changes are within the bounds of natural variability. Changes in polar regions are greater than the global average. Do these fall within the range of natural variability? Does thuis matter? Nighttime temperatures are increasing faster than average temperatures. Do these fall within the range of natural variability? Does this matter?

I see no harming in testing models on a regional basis, and indeed Koutsoyiannis did move on to attempt to address this (although more needs to be done). From memory, the broader climate science community did not seem to approve of this approach, probably because the answers were not very supportive of their case.

That said, the arctic has relatively few long-ish instrumental measurements to base an analysis on, and so may not be the best place to look for a positive result.

 

[lomiller]

LOL your "effects happen without causes therefore climate change doesn’t have any explanation or cause" argument is simply overwhelming us

 

[CoolSceptic]

You don't still believe in that silly theory that in order to warm something you have to add heat to it (or remove mass), do you?

Very disappointed in this comment. That sounds like the sort of idiot argument that ideologues on the sceptic side trot out to "disprove" the greenhouse effect.

The logic (and physics) is pretty simple. Insolation and outgoing radiation are modulated by the hydrological cycle (e.g. through water vapour and clouds). The Hurst phenomenon is a known component of the hydrological cycle. Therefore, the temperature will be modulated in the same way.

As noted, those on both sides of this debate who understand the issues (Cohn, Lins, Koutsoyiannis, Montanari, Rybski, von Storch, Halley etc. etc.) all acknowledge the presence of the Hurst phenomenon in climate. Who is in denial here?

 

[macdoc]

CS
So you are hanging your "insight" and over turn of mainstream climate science conclusions on statistical analysis as being within Holocene norms - concentrating on temperature values only, while avoiding the massive observed changes in the geo-physical systems.

You put in for your Nobel yet.....??

and you wonder why you get dissed??.....

 

[macdoc]

CS

The logic (and physics) is pretty simple. Insolation and outgoing radiation are modulated by the hydrological cycle (e.g. through water vapour and clouds). The Hurst phenomenon is a known component of the hydrological cycle. Therefore, the temperature will be modulated in the same way.

That's a completely circular argument and makes no allowance for drivers or GHG let alone AGHG.
Water vapour is a feedback not a driver.
Talk about lack of overview.

You talk about the Hurst phenomena as if it has some physical presence rather than a statistical observation.
It doesn't.

 

[GreyICE]

Unacceptable. The issue of "peer-review" is now quite up in the air based on latest developments as you already know. Show me hard data proving that it is man-made.

I'm curious now. You've used a term that can best be called a 'weasel word.' Since I would never accuse a respectable member of the forum such as yourself of being a weasel, it must be an accident.

Therefore can you more generally describe the types of 'hard data' that would convince you it is man-made? What, exactly, would you like to see? What's your standard of proof? It's very hard for all of us to operate if we don't have a clear understanding, and certainly in the search for the truth, which we are all interested in, clarity is of the essence.

 

[CoolSceptic]

LOL your "effects happen without causes therefore climate change doesn’t have any explanation or cause" argument is simply overwhelming us

Thank you for continuing to demonstrate your ignorance. Nobody is claiming what you are suggesting. Internal, unforced variability with LTP is trivially demonstrated from chaotic systems with as few as two parameters. This is one of the reasons why nobody in the last hundred years (beyond you?) seriously considers universal determinism as having any scientific credibility.

Unless you claim there is no natural variability at all in climate, which I assume you are not, you need to account for this natural variability somehow. How to account for that natural variability is what is under discussion.

 

[macdoc]

It's you who are demonstrating your ignorance.....of course there is natural variations...so what.
Your contention may be useful when in a radiative balance. We're not

Radiative balance changes have drivers and feedbacks - positive negative.

You are dealing inside the energy box only.

That's not how radiative balance changes occur. They are externals, orbital, volcanic, and anthro induced and long occasion continental drift altered.

 

[lomiller]

You still don’t get it do you? You are using the Hurst Phenomenon as a god of the gaps. Worse you are appealing to the existence of gaps as proof your god exists.

LTP, as far as I goes is purely a statistical observation and one that occurs in many types of systems for well understood reasons. The fact that it occurs in systems where those reasons are not yet understood is not proof that it occurs without any reason at all. Despite this you are trying to evoke it as “proof” climate isn’t changing from a known physical effect and essential saying LTP is “proof” that “stuff just happens”.

In real science, however statistical modeling techniques fall by the wayside in the face of know physical effects.

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

Very disappointed in this comment. That sounds like the sort of idiot argument that ideologues on the sceptic side trot out to "disprove" the greenhouse effect.

The logic (and physics) is pretty simple. Insolation and outgoing radiation are modulated by the hydrological cycle (e.g. through water vapour and clouds). The Hurst phenomenon is a known component of the hydrological cycle. Therefore, the temperature will be modulated in the same way.

Water vapor is easy to understand as a factor in perpetuating a trend, as there is more of it when the atmosphere gets warmer and less of it as the atmosphere gets cooler. However, water vapor content can only respond to a trend, it cannot create one (saturation vapor pressure is a function of temperature). Clouds, on the other hand, would seem to dampen trends, as the general feeling seems to be that warming leads to more cloudiness (at least that's what skeptics like Roy Spencer claim - it's an interesting sidenote that there are skeptics who argue that the warming is due to a decrease in cloud cover and there are skeptics who argue that warming due to GHG is small because it will lead to an increase in cloudiness which in turn will counteract much of the warming).

