Global Temperature Change, baseline in History

[David Rodale]

That discussion was about water vapor; clouds are not water vapor and were not relevant to that discussion. How is it you get from that simple, yet correct statement to your claim he made a blanket statement that clouds don’t matter?




Again with Spencer…
As I pointed out previously that paper is a non-starter for you. He is talking about the uncertainty in the effects of clouds. This uncertainty certainly does exist, so this isn’t a ground breaking paper by any means. There is also uncertainty in the fossil record, pointing to that will never prove the fossil record is wrong.

This type of appeal to uncertainty won’t go very far in a scientific debate, because the very uncertainty you are appealing to prevents you from ever making a testable prediction or hypothesis. While other scientists are pointing to known phenomenon unrelated to clouds Spenser is trying to counter by saying clouds could be doing something to counter those effects. He will never be able to prove the existence of such an effect because of the very uncertainty he is appealing to.




Spenser yet again, there is no indication this paper has been accepted for publication, he only says he submitted it. It does bring us back to an issue you have repeatedly refused to address.

If climate sensitivity is low then the Sun cannot have a meaningful effect on climate. You cannot therefore hold that climate sensitivity is low, yet the Sun is the driving factor. What is your justification for holding onto both in the fact of the fact it’s been proven they are mutually contradictory?

To the question of climate sensitivity, this paper suggests that most of the potential for error is on the high side. I.E. 3deg K is the mostly likely value for doubling of CO2, but with a low of 2 deg K and a significant tail extending all the way to a possible 11 deg K.

http://www.climateprediction.net/science/pubs/nature_first_results.pdf

Unlike your link this one has been published.

In addition to an inability to explain the earths response to solar variation, low climate sensitivity is at odds with the observed temperate and CO2 changes during ice ages, and is incompatible with the current best explanation for the cause of ice ages.

That discussion was about water vapor; clouds are not water vapor and were not relevant to that discussion. How is it you get from that simple, yet correct statement to your claim he made a blanket statement that clouds don’t matter?

Does water vapor mediate clouds and precipitation? The latest research based on satellite data indicates precipitation systems and clouds regulate water vapor. Therefore clouds are relevant.

Again with Spencer…
As I pointed out previously that paper is a non-starter for you. He is talking about the uncertainty in the effects of clouds. This uncertainty certainly does exist, so this isn’t a ground breaking paper by any means. There is also uncertainty in the fossil record, pointing to that will never prove the fossil record is wrong.

No he is not. He is showing there is a misdiagnosis of positive feedbacks and therefore yet more error introduced in GCM's. How many can you find doing this research? Do yourself a favor and Google Piers Forster and Isaac Held, the two who refereed Spencer's latest article. He chose them specifically because the paper is ground breaking as what he found was missed by others. We aren't talking about fossils or the fluctuations in the price of pork bellies, so please forgo the logical fallacy arguments.

This type of appeal to uncertainty won’t go very far in a scientific debate, because the very uncertainty you are appealing to prevents you from ever making a testable prediction or hypothesis. While other scientists are pointing to known phenomenon unrelated to clouds Spenser is trying to counter by saying clouds could be doing something to counter those effects. He will never be able to prove the existence of such an effect because of the very uncertainty he is appealing to.

Please look at what you just wrote. First, a hypothesis is required to be a testable prediction! A hypothesis must be not only be testable but more importantly falsifiable. If there are no observable tests associated with the hypothesis, it is not a scientific statement but merely speculation. By your standard as I understand it, observations and experimentation are not prerequisite for testing a hypothesis. What "known phenomenon unrelated to clouds" are you referring to? Spencer is not referring only to clouds.

Spenser yet again, there is no indication this paper has been accepted for publication, he only says he submitted it. It does bring us back to an issue you have repeatedly refused to address.

Oh, it will be published Others used the same argument for his previous work.

To the question of climate sensitivity, this paper suggests that most of the potential for error is on the high side. I.E. 3deg K is the mostly likely value for doubling of CO2, but with a low of 2 deg K and a significant tail extending all the way to a possible 11 deg K.

http://www.climateprediction.net/science/pubs/nature_first_results.pdf

Unlike your link this one has been published.

Others post PNAS mistakenly as well assuming the same. That is a "letter to Nature", not a peer reviewed publication. Do you know what parameterization is?

In addition to an inability to explain the earths response to solar variation, low climate sensitivity is at odds with the observed temperate and CO2 changes during ice ages, and is incompatible with the current best explanation for the cause of ice ages.

