Merged Global Warming Discussion II: Heated Conversation

[Trakar]

I did find the transcripts, which is why I know Curry was given such an easy time. Did they ever reach another official conclusion for the organisation.

Not sure why you feel that is was "an easy time," They exposed every crackpot concept she had as unfounded and without standing, as outside the mainstream and based upon faulty reasoning. Perhaps you were misled by the polite and reasoned language, but she, and most especially Lindzen were excoriated by their peers.
The primary issue at the meeting that the transcripts covered was to get each witness to state their primary issues of concern with the current APS position and Climate Change understanding as it exists. There was some fun back and forth in the general discussion portion at the end, but for the most part, the individual sections where each was to raise their primary issues of concern and support were the "Gold" of having these individuals "on the record" among their peers.

 

[Reality Check]

I showed a specific example of past data being changed, to reduce a "blip"", which is hard to deny considering the source is an actual communication between scientists about it.

No you did not, r-j: HadSST3 has no mention of the Wigley email.
Where was the subject matter of the Wigley email published (4 April 2014)?

And you seem to lie about HadSST3 since there is no mention of adjusting the dataset for a "blip" or even Tom Wigley at Hadley Centre SST data set (HadSST3)
ETA: the papers linked to are parts 1 and 2 of "Reassessing biases and other uncertainties in sea-surface temperature observations measured in situ since 1850" (no citation of Tom WIgley!). These are the standard science of adjusting data for known instrumental biases and uncertainties.

Wow - you think we should not collect temperature data until the number of weather stations reaches your private, personal number, r-j !
Scientists do not think that way - they use all the data that they can. That is why the HadSST3 data set has data from 1850 to 2012.

 

[a_unique_person]

Not sure why you feel that is was "an easy time," They exposed every crackpot concept she had as unfounded and without standing, as outside the mainstream and based upon faulty reasoning. Perhaps you were misled by the polite and reasoned language, but she, and most especially Lindzen were excoriated by their peers.

For those of us not so quick on the uptake with scientific excoriation, could you point out some of the details?

 

[Reality Check]

In case it's too hard to follow, the change due to "buckets and intakes" is obvious in the new hadsst3, which came out in 2012

In case it is too hard for you to follow, r-j: You are just wrong because HADCRUT3 and HADCRUT4 are not sea surface temperatures ! They are combined sea and land temperatures.
What you imagine graphs from 'Wood for Trees' to contain is not the technical description of the contents of datasets. It is there that any adjustments for systematic errors (such as the bucket problem) would be mentioned.

The ignorance behind not adjusting for a change in data collection is obvious.
* Not adjusting for a weather station changing from a manual low/high measurement to an automatic hourly measurement would be totally ignorant.
* Not adjusting for a change in the manufacturing standards for weather stations would be quite totally ignorant.
* Not adjusting for instrumental biases in the sea surface temperature record would be quite totally ignorant.
* Not adjusting for changes in how the sea surface temperature records were taken would be quite totally ignorant.
And of course no one would be so insane to try to combine raw data from all of the satellites!

Climate scientists are not ignorant:
HadSST3

The SST data are taken from version 2.5 of the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set, ICOADS (external web page), from 1850 to 2006 and on GTS observations from 2007 onwards. HadSST3 is produced (a slightly more detailed description) by taking in-situ measurements of SST from ships and buoys, rejecting measurements that fail quality checks, converting the measurements to anomalies by subtracting climatological values from the measurements, and calculating a robust average of the resulting anomalies on a 5° by 5° degree monthly grid. After gridding the anomalies, bias adjustments are applied to reduce the effects of spurious trends caused by changes in SST measuring practices. The uncertainties due to under-sampling and measurement error have been calculated for the gridded monthly data as have the uncertainties on the bias adjustments following the procedures described in the paper.

For a detailed description of the dataset and its production process, please read the papers (part 1 and part 2) describing the data set. We recommended you read both papers before using the data.

HadCRUT4

The gridded data are a blend of the CRUTEM4 land-surface air temperature dataset and the HadSST3 sea-surface temperature (SST) dataset. The dataset is presented as an ensemble of 100 dataset realisations that sample the distribution of uncertainty in the global temperature record given current understanding of non-climatic factors affecting near-surface temperature observations. This ensemble approach allows characterisation of spatially and temporally correlated uncertainty structure in the gridded data, for example arising from uncertainties in methods used to account for changes in SST measurement practices, homogenisation of land station records and the potential impacts of urbanisation.

