Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[lomiller]

This isn't new: many heavyweight statisticians have already sided with the views of McIntyre and McKitrick, including the likes of Ed Wegman and Ian Jolliffe.

I don’t know where you get the idea Jolliffe “supports McIntyre” He’s been a reviewer on McIntyre’s attempted submissions and recommended rejection.

Wegman wrote a political submission under the sponsorship of Joe Barton, the guy who took it upon himself to apologize to BP for the gulf oil spill.

He has spent the last 5 years trying to save face by saying “even though MHB98 got the correct result the fact that it still contained errors” Thus far he has refused to comment on why he never even looked for errors in McIntyre’s response to MBH98, even though we know now they were numerous and significantly effected the result. Oh and it’s recently been shown Wegman Plagiarized parts of that report.

 

[Furcifer]

and they are much smaller then the positive feedback. Why do you find this difficult to understand?

What I find difficult to understand is how you continue to make the most basic of errors.

Without the negative feedbacks inherent in the climate this planet would be considerably hotter than it is.

This is the part where you shift the goal posts and redefine "negative feedback". Perhaps define an imaginary baseline?

 

[Trakar]

What journal? None that I can see and the authors have no background in climate

It is apparently scheduled for publication in the next issue of the "Annals of Applied Statistics" - http://imstat.org/aoas/next_issue.html

I'm not sure that the application of obscurant and specific economic statistical methodology is appropriate to climate science studies, but will look forward to the contextual review of the paper by climate professionals and field specific statisticians as it is released for general review and comment in next month's publication. I am a bit curious as to why it was not released in one of the more prominent leading mathematics or economics journals (which would seem and adequate fit for its broad-reach, cross-field ambitions) but I guess this did give it more likelihood of limited-focus pre-acceptance peer-review?

 

[macdoc]

Holy handwaving, "What negative feedbacks? These negative feedbacks? Nothing to see here!"

The climate is dominated by negative feedbacks, without them the planet would be much hotter than it is. MUCH. Radiative cooling, convection, increased biological activity and clouds to name a few.

The lying and handwaving has to stop. The notion that there are no negative feedbacks and only positive ones is laughable.

Dominated???....hardly

The small number of credible skeptics out there (e.g., Spencer, Lindzen) have spent much of the last decade searching for a negative feedback in our climate system. If a sufficiently big one is found, then it would suggest that warming over the next century may well be small.
Most climate scientists, however, are reasonably certain that a negative feedback big enough to overwhelm the well-known positive feedbacks in the climate system, such as the water vapor feedback [PDF], does not exist. Why? Negative feedbacks tend to dampen out climate change. If you add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere or the sun brightens, then the hypothetical negative feedback will counteract the warming, leaving the climate nearly unchanged. While it may be comforting to believe that a negative feedback exists, it is extremely difficult to reconcile the existence of a big negative feedback with our past observations of climate variability.
For example, the ice ages rely on a carbon dioxide feedback to provide their large amplitude. If there were a big negative feedback in the system, then how do you explain the large swings in to and out of ice ages? No way that I know of.
Similarly, the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum is also thought to be the result of a huge release of greenhouse gases. With a large negative feedback in the system, how do you explain the rapid temperature rise during that event?

http://www.grist.org/article/Negative-climate-feedback-is-as-real-as-the-Easter-Bunny

and clouds - which all your unsupported maybe's come down to are a mixed bag at best....

This is the sum total of negative feedbacks listed for climate only one of which operates in a human time frame.

Negative

Following Le Chatelier's principle, the chemical equilibrium of the Earth's carbon cycle will shift in response to anthropogenic CO2 emissions. The primary driver of this is the ocean, which absorbs anthropogenic CO2 via the so-called solubility pump. At present this accounts for only about one third of the current emissions, but ultimately most (~75%) of the CO2 emitted by human activities will dissolve in the ocean over a period of centuries: "A better approximation of the lifetime of fossil fuel CO2 for public discussion might be 300 years, plus 25% that lasts forever".[16] However, the rate at which the ocean will take it up in the future is less certain, and will be affected by stratification induced by warming and, potentially, changes in the ocean's thermohaline circulation.


As the temperature of a black body increases, the emission of infrared radiation back into space increases with the fourth power of its absolute temperature according to Stefan–Boltzmann law.[17] This increases the amount of outgoing radiation as the Earth warms. The impact of this negative feedback effect is included in global climate models summarized by the IPCC.
Chemical weathering over the long term acts to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Biosequestration also captures and stores CO2 by biological processes. The formation of shells by organisms in the ocean, over a very long time, removes CO2 from the oceans.[18] The complete conversion of CO2 to limestone takes thousands to hundreds of thousands of years.

against a substantive list of positives listed in the article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_feedback

 

[CapelDodger]

Barring any feedback yes. And it is.

(in answer to lopeyschools's question)

Including any feedback, yes. Not even a negative total feedback (being the sum of negative and positive feedbacks) can cancel an effect because without the effect there's nothing to feed back from.