Can a small change in cloud cover affect surface temperature? Look it up. What causes the cloud cover to change? Do volcanoes support a low sensitivity or high sensitivity? What does recent data indicate? This is where you miss the boat; relying on hypotheticals rather than observations.

Lastly, your statement http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3855254&postcount=610
You don’t need vague, articles where one system says the ocean is warming and one says it isn’t over a short period of time. You need papers that show conclusively the ocean has not gained heat over a period of decades.

IPCC (ala Hansen et al) concluded 10 years (1993-2003) was long enough to conclude Earth is in radiative imbalance which, other than volanoes/aerosols, only a reduction in GHG emissions could mediate. It is not 2003-2006 now, but going on 2008. You, Truesceptic and others still do not understand the difference between heat and temperature, and the implications of the "Smoking Gun" hypothesis being falsified.

 

[David Rodale]

What I have said is that he is a public proponent of Intelligent Design, we can’t trust his unpublished commentary. If he were like his colleague John Christy and kept his religious beliefs to himself I would have a lot more tolerance, but Spencer is willing to publicly support bad science in support of his religious beliefs, this leads me to think his public commentary on science cannot be trusted.

Since you are relatively new here, let's get this out in the open. There are more examples if you wish.
An Urgent Call to Action: Scientists and Evangelicals Unite to Protect Creation



Do you know who Judith Curry is? James Hansen? Seeing your type of pap is not only irrelevant, but indicative of your inability to have a logical discussion without resorting to bigotry and personal smear tactics.

 

[lomiller]

Does water vapor mediate clouds and precipitation? The latest research based on satellite data indicates precipitation systems and clouds regulate water vapor. Therefore clouds are relevant.

I’m not the one basing my arguments on cloud formation. You are the one who is going to have to address the problem of making a testable hypothesis in that uncertainty. Even you so called proof doesn’t get any further then speculating there *could* be something there.

You still lack testable predictions and an adequate explanation as to why climate should be hypersensitive to one forcing and not at all sensitive to another. Why do you keep dodging that issue, hmmm.

IPCC (ala Hansen et al) concluded 10 years (1993-2003) was long enough to conclude Earth is in radiative imbalance

More like 40 years,back in 1993, close to 60 now. that's how long the oceans have been gaining heat.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7198/abs/nature07080.html

You, Truesceptic and others still do not understand the difference between heat and temperature, and the implications of the "Smoking Gun" hypothesis being falsified.

Interesting you would make such a claim while refusing to address my post proving that solar activity alone is much too small to make changes in climate. It takes a lot of energy to change the temperature of the earth and when you get around to answering where this heat magically coming from I’ll believe you understand what heat is.

 

[lomiller]

Since you are relatively new here, let's get this out in the open. There are more examples if you wish.
An Urgent Call to Action: Scientists and Evangelicals Unite to Protect Creation

I see nothing in there that would cause me to question the scientific objectivity of the people singing it. It isn’t the religion I object to its dressing it up and trying to convince people it’s science I have a problem with, something I see no evidence of in that letter.

 

[a_unique_person]

Since you are relatively new here, let's get this out in the open. There are more examples if you wish.
An Urgent Call to Action: Scientists and Evangelicals Unite to Protect Creation

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=11567http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_1032347f4146697545.jpg

Do you know who Judith Curry is? James Hansen? Seeing your type of pap is not only irrelevant, but indicative of your inability to have a logical discussion without resorting to bigotry and personal smear tactics.

That doesn't actually mean they believe in 'creationism' an not 'evolution'. The term 'creation' means something entirely different, it just refers to the cosmos in general, that is, god's creation.

 

[mhaze]

More like 40 years,back in 1993, close to 60 now. that's how long the oceans have been gaining heat.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7198/abs/nature07080.html

The article does not say what you claim it says. First it sheds light on the alarming recent sea rise error, and second it tries to reconcile the difference between the numbers for 1961 onward.


From your article:

Our ocean warming and thermal expansion trends for 1961–2003 are about 50 per cent larger than earlier estimates but about 40 per cent smaller for 1993–2003, which is consistent with the recognition that previously estimated rates for the 1990s had a positive bias as a result of instrumental errors8, 9, 10. On average, the decadal variability of the climate models with volcanic forcing now agrees approximately with the observations, but the modelled multi-decadal trends are smaller than observed. We add our observational estimate of upper-ocean thermal expansion to other contributions to sea-level rise and find that the sum of contributions from 1961 to 2003 is about 1.5

0.4 mm yr-1, in good agreement with our updated estimate of near-global mean sea-level rise (using techniques established in earlier studies6, 7) of 1.6

0.2 mm yr-1.
​

But 1-2 mm sea level rise per year is not different than 19th century sea level rise, is it? And how does this compare to the period from 1900-1960?