 

[Reality Check]

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/part_1_figinline.pdf
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/part_2_figinline.pdf

Yes, r-j - cite climate science papers saying that you are wrong eek and that raw sea temperature data needs to be adjusted for measurement and sampling uncertainties:
Reassessing biases and other uncertainties in sea-surface temperature observations measured in situ since 1850, part 1: measurement and sampling uncertainties (PDF)
and biases and homogenization:
Reassessing biases and other uncertainties in sea-surface
temperature observations measured in situ since 1850, part 2:
biases and homogenization (PDF)

An little question for you: A ship, a drifting buoy and a fixed buoy give different temperatures for the same grid on the same day. What do you think needs to happen so that you can use that data, r-j?
Do you "adjust" the raw data by taking an average?
Do you "adjust" the raw data by taking the most reliable source only (looking at other data for the 3 instruments)?
Do you "adjust" the raw data by discarding the most unreliable source and averaging?
Do you "adjust" the raw data by an instrumental bias found from other measurements?

 

[CapelDodger]

... Do you "adjust" the raw data by an instrumental bias found from other measurements?

Does one adjust raw rain-gauge data according to its amber tint? Sadly no, in the case I have in mind, but since that was a boys' school and boys have always been boys the bias introduced has probably been consistent.

 

[CapelDodger]

More extreme weather.

Forest fires arrive early as Siberia sees record high temperatures
http://siberiantimes.com/ecology/ca...rly-as-siberia-sees-record-high-temperatures/

The past week saw record warm weather in western Siberian cities including Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Kemerovo, Barnaul and Gorno-Altaisk.

Natural Resources Minister Sergei Donskoi warned a conference chaired by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev: 'The forest fire situation is tense in Russia this year. Due to a shortage of precipitation the forest fire season has begun almost one and a half months ahead of the norm.'

By 2 April, 17 forest fires had been registered across 2,000 hectares. Among the areas now at risk after a faster-than-usual snow melt are the south of Siberia to the territory of the Far Eastern Federal District, to Baikal and the Amur regions.

A severe fire season might well have an impact on Arctic sea-ice extent this summer, especially with it kicking-off early when there's still a lot of ice for ash to fall on.

I have a feeling that 2014 is going to be a year which opens a lot of people's eyes.

 

[Iamme]

I just read where CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere climbed to over 400ppm for the first time in 3 million years.
That might say something when debating people who think current global warming trends over a paltry 40 year time spam is simply part of Earth`s temperature cycles that have been going on for eons, and nothing to do with man`s emissions.
The fact that the current count has not been this high for 3 million years tho has to have some sort of significance i would think.
Whether or not that is a worldwide avg or for the more heavily concentrated NH, that i dont know.

 

[CapelDodger]

That could be the March average; 400ppm has been reached on some days already.

What I find most significant is that we've raised atmospheric CO₂ by 40% in two centuries, and half of that in the last forty years. It may still be a trace gas but 40% is not a trace percentage.

 

[Trakar]

...The fact that the current count has not been this high for 3 million years tho has to have some sort of significance i would think...

Roughly the same length of time since the start of the Pleistocene glaciation events (modern ice age - year-round polar and high mountain ice caps and the cycles of continental glacial expansions toward the equator and periodic glaciation retreat toward the poles),...I wonder if there is a connection?

 

[Trakar]

For those of us not so quick on the uptake with scientific excoriation, could you point out some of the details?

I am currently trying to get some clarification and guidelines to start a new thread dedicated to the discussion of the APS Climate Change statement. Hang on to this and remind me next week, if I haven't started the new thread by this weekend, I will go into more details here.

Much of Curry's issues were arguments from the gaps, and were largely dismissed, the real kerfluffle breaks out in the general discussion and revolves mostly around Christy and Lindzen.

The interesting part is seeing how much closer to the Mainstream Science all three position themselves in this discussion than they do on the various personal blogs and political venues where they spend most of their public time.

 

[CapelDodger]

The fact that the current count has not been this high for 3 million years tho has to have some sort of significance i would think.

So would I. It means we're in uncharted territory so there's only so much the past can tell us about where this thing is going. The last time there was this level of CO₂ other things were not equal - for instance, the Isthmus of Panama Isthmus rose about 3m years ago, cutting the Pacific-Atlantic link, which must surely have had a profound impact on ocean circulation and global heat transport.

 

[r-j]

I am currently trying to get some clarification and guidelines to start a new thread dedicated to the discussion of the APS Climate Change statement.

The APS, the organization that has had two Nobel prize winning members resign over the APs global warming statement.

 

[a_unique_person]

The APS, the organization that has had two Nobel prize winning members resign over the APs global warming statement.

Einstein could not accept Quantum physics, 'God doesn't play dice'. Even highly intelligent people have their limits.

