By way of introduction I will repost a piece from my blog www.climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
"30 Year Climate Forecast -- 2 Year Update. (posted on 7/19/2012)
The original Forecast was posted on 6/18/2010. Two more years of Termperature, Ocean Current patterns, and Solar, and "weather" data have considerably confirmed and strengthened the original forecast.
In brief - NOAA - HCN - SSTs show that warming peaked in 2003 and there has now been no net warming since 1997 - 15 years with no net warming and CO2 up 8.2%. Since 2003 the global temperature trend is slightly negative. The PDO remains in its negative phase while the solar magnetic field strength continues an inexorable decline ,which is looking more and more likely to be a precursor of a Maunder type minimum. Sunspot data and the relatively high GCR count for this stage in solar cycle 24 confirm the secular change in solar activity relative to the previous century.
Meanwhile the weather patterns - particularly in the US and Europe - have been as forecast in the earlier post. I repost some relevant parts below with some of successful predictions in bold.
". A cooler world with lower SSTs usually means a dryer world. Thus droughts will be more likely in for example east Africa with possible monsoon failures in India. In California the PDO will mean less rainfall with more forest fires in the south. However in the Cascades and Northern Sierras snowpack could increase since more of the rain could occur as snow. Northern Hemisphere growing seasons will be shorter with occasional early and late frosts and drought in the US corn belt and in Asia repeats of the harsh Mongolian and Chinese winters of 2009 – 10 . In Europe cold snowy winters and cool cloudy summers will be more frequent .
There will be a steeper temperature gradient from the tropics to the poles so that violent thunderstorms with associated flooding and tornadoes will be more frequent in the USA, At the same time the jet stream will swing more sharply North – South thus local weather in the Northern hemisphere in particular will be generally more variable with occasional more northerly heat waves and more southerly unusually cold snaps. In the USA hurricanes may strike the east coast with greater frequency in summer and storm related blizzards more common in winter."
The general conclusions of the original post are confirmed"
Hurricane Sandy is a precursor of extreme events which will become more frequent as the empirically observed cooling trend accelerates from 2014 on as solar cycle 24 winds down.It is now very clear that the generally more meridional path of the Jet Stream on a cooling planet with the associated development of blocking highs with steep temperature and pressure gradients between the air masses is a recipe for such extreme events.The obvious climate signal is the development of heavy snows and blizzards on the west side of this storm.
By contrast a warming world would have a less steep temperature gradient between the tropics and the poles with a more latitudinal Jet Stream path and a more equable climate.
Another sign of cooling is an increase in La Nina as opposed to El Nino events,.It is not perhaps merely coincidental that Sandy developed just as an El Nino event much anticipated by the AGW faithful failed to appear. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology said on 10/29/12;
"The retreat from El Niño thresholds over the past several weeks is considered highly unusual, as September–October is typically the time when developing El Niño (or La Niña) events consolidate and mature."
Another straw in the climate wind is the recent record extent of Antarctic sea ice. It may well be that this is one of the first signs of a major change in the climate regime as discussed recently for example by Elderfield et al http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6095/704.abstract
The general relationships between climate and earth - solar orbital relationships and solar activity are becomong increasingly clear.The relation betwen Ice Ages and earths eccenticity, obliquity and precession are well documented while the lunar declination cycle is well represented in the earths temperature power spectrum.These orbital cycles are modulated by solar decadal,centennial and millenial cycles mainly , but not entirely,through changes in the solar magnetic field strength and its effects on the GCR flux and the effect of the latter on clouds and aerosols and earths albedo.The late 20th century warming can be easily accounted for by the increase in sunshine reaching the earth's surface as shown by Wang et al.
Atmospheric impacts on climatic variability of surface incident solar radiation
K. Wang1, R. E. Dickinson2, M. Wild3, and S. Liang4
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/12/14009/2012/acpd-12-14009-2012-print.pdf
It is now clear that anthropogenic CO2 can play only a minor role in climate change and policies to control CO2 emissions are completely irrelevant or indeed counterproductive. Hurricane Sandy does however show what may be in store and that we should consider carefully what steps need to be taken to adapt our infrastructure to more frequent extreme events and world food production to the likelihood of more general cold and drought with intermittent floods and shorter growing seasons with unseasonable frosts.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Post to Frontline 10/23/12
The slant of the program was to show that the decline in the public's concern about climate change was largely due to organised political activy paid for by various right wing pressure groups.This effort could not have succeded had the world warmed as predicted by the IPCC and the ecoleft environmentalists. The real earth has been in a cooling phase since about 2003.