 

[fsol]

The article does not say what you claim it says. First it sheds light on the alarming recent sea rise error, and second it tries to reconcile the difference between the numbers for 1961 onward.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=9104http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_142244731ed7796761.png

From your article:

Our ocean warming and thermal expansion trends for 1961–2003 are about 50 per cent larger than earlier estimates but about 40 per cent smaller for 1993–2003, which is consistent with the recognition that previously estimated rates for the 1990s had a positive bias as a result of instrumental errors8, 9, 10. On average, the decadal variability of the climate models with volcanic forcing now agrees approximately with the observations, but the modelled multi-decadal trends are smaller than observed. We add our observational estimate of upper-ocean thermal expansion to other contributions to sea-level rise and find that the sum of contributions from 1961 to 2003 is about 1.5 http://www.nature.com/__chars/plus/special/plusmn/black/med/base/glyph.gif 0.4 mm yr-1, in good agreement with our updated estimate of near-global mean sea-level rise (using techniques established in earlier studies6, 7) of 1.6 http://www.nature.com/__chars/plus/special/plusmn/black/med/base/glyph.gif 0.2 mm yr-1.
​

But 1-2 mm sea level rise per year is not different than 19th century sea level rise, is it? And how does this compare to the period from 1900-1960?

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_14224487c964176b65.png

Got a reference for your 19th century sea level rise? IPCC say that there are no global measurements of sea level available before 1870. You have data they don't?

This might be of interest

Church, J.A., and N.J. White, 2006: A 20th century acceleration in global sea-level rise. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L01602, doi:10.1029/1 2005GL024826.

For the reconstruction shown in
Figure 5.13, Church and White (2006) found an acceleration
of 1.3 ± 0.5 mm yr–1 per century over the period 1870 to 2000.
These data support an inference that the onset of acceleration
occurred during the 19th century (see Section 9.5.2).

 

[TrueSceptic]

You, Truesceptic and others still do not understand the difference between heat and temperature, and the implications of the "Smoking Gun" hypothesis being falsified.

Show me the evidence for that claim (that I do not understand the difference).

 

[mhaze]

These guys look at one regional area and splice sediment records (earlier) tide gauges (later).

Extending the Instrumental Record of Sea-Level Change: A 1300-Year Sea-Level Record From Eastern Connecticut , Donnelly, J. P.; Cleary, P.

The data show a sea-level rise rate of 1.0 +/- 0.3 mm/year from 700 to 1650 AD. From the middle of the 17th century to the middle of the 19th century the rate of sea-level rise was 0.4 \pm 1 mm/year indicating that the rate of sea-level rise may have slowed during the Little Ice Age.
​

Side note: A while back you were arguing pretty strongly for a current rate of 3.1mm/year sea level increase, and I was arguing it was likely down in the 1.3 - 1.6 mm/year range. What say ye now?

 

[TrueSceptic]

Since you are relatively new here, let's get this out in the open. There are more examples if you wish.
An Urgent Call to Action: Scientists and Evangelicals Unite to Protect Creation

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_1032347f4146697545.jpg[/qimg]

Do you know who Judith Curry is? James Hansen? Seeing your type of pap is not only irrelevant, but indicative of your inability to have a logical discussion without resorting to bigotry and personal smear tactics.

What is your claim? That scientists should never sign anything that evangelicals also sign? That the 2 sets of people should never agree on anything?

 

[lomiller]

The article does not say what you claim it says. First it sheds light on the alarming recent sea rise error, and second it tries to reconcile the difference between the numbers for 1961 onward.

They also provide updated numbers for ocean heat content. These show a strong trend towards more heat in the oceans. What is so difficult top understand about that?

 

[mhaze]

They also provide updated numbers for ocean heat content. These show a strong trend towards more heat in the oceans. What is so difficult top understand about that?

Say what? Got evidence?

Please show the alarming 1961+ increase in heat content.



To relate this back to the OP, there is NO evidence based on rising sea levels to support the AGW alarmist and mythological projections of doom.

Face it: Weak support for this premise may have existed when the historical rate was 1.1-1.6 mm per year, but some evidence for a current increasing rate was 3.1mm/year...Oh, wait...your own reference refutes that weak link and we are back at 1.6 mm/year.