 

[CapelDodger]

The APS, the organization that has had two Nobel prize winning members resign over the APs global warming statement.

Well that's the APS damned for eternity.

Forgive me for prying, but do you have any issues with the APS statement yourself?

 

[CapelDodger]

Field study shows why food quality will suffer with rising carbon dioxide
http://phys.org/news/2014-04-field-food-quality-carbon-dioxide.html

For the first time, a field test has demonstrated that elevated levels of carbon dioxide inhibit plants' assimilation of nitrate into proteins, indicating that the nutritional quality of food crops is at risk as climate change intensifies.

Findings from this wheat field-test study, led by a UC Davis plant scientist, will be reported online April 6 in the journal Nature Climate Change.

"Food quality is declining under the rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide that we are experiencing," said lead author Arnold Bloom, a professor in the Department of Plant Sciences.

"Several explanations for this decline have been put forward, but this is the first study to demonstrate that elevated carbon dioxide inhibits the conversion of nitrate into protein in a field-grown crop," he said.

Bloom noted that other studies also have shown that protein concentrations in the grain of wheat, rice and barley—as well as in potato tubers—decline, on average, by approximately 8 percent under elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

"When this decline is factored into the respective portion of dietary protein that humans derive from these various crops, it becomes clear that the overall amount of protein available for human consumption may drop by about 3 percent as atmospheric carbon dioxide reaches the levels anticipated to occur during the next few decades," Bloom said.

On the other hand

Potatoes could step up performance under climate change pressure
http://phys.org/news/2014-02-potatoes-climate-pressure.html#inlRlv

Research at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) suggests that potatoes are still the go-to tuber when times get tough.

The researchers observed significant differences in plant response that they attributed to the variation in solar radiation, which in turn affected plant water-use efficiency and dry matter production. With all other growth factors being equal, the plants in the first study had a 30 percent to 200 percent increase in total dry matter production, depending on carbon dioxide levels and water availability.

The team also noted that the cyclic droughts resulted in lower levels of dry matter and leaf area production. They concluded that drought stress before tuber formation probably enhanced the future delivery of carbon, water and plant nutrients to tubers instead of to stems or leaves—and that this response increased under elevated carbon dioxide levels. Averaged across all drought treatments, tuber yield from plants growing under elevated carbon dioxide levels was as much as 60 percent greater than tuber yield from plants growing under current carbon dioxide levels.

That's dry matter yield, no mention of protein. So there could be more carbohydrate (CO₂ is plant food) but less protein. Not good for a balanced diet.

(Does "Averaged across" followed by "as much as" actuallly mean anything? I'm having difficulties with it myself.)

So more uncertainty (which is not our friend) and a new front opened in AGW denier territory (the aforementioned plant-food slogan). It must feel like the walls are closing in on them.

 

[Trakar]

The APS, the organization that has had two Nobel prize winning members resign over the APs global warming statement.

Even dedicated, brilliant people can be blinded by their personal biases.

 

[Reality Check]

Even dedicated, brilliant people can be blinded by their personal biases.

Ivar Giaever's letter (not renewing - not a resignation) complains about the statement "The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring." because
* he could not understand how we can measure the average temperature of the Earth for a whole year.
* the measured warming is small.
* "both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period" - as if temperature was the only thing affecting health and happiness (vaccines anyone?).
That looks more like ignorance rather than bias.

Some of this is understandable - you have a solid state physicist commenting on climate science. So some ignorance is excusable.
We could blame his age (85) and assume that he is just not capable of learning new science in order to evaluate the status of climate change.

 

[Trakar]

Ivar Giaever's letter (not renewing - not a resignation) complains about the statement "The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring." because
* he could not understand how we can measure the average temperature of the Earth for a whole year.
* the measured warming is small.
* "both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period" - as if temperature was the only thing affecting health and happiness (vaccines anyone?).
That looks more like ignorance rather than bias.

Some of this is understandable - you have a solid state physicist commenting on climate science. So some ignorance is excusable.
We could blame his age (85) and assume that he is just not capable of learning new science in order to evaluate the status of climate change.

I suspect, however that ignorance is not something he has ever let stop him from learning about areas of science that interest him. The fact that he is uninterested about climate science at this point in his life and is not curious enough to find out exactly what the science is and what is says, speaks to me that there are personal biases at work limiting his desire to investigate and understand these issues.

Ignorance in a lay person is fully excusable, ignorance about a science subject you are willing to take a principled stand against, from a person who has dedicated most of their life to pursuit of science and understanding speaks to biased influences,...to me.

 

[Iamme]

Any theories on what these biases might be? Is his bias basically a skepticism?