Because of the Urban Heat Island effect and the thermal inertia of the oceans Sea Surface Temperatures are the best measure of global trends. These show that the global warming trend ended in about 2003. There has been no net warming since 1997 since when CO2 has risen 8.5% with no global temperature increase. Since 2003 the trend is negative. The current decline in the solar magnetic field strength is so marked as to suggest a possible coming Maunder Minimum (Little Ice Age) and the phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation suggests a likely 20 - 30 year cooling phase. For the next 30 years or so cooling is more likely than warming .Beyond that we know too little to make any actionable predictions.A colder dryer earth would,however be much more harmful to world food production than a warmer wetter one.
Any journalist or TV producer interested in the facts should have done due diligence because all the basic data is easily available on the web. Instead you rely on presenting the opinion of advocates of the competing viewpoints but continually kept emphasising the statistically ridiculous notion of a 97% consensus for AGW.
Clearly Frontline did no due diligence on this nonsense.
Lawrence Solomon said:
"This number will prove a new embarrassment to the pundits and press who use it. The number stems from a 2008 master’s thesis by student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at the University of Illinois, under the guidance of Peter Doran, an associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences. The two researchers obtained their results by conducting a survey of 10,257 Earth scientists. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers — in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout."
for a full discussion see http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/01/03/lawrence-solomon-97-cooked-stats/
There is a real need for a reputable news organisation - Frontline? to undertake a truly objective analysis of the current state of what we know about climate science - based on the empirical data and not on the political propaganda productions of the IPCC
Because of the Urban Heat Island effect and the thermal inertia of the oceans Sea Surface Temperatures are the best measure of global trends. These show that the global warming trend ended in about 2003. There has been no net warming since 1997 since when CO2 has risen 8.5% with no global temperature increase. Since 2003 the trend is negative. The current decline in the solar magnetic field strength is so marked as to suggest a possible coming Maunder Minimum (Little Ice Age) and the phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation suggests a likely 20 - 30 year cooling phase. For the next 30 years or so cooling is more likely than warming .Beyond that we know too little to make any actionable predictions.A colder dryer earth would,however be much more harmful to world food production than a warmer wetter one.
Any journalist or TV producer interested in the facts should have done due diligence because all the basic data is easily available on the web. Instead you rely on presenting the opinion of advocates of the competing viewpoints but continually kept emphasising the statistically ridiculous notion of a 97% consensus for AGW.
Clearly Frontline did no due diligence on this nonsense.
Lawrence Solomon said:
"This number will prove a new embarrassment to the pundits and press who use it. The number stems from a 2008 master’s thesis by student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at the University of Illinois, under the guidance of Peter Doran, an associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences. The two researchers obtained their results by conducting a survey of 10,257 Earth scientists. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers — in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout."
for a full discussion see http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/01/03/lawrence-solomon-97-cooked-stats/
There is a real need for a reputable news organisation - Frontline? to undertake a truly objective analysis of the current state of what we know about climate science - based on the empirical data and not on the political propaganda productions of the IPCC
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Post on Economist 10/18/12
The entire anthropogenic global warming meme is a mass delusion foisted on a scientifically illiterate British and Western public by a grant ,position and honour seeking sycophantic scientific establishment and by ecoleft politicians ( including Cameron ) to reward their rent seeking campaign contributors and wind farm land owning friends.
Because of the Urban Heat Island effect and the thermal inertia of the oceans Sea Surface Temperatures are the best measure of global trends. These show that the global warming trend ended in about 2003. There has been no net warming since 1997 since when CO2 has risen 8.5% with no global temperature increase. Since 2003 the trend is negative. The current decline in the solar magnetic field strength is so marked as to suggest a possible coming Maunder Minimum (Little Ice Age) and the phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation suggests a likely 20 - 30 year cooling phase. For the next 30 years or so cooling is more likely than warming.A colder dryer earth would be much more harmful to world food production than a warmer wetter one.