No sea level rise outside of expected range based on historical trends. To make it perfectly clear, your reference postulates a sea level rise by 2100 of 6.22 inches.

Not one meter (far extreme of IPCC projection)
Not 2 meters (various)
Not 20 feet (Hansen, Env Def, Greenpeace , Gore)
Not 80 feet (Hansen)

Here is 6.22 inches-
1
1.0
1.00
1.000
1.0000
1.00000 inch
2
2.0
2.00
2.000
2.0000
2.00000 inches
3
3.0
3.00
3.000
3.0000
3.00000 inches
4
4.0
4.00
4.000
4.0000
4.00000 inches
5
5.0
5.00
5.000
5.0000
5.00000 inches
6
6.0
6.00
6.000
6.0000
6.00000 inches
6.22 inches presuming 6 lines/inch

'Nuff said.

 

[fsol]

These guys look at one regional area and splice sediment records (earlier) tide gauges (later).

Extending the Instrumental Record of Sea-Level Change: A 1300-Year Sea-Level Record From Eastern Connecticut , Donnelly, J. P.; Cleary, P.

The data show a sea-level rise rate of 1.0 +/- 0.3 mm/year from 700 to 1650 AD. From the middle of the 17th century to the middle of the 19th century the rate of sea-level rise was 0.4 \pm 1 mm/year indicating that the rate of sea-level rise may have slowed during the Little Ice Age.
​

Side note: A while back you were arguing pretty strongly for a current rate of 3.1mm/year sea level increase, and I was arguing it was likely down in the 1.3 - 1.6 mm/year range. What say ye now?

So there are still no global sea level data before 1870.

A while back I was trying to explain to you what the IPCC report and the work it cited stated about sea level rise. If you want to go back and dig up that thread to have a look at, it be my guest. As I recall, you started the conversation with "IPCC wrong" because you hadn't paid proper attention to the paper you thought supported your conclusion. I merely tried to point out your error. Your "side note" doesn't really match up with my memory of the thread.

As for what I think now, I haven't given it any more thought since that last thread.

 

[fsol]

To relate this back to the OP, there is NO evidence based on rising sea levels to support the AGW alarmist and mythological projections of doom.

Oh, from the paper you linked...

The increase in the rate of sea-level rise to modern levels occurs in the 19th century and most likely in the later half of the 19th century. The timing of the observed sea-level rise rate increase is coincident with the onset of atmospheric warming in the late 19th century and indicates that a link between increases in the rate of sea-level rise and anthropogenic climate warming is possible and even likely.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002AGUFMOS71D0325D

Now that is only for that region. But it doesn't disagree with the paper I cited last in this thread.

I don't know what these mythological projections of doom are meant to be but it seems that the data for sea level rise doesn't at all poor cold water (sorry ) on AGW.

 

[lomiller]

Say what? Got evidence?

Please show the alarming 1961+ increase in heat content.

You placed that quote right in front of your own graphic of sea level rising due to thermal expansion. Wow… just wow.

To relate this back to the OP, there is NO evidence based on rising sea levels to support the AGW alarmist and mythological projections of doom.

Nice Strawman, but the issue of sea levels was brought up by your side as “proof” the oceans are not gaining heat.

Since the oceans are expanding in large part due to thermal expansion, they are indeed gaining heat and therefore that heat must be coming from somewhere. Since you reject the feedback amplification of solar forcing to explain any solar connection, I await your explanation of where that heat is coming from.

 

[CapelDodger]

Gentlemen and gentleladies, no fighting in the War Room!

Fine by me; I'm ready and waiting in the original thread .

While entertaing and interesting this has been a derail, please to relate it back to the baseline idea, how do we model the past climate?

I see it more as how do we discover past climate - an interesting question in itself, even in a world that didn't have a climate thing going on. Ice Ages (originally the Ice Age) have had a popular fascination since they were discovered. They're up there with dinosaurs and cave-men .

Past temperatures aren't in themselves interesting; more interesting is how things were and what effect (if any) did that have at the time and on subsequent history.

We know a lot about what the 17thCE was like; obsessing over numbers is time wasted. Climatically, even in Europe, it wasn't much different from fifty or a hundred years ago. The early 19thCE climate was a lot different, but so was the vulcanism. Right up until Krakatoa it was one hell of a century for explosive eruptions.

http://www.physorg.com/news112982907.html
Western Canada's Glaciers Hit 7000-Year Low

"Geologist Johannes Koch of The College of Wooster found the deceptively fresh and intact tree stumps beside the retreating glaciers of Garibaldi Provincial Park, about 40 miles (60 km) north of Vancouver, British Columbia. What he wanted to know was how long ago the glaciers made their first forays into a long-lost forest to kill the trees and bury them under ice.