Anyway, now that you've identified possible physical causes for the warming, it should be possible to present data that show that these things are actually happening. In particular, I'm interested in cloud cover data. Only a decrease in cloud cover can increase insolation, but a decrease in cloud cover should lead to an increase in the diurnal temperature range. The diurnal temperature range is in fact decreasing.

 

[BenBurch]

Please lets address the OP.

Can you attack the premise that there is ample evidence of warming without Hadley?

Be specific. Cite sources.

 

[CapelDodger]

Macdoc.

If you can throw around "deniers", "denidiots", "CTers" etc with gay abandon, I can use similar tactics. No?

Or you could rise above and answer a question.

What ideology do you think macdoc is "showing"?

 

[CapelDodger]

Please lets address the OP.

Can you attack the premise that there is ample evidence of warming without Hadley?

Be specific. Cite sources.

Of course there's ample evidence. We know that, and they know that after a moment's thought.

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

Halley has a very clear piece in the body of this paper where he explains the underlying problems with the paleoclimate reconstructions, and why his results cannot be relied upon without these issues resolved. It is a shame he glosses over that point in his abstract and his conclusions.

That's a rather creative interpretation of what Halley wrote. He did say that paleoclimate reconstructions are imprecise, but also found that they would need to be underestimating the variance by a factor of 4 before in order for it to be at all plausible for the recent warming to be within the bounds of natural variability.

Halley also notes that simply changing versions of the instrumental record results in the effect being measured halving. Since such small changes in the input data can have such a large effect on the results - and since the paleoclimate reconstructions are even worse (with non-overlapping confidence intervals), Halley is an interesting step on the journey but a long way from the final answer. Usefully, Halley recommends improvements that can be made to the reconstructions to make his analysis more credible.

But again there's the point that the variance would have to be underestimated by a factor of 4.

But! Most importantly, Halley acknowledges the presence of LTP in the climate system - just as Rybski and others have. Indeed, I'm not aware of anyone who has looked at this issue and not concluded that LTP is an essential part of the climate make up. This is in direct contrast to the claims of the likes of realclimate - and some posters here. This is important and highlights the ignorance of those who would argue this is a statistical point, not a physics point. (Incidentally, the physics behind LTP is underlined in Kolmogorov's 1941 paper "on the intermittency of turbulence"). This has *much* wider consequences than the detection of AGW, it has implications also for dealing with climate as a chaotic system, estimation of boundary conditions and natural variability (especially feedbacks).

So everyone seems to be in agreement that LTP requires that there be some physical feedback mechanism that affects the radiation balance. This implies a measurable physical quantity: more clouds, less clouds, change in albedo, etc. Has anyone observed such a feedback actually happening?

 

[CoolSceptic]

Sorry about the delay in responding to this, been very busy lately and just haven't had time to JREF. Better late then never though, eh?

Water vapor is easy to understand as a factor in perpetuating a trend, as there is more of it when the atmosphere gets warmer and less of it as the atmosphere gets cooler. However, water vapor content can only respond to a trend, it cannot create one (saturation vapor pressure is a function of temperature).

Gross oversimplification. Exampli gratia: hot dry places. The water vapour concentration, for example, over land is also a function of evapotranspiration (among other things) which can vary on 101 other parameters, all of which are interlinked. Please note that the people making these claims - Cohn, Koutsoyiannis - are hydrologists, they know a thing or two about the hydrological cycle, of which the water vapour is one of them. The idea it can't change - on all scales - without temperature changing first is quite wrong.

Clouds, on the other hand, would seem to dampen trends

Clouds are also driven by other factors and can both create and respond to trends in unexpected ways. The trivialisation of everything to first-order control systems which must respond in a pathological manner is not a remotely scientific position IMHO. (And that applies to both Roy Spencer's views as well as the "consensus").

Anyway, now that you've identified possible physical causes for the warming, it should be possible to present data that show that these things are actually happening. In particular, I'm interested in cloud cover data. Only a decrease in cloud cover can increase insolation, but a decrease in cloud cover should lead to an increase in the diurnal temperature range. The diurnal temperature range is in fact decreasing.

Wow, you're kidding me, you haven't followed anything. We're talking about a complex, interacting, multi-dimensional system here, you can't just pull out one factor and ignore the rest.

I have considerable first-hand experience with control systems. They are incredibly difficult to debug and understand, even when you start in a situation where both the underlying system model and theoretical model are consistent and linear. You really don't learn anything by just watching the outputs - when the system goes wrong, all outputs go wrong together. It doesn't teach you anything. Typically, to interpret and understand these systems you need to open loops, and stimulate them with known repetitive inputs (e.g. step functions).

To move on to chaotic systems (where the shadowing lemma pretty much throws any hope of a meaningful analysis of this type straight out of the window) then attempt to model them using trivial first-order control loops (which behave nothing like the real system) and expect to be able to just look at some data and understand it - is really a joke.