In light of the real world climate situation Britain and Europe's climate and energy policies can only be described as lunatic or criminal - probably both
Because of the Urban Heat Island effect and the thermal inertia of the oceans Sea Surface Temperatures are the best measure of global trends. These show that the global warming trend ended in about 2003. There has been no net warming since 1997 since when CO2 has risen 8.5% with no global temperature increase. Since 2003 the trend is negative. The current decline in the solar magnetic field strength is so marked as to suggest a possible coming Maunder Minimum (Little Ice Age) and the phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation suggests a likely 20 - 30 year cooling phase. For the next 30 years or so cooling is more likely than warming.A colder dryer earth would be much more harmful to world food production than a warmer wetter one.
In light of the real world climate situation Britain and Europe's climate and energy policies can only be described as lunatic or criminal - probably both
Monday, August 13, 2012
Post on Dot Earth 8/13/12
There has been no net warming since1997 with CO2 up 8.5 %. The earth has been in a cooling trend since warming peaked in 2003.The IPCC in their SREX report recognised that they could no longer scaremonger on the basis of the trend and so in that report and in the forthcoming AR5 they have chosen to concentrate on "extreme" events to promote their scaremongering anti CO2 policy propaganda..Droughts are generally more common on a cooler and dryer not on a more humid wetter earth and in N America with the current cooling phase of the PDO droughts are likely to be more common for the next 20 - 30 years.On a cooling earth with the jet stream swinging more meridionally, climate is much more variable with blocking highs bringing extremes of cold and heat.
The core alarmists Hansen, Mann, McKibben and Romm and their female acolytes are simply following the IPCC script with their ever more hysterical predictions of future extreme disasters as the current earth obstinately refuses to warm up. Andy I detect that you are not entirely comfortable with these wild speculations - but cant quite bring yourself to admit that cooling is more likely than warming in the next 30 years.
The core alarmists Hansen, Mann, McKibben and Romm and their female acolytes are simply following the IPCC script with their ever more hysterical predictions of future extreme disasters as the current earth obstinately refuses to warm up. Andy I detect that you are not entirely comfortable with these wild speculations - but cant quite bring yourself to admit that cooling is more likely than warming in the next 30 years.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
30 Year Climate Forecast -- 2 Year Update.
The original Forecast was posted on 6/18/2010. Two more years of Termperature, Ocean Current patterns, and Solar, and "weather" data have considerably confirmed and strengthened the original forecast.
In brief - NOAA - HCN - SSTs show that warming peaked in 2003 and there has now been no net warming since 1997 - 15 years with no net warming and CO2 up 8.2%. Since 2003 the global temperature trend is slightly negative. The PDO remains in its negative phase while the solar magnetic field strength continues an inexorable decline ,which is looking more and more likely to be a precursor of a Maunder type minimum. Sunspot data and the relatively high GCR count for this stage in solar cycle 24 confirm the secular change in solar activity relative to the previous century.
Meanwhile the weather patterns - particularly in the US and Europe - have been as forecast in the earlier post. I repost some relevant parts below with some of successful predictions in bold.
". A cooler world with lower SSTs usually means a dryer world. Thus droughts will be more likely in for example east Africa with possible monsoon failures in India. In California the PDO will mean less rainfall with more forest fires in the south. However in the Cascades and Northern Sierras snowpack could increase since more of the rain could occur as snow. Northern Hemisphere growing seasons will be shorter with occasional early and late frosts and drought in the US corn belt and in Asia repeats of the harsh Mongolian and Chinese winters of 2009 – 10 . In Europe cold snowy winters and cool cloudy summers will be more frequent .
There will be a steeper temperature gradient from the tropics to the poles so that violent thunderstorms with associated flooding and tornadoes will be more frequent in the USA, At the same time the jet stream will swing more sharply North – South thus local weather in the Northern hemisphere in particular will be generally more variable with occasional more northerly heat waves and more southerly unusually cold snaps. In the USA hurricanes may strike the east coast with greater frequency in summer and storm related blizzards more common in winter."