So increasing CO₂ will lead to warming. As, indeed, it has and will.

 

[Furcifer]

What journal? None that I can see and the authors have no background in climate



http://stat.wharton.upenn.edu/~gadam/seminar_files/Abraham Wyner - Title and Abstract.pdf

Wharton School of Business. ...that paragon of climate science...

Nothing left for the deniers other than question numbers from the past as if it bears significance to the current state of the planetary energy budget.

Except we're talking about statistics, not climate science.

 

[Furcifer]

(in answer to lopeyschools's question)

Including any feedback, yes. Not even a negative total feedback (being the sum of negative and positive feedbacks) can cancel an effect because without the effect there's nothing to feed back from.

So increasing CO₂ will lead to warming. As, indeed, it has and will.

What we don't know is if feedback can lead to forcings. It's entirely possible the change in ocean currents could lead to increased volcanic activity or some other forcing.

Not likely I realize that, but not impossible as some people seem to be insisting.

 

[Furcifer]

Dominated???....hardly

Yes, without the negative feedback the Earth would be about 30 degrees warmer than it is.

 

[aleCcowaN]

It is apparently scheduled for publication in the next issue of the "Annals of Applied Statistics" - http://imstat.org/aoas/next_issue.html

I'm not sure that the application of obscurant and specific economic statistical methodology is appropriate to climate science studies, but will look forward to the contextual review of the paper by climate professionals and field specific statisticians as it is released for general review and comment in next month's publication. I am a bit curious as to why it was not released in one of the more prominent leading mathematics or economics journals (which would seem and adequate fit for its broad-reach, cross-field ambitions) but I guess this did give it more likelihood of limited-focus pre-acceptance peer-review?

It looks like you can't access any published article unless you are subscribed or willing to pay for it. But you can access for free the full text of submitted articles. So it'd look like a publication offering kind of a showcase to articles that are not -yet? never?- published.

I wonder if they are really to publish that article as it seems to fail to comply with some guidelines, like clearly identified datasets to let the reader reach his own conclusions. For instance, figure 8 is interesting as one can ask which combination of proxies they chose and why 1968 was the year selected -I know, I know, "last 30 years", but why the last year is 1998 and not 2009 or 2010? The question stands- What would happen if we take several groups of 10 or 12 proxies taken by 6 and predict 30 years from 1930 on? from 1979 on? Did they combined the six proxies shown in figure 6? Why those six and not others? Did they give to the tree rings in Montana the same weight they gave to the Monsoon in India? Why? Please somebody explain what I'm missing here. Who are the statisticians that are siding there with McIntyre / McKitrick? Where exactly they're taking side?

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

If you read the actual paper, they agree that the evidence is that the current temperatures are likely to be unprecedented, which was the whole point.

You mean like when they said "our model offers support to the conclusion that the 1990s were the warmest decade of the past millenium"?

 

[lomiller]

What I find difficult to understand is how you continue to make the most basic of errors.

Unfortunately for you I have studied system theory and know that positive and negative feedback are. You clearly have not. You may not like this but saying black is white and up is down will not make it so.

Without the negative feedbacks inherent in the climate this planet would be considerably hotter than it is.

what evidence do you have for this claim? Keep in mind the temperature of a planet without greenhouse gasses is approximately equal to it's black body temperature which is a known value, and is known to be some 33 Deg C cooler then the earth is right now.

 

[lomiller]

Yes, without the negative feedback the Earth would be about 30 degrees warmer than it is.

try again. The Earth is 33 deg above it's black body temperature

 

[aleCcowaN]

What we don't know is if feedback can lead to forcings. It's entirely possible the change in ocean currents could lead to increased volcanic activity or some other forcing.

Not likely I realize that, but not impossible as some people seem to be insisting.

Please, expand this notion. How come that "change in ocean currents could lead to increased volcanic activity"? Why couldn't change in ocean currents "lead to decreased volcanic activity or some other forcing"? How does one work? Why is the other one prevented? Which other forcings had you in mind and what would be the mechanism for each one? Otherwise your paragraph looks like one taken from a sci-fi movie script (Such "insistence" might pursue avoiding the movie script and focusing in science)

Yes, without the negative feedback the Earth would be about 30 degrees warmer than it is.

Which unit? °C or °F? Why "about 30" and not "about 40" or "about 23"? You are surely aware that sentences like "4,000 scientist had declared that there are 300 reasons for temperature not rising 20 degrees (Soxhlet-Henkel? of arc?)" can fool menial workers but bear in themselves the mark of fabulation.

 

[shadron]

Holy handwaving, "What negative feedbacks? These negative feedbacks? Nothing to see here!"

The climate is dominated by negative feedbacks, without them the planet would be much hotter than it is. MUCH. Radiative cooling, convection, increased biological activity and clouds to name a few.

Any physical system of any complexity has both negative and positive feedbacks. No one is denying there are negative feedbacks. The fact is, though, that there is no reason to expect any balance. Which ones are having more effect? Given the earth's history of rather dramatic lurches from hi to lo and back to hi (as it did 20,000 years ago, for example), I would give it a rough guess that in between the stops the positive ones rather overwhelm the negatives. That is the most common reason for large fluctuations. I know of no reason to suspect that the climate is dominated by negative feedback.