To find out, Koch radiocarbon-dated wood from the stumps to see how long they have been in cold storage. The result was a surprising 7000 years."

That puts constraints on how the climate has been in this part of British Columbia in the last seven thousand years. Not the sort of climate that melts these glaciers.

"Koch compared the kill dates of the trees in the southern and northern Coast Mountains of British Columbia and those in the mid- and southern Rocky Mountains in Canada to similar records from the Yukon Territory, the European Alps, New Zealand and South America. He also looked at the age of Oetzi, the prehistoric mummified alpine "Iceman" found at Niederjoch Glacier, and similarly well-preserved wood from glaciers and snowfields in Scandinavia.

The radiocarbon dates seem to be the same around the world, according to Koch. It's important to note that there have been many advances and retreats of these glaciers over the past 7000 years, but no retreats that have pushed them back so far upstream as to expose these trees."

While this doesn't give us any detail on the intervening climate, it does put an upper limit on it.

For the detail, there's not much better than pollen, beetles, and snails to tell the local story .

Or discuss this as it relates to the issue of sensitive dependance or forcing.

I don't think it does, since it concerns climate/weather mechanisms rather than climate history.

 

[Dancing David]

Cool, I love paleobotany. I am curious what we would find in boreal transition cores as far as the last time the tunndra got pushed this far north. Assuming that we could get something that had a nice stratigraphy, like a lake bottom.

 

[CapelDodger]

Cool, I love paleobotany. I am curious what we would find in boreal transition cores as far as the last time the tunndra got pushed this far north. Assuming that we could get something that had a nice stratigraphy, like a lake bottom.

Pollen potentially provides the finest stratigaphy for a local boreal history, since trees pollinate prodigously and in season. In the tundra and permafrost regions there are ample sources of cores, but each tells only its own local story.

 

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by mhaze
Say what? Got evidence?
Please show the alarming 1961+ increase in heat content.
​

You placed that quote right in front of your own graphic of sea level rising due to thermal expansion. Wow… just wow.

Nice Strawman, but the issue of sea levels was brought up by your side as “proof” the oceans are not gaining heat.

Since the oceans are expanding in large part due to thermal expansion, they are indeed gaining heat and therefore that heat must be coming from somewhere. Since you reject the feedback amplification of solar forcing to explain any solar connection, I await your explanation of where that heat is coming from.

Wow and triple woo wow.

Please show the alarming 1961+ increase in heat content.



This time read the chart correctly, it is total sea level rise including natural run off, glacial melt, thermal expansion, etc. It is not a chart of thermal expansion as you said.

Last but not least in this lesson in chart reading, look at the label on what is called the "X AXIS".

You will see that the left hand side is not 1961, but is 1880. You will see is a fairly steady line going up on the chart. See the black line with the red to the right hand side? That is the "information" that you need to retain from the chart. Now, note

• total change is about +20 and -2 cm, or 220 mm.
• the years to be 2008 - 1880 or 128 years.

What is 220 mm / 128 years? About 1.7 mm? How does that long term average compare to your numbers for 1961 - 2008? State the numbers, please. This is the way it is done by those who do not duck and dodge --

"Sea level rise for 1961 - 2006 was ________ per year plus or minus ____. This is(is not) different from the historical average of the last 128 years by ________. There does (does not) appear to be a recent, past 1961 increase in sea level rise rate. There is (is not) reason to be concerned about a past 1961 sea level rate increase. There is(is not) a clear relation between man made global warming theory and the presence of (absence of) a past 1961 sea level rise rate increase.

See how easy it is?

 

[fsol]

For the reconstruction shown in
Figure 5.13, Church and White (2006) found an acceleration
of 1.3 ± 0.5 mm yr–1 per century over the period 1870 to 2000.
These data support an inference that the onset of acceleration
occurred during the 19th century (see Section 9.5.2).

..

The increase in the rate of sea-level rise to modern levels occurs in the 19th century and most likely in the later half of the 19th century. The timing of the observed sea-level rise rate increase is coincident with the onset of atmospheric warming in the late 19th century and indicates that a link between increases in the rate of sea-level rise and anthropogenic climate warming is possible and even likely.