The general conclusions of the original post are confirmed
"The most general advice is that world food production will be subject to occasional serious severe restriction because of cold and drought. The use of food crops for biofuels should be abandoned and stockpiles built up for possible lean times ahead.. Northern cities and transportation systems should prepare for more frequent heavy snow and ice storms.
There is no threat from the burning of fossil fuels for the forseeable future, indeed an increase in CO2 would positively help in feeding the burgeoning population."
All the recent empirical data - especially the negative phase of the PDO and the continued decline in the Solar magnetic field strength now ( July 2012) suggest that once solar cycle 24 starts its decline in 2014-15 we will see an acceleration of the current slight cooling trend and that this trend might well last for 25 -30 years. Beyond then we do not know enough at this time to make useful predictions.
In brief - NOAA - HCN - SSTs show that warming peaked in 2003 and there has now been no net warming since 1997 - 15 years with no net warming and CO2 up 8.2%. Since 2003 the global temperature trend is slightly negative. The PDO remains in its negative phase while the solar magnetic field strength continues an inexorable decline ,which is looking more and more likely to be a precursor of a Maunder type minimum. Sunspot data and the relatively high GCR count for this stage in solar cycle 24 confirm the secular change in solar activity relative to the previous century.
Meanwhile the weather patterns - particularly in the US and Europe - have been as forecast in the earlier post. I repost some relevant parts below with some of successful predictions in bold.
". A cooler world with lower SSTs usually means a dryer world. Thus droughts will be more likely in for example east Africa with possible monsoon failures in India. In California the PDO will mean less rainfall with more forest fires in the south. However in the Cascades and Northern Sierras snowpack could increase since more of the rain could occur as snow. Northern Hemisphere growing seasons will be shorter with occasional early and late frosts and drought in the US corn belt and in Asia repeats of the harsh Mongolian and Chinese winters of 2009 – 10 . In Europe cold snowy winters and cool cloudy summers will be more frequent .
There will be a steeper temperature gradient from the tropics to the poles so that violent thunderstorms with associated flooding and tornadoes will be more frequent in the USA, At the same time the jet stream will swing more sharply North – South thus local weather in the Northern hemisphere in particular will be generally more variable with occasional more northerly heat waves and more southerly unusually cold snaps. In the USA hurricanes may strike the east coast with greater frequency in summer and storm related blizzards more common in winter."
The general conclusions of the original post are confirmed
"The most general advice is that world food production will be subject to occasional serious severe restriction because of cold and drought. The use of food crops for biofuels should be abandoned and stockpiles built up for possible lean times ahead.. Northern cities and transportation systems should prepare for more frequent heavy snow and ice storms.
There is no threat from the burning of fossil fuels for the forseeable future, indeed an increase in CO2 would positively help in feeding the burgeoning population."
All the recent empirical data - especially the negative phase of the PDO and the continued decline in the Solar magnetic field strength now ( July 2012) suggest that once solar cycle 24 starts its decline in 2014-15 we will see an acceleration of the current slight cooling trend and that this trend might well last for 25 -30 years. Beyond then we do not know enough at this time to make useful predictions.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Letter to London Review of Books - Climate Change
Most of the Western Political and chattering eco-left classes have enthusiastically adopted the new anti-capitalist religious belief in AGW as a useful tool by which they can try to assert a claim to control the world economy while feeling conveniently self righteous.They,like Gardner,are only too happy to frame the discussion in ethical and moral terms.They eagerly claim that the science is settled to avoid dealing with the actual data. Bull , in order for his recent article to have any relevance ,opens with the main beliefs in the warmist creed. One ,that it is currently getting warmer, two, that humans are causing it and three, that by controlling GHG emissions we can do something useful about it. All of these beliefs are patently false.