From an engineering point of view, the melting of clathrates and the gases trapped in the permafrost sound rather extreme. Several studies of the major extinction event 450 mya lead some to suspect just such a major methane warming event occurred, bringing on the third phase of the extinction, the one that killed most of the ocean fauna.

Small differences are crucial in these sorts of regimes. Sensitivity is high.

 

[shadron]

Adding a reference for the claim for clathrate melting being partially responsible for the End-Permian extinction event:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC123621/?tool=pmcentrez

PNAS: "Examination of hypotheses for the Permo-Triassic boundary extinction by carbon cycle modeling"

 

[Geckko]

What has happened is that the world has warmed pretty much in line with the way it was projected to thirty years ago - projections that were based on established science.

Or perhaps not:

http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/hansen88_v_obs.jpg?w=500&h=350

Edited by Tricky: 

Replaced hotlinked image with link.

The result suggests the old NASA GCM was considerably more sensitive to GHGs than is the real atmosphere since (a) the model was forced with lower GHG concentrations than actually occurred and (b) still gave a result that was significantly warmer than observations.

Utter nonsense. The models do not spiral out-of-control. They are physical models which closely mimic the actual behaviour of the climate, because they are based on the same physical principles and constants. Where you get this idea from escapes me. It's certainly not from reading the studies.

Not so. Climate models have not gone astray, they are following the actual path of development very well.

Maybe he got the idea from this peer reviewed paper:

http://rossmckitrick.weebly.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/mmh_asl2010.pdf

the model-predicted trends [in tropical troposphere temperatures] are two to four times larger than observed trends and the model-data discrepancy is statistically significant in both the LT and MT layers

 

[refamat]

I'm aware of realclimate.org, have read a few articles and what not over the last few months.

The response was of course tongue and cheek, a commentary on the nonsense that you can't have a meaningful discussion without hot links. Hoepfully this new thread will promote just such discussions.

I don't see how, short of turning to nuclear entirely, how we can reduce CO2 levels without sequestering and GE. Not only that, but if you believe the current models to be accurate, we need to reduce the effects of CO2 now.

so how would you turn off the erupting volcanos?

 

[Furcifer]

what evidence do you have for this claim? Keep in mind the temperature of a planet without greenhouse gasses is approximately equal to it's black body temperature which is a known value, and is known to be some 33 Deg C cooler then the earth is right now.

The Earth isn't a blackbody, it's a greybody. Anyhow, here's a good link to end this game of semantics started a few posts back:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/04/when-is-positive-feedback-really-negative-feedback/

Coincidentally it points out the goal post shifting I mentioned earlier. It's a nice happy medium I hope we can agree upon.

 

[Furcifer]

Please, expand this notion. How come that "change in ocean currents could lead to increased volcanic activity"? Why couldn't change in ocean currents "lead to decreased volcanic activity or some other forcing"? How does one work? Why is the other one prevented? Which other forcings had you in mind and what would be the mechanism for each one? Otherwise your paragraph looks like one taken from a sci-fi movie script (Such "insistence" might pursue avoiding the movie script and focusing in science)

It could lead to a decrease in volcanic activity. The point is there are a lot of unknowns that require further study. There's been a lot of resistance to my statement that the actual amount of warming is less than one would expect due to the massive amount of CO2 we've released over the last 100 years. A little reading however confirms this. Most recently I saw a Presidential memo from the 50's or 60's that warned by 2000 the general consensus was a 1m rise in ocean level and a 5(?) degree rise in average temperature. Sufficed to say the "scientific predictions" have constantly fell short of their mark over the years. These guys have been wearing me down however and the more I read the more concerned I am that they aren't too far off the mark as of late.

Which unit? °C or °F? Why "about 30" and not "about 40" or "about 23"? You are surely aware that sentences like "4,000 scientist had declared that there are 300 reasons for temperature not rising 20 degrees (Soxhlet-Henkel? of arc?)" can fool menial workers but bear in themselves the mark of fabulation.

Kelvin.

 

[Furcifer]

Any physical system of any complexity has both negative and positive feedbacks. No one is denying there are negative feedbacks. The fact is, though, that there is no reason to expect any balance. Which ones are having more effect? Given the earth's history of rather dramatic lurches from hi to lo and back to hi (as it did 20,000 years ago, for example), I would give it a rough guess that in between the stops the positive ones rather overwhelm the negatives. That is the most common reason for large fluctuations. I know of no reason to suspect that the climate is dominated by negative feedback.

From an engineering point of view, the melting of clathrates and the gases trapped in the permafrost sound rather extreme. Several studies of the major extinction event 450 mya lead some to suspect just such a major methane warming event occurred, bringing on the third phase of the extinction, the one that killed most of the ocean fauna.

Small differences are crucial in these sorts of regimes. Sensitivity is high.

I agree.