The Hadley Sea Surface Temperature Data is the best measure of Global Trends.The 5 year moving SST temperature average shows that the warming trend peaked in 2003 and a simple regression analysis shows an nine year global SST cooling trend since then .The data shows warming from 1900 – 1940 ,cooling from 1940 to about 1975 and warming from 1975 – 2003. CO2 levels rose monotonically during this entire period.Since 1997 – CO2 is up 7.9% with no net warming. Anthropogenic CO2 has some effect but our knowledge of the natural drivers is still so poor that we cannot accurately estimate what the anthropogenic CO2 contribution is. Nine years is obviously a short term on which to base predictions but all statistical analyses of particular time series must be interpreted in conjunction with other ongoing events and in the context of declining solar magnetic field strength and activity – to the extent of a possible Dalton or Maunder minimum and the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation a global 20 – 30 year cooling spell is more likely than a warming trend. Beyond that we supply do not know enough to make any actionable predictions.Today anyone can check these statements not by reference to an imaginary and irrelevant consensus or authority but by checking the basic data via Google on line.
The 2007 IPCC AR4 Summary for Policy Makers is the current basis for the alarmist predictions of disaster but this Summary is inconsistent with the AR4 WG1 Science section. It should be noted that the Summary was published before the WG1 report and the editors of the Summary , incredibly ,asked the authors of the Science report to make their reports conform to the Summary rather than the other way around. When this was not done the Science section was simply ignored.Most of the predicted disasters are based on climate models.Even the modelers themselves say that they do not make predictions . The models produce projections or scenarios which are no more accurate than the assumptions,algorithms and data , often of poor quality,which were put into them. In reality they are no more than expensive drafting tools to produce power point slides to illustrate the ideas and prejudices of their creators. The IPCC science section AR4 WG1 section 8.6.4 deals with the reliability of the climate models .This IPCC science section on models itself concludes:
“Moreover it is not yet clear which tests are critical for constraining the future projections,consequently a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate sensitivity has yet to be developed”
What could be clearer. The IPCC itself says that we don’t even know what metrics to put into the models to test their reliability.- i.e. we don’t know what future temperatures will be and we can’t yet calculate the climate sensitivity to anthropogenic CO2.This also begs a further question of what mere assumptions went into the “plausible” models to be tested anyway. Nevertheless this statement was ignored by the editors who produced the Summary. Here predictions of disaster were illegitimately given “with high confidence.” in complete contradiction to several sections of the WG1 science section where uncertainties and error bars were discussed.
In order to predict the disaster required by the policymakers the modelers had to assume a positive feed back to increasing CO2 from increased humidity and cloud cover changes. Measured feed backs are actually negative and indeed must logically be negative otherwise the oceans would have boiled away long ago.
What we have had is a perfect storm of first the misuse and misrepresentation of the data and the scientific method to support the IPCC's political agenda and a rush to the public trough by establishment scientists , second Corporate rent seeking by e.g. Al Gore ,GE ,Goldman Sachs ,Microsoft ,Solar Power companies,and Wind Turbine manufactures and third the enthusiastic adoption of the AGW paradigm by the Politicians who see it as the perfect means to assuage their Messiah complexes and save the world by gathering power to themselves through using fear and then reward their campaign contributing corporate friends and the landowning classes via solar and wind subsidies.
The climate and energy policies of Europe the UK and the USA are economically suicidal and in fact immoral.They raise food prices world wide and would keep billions in poverty by raising energy prices thus slowing the economic and social emancipation of women and thereby worsening the population problem
The Hadley Sea Surface Temperature Data is the best measure of Global Trends.The 5 year moving SST temperature average shows that the warming trend peaked in 2003 and a simple regression analysis shows an nine year global SST cooling trend since then .The data shows warming from 1900 – 1940 ,cooling from 1940 to about 1975 and warming from 1975 – 2003. CO2 levels rose monotonically during this entire period.Since 1997 – CO2 is up 7.9% with no net warming. Anthropogenic CO2 has some effect but our knowledge of the natural drivers is still so poor that we cannot accurately estimate what the anthropogenic CO2 contribution is. Nine years is obviously a short term on which to base predictions but all statistical analyses of particular time series must be interpreted in conjunction with other ongoing events and in the context of declining solar magnetic field strength and activity – to the extent of a possible Dalton or Maunder minimum and the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation a global 20 – 30 year cooling spell is more likely than a warming trend. Beyond that we supply do not know enough to make any actionable predictions.Today anyone can check these statements not by reference to an imaginary and irrelevant consensus or authority but by checking the basic data via Google on line.
The 2007 IPCC AR4 Summary for Policy Makers is the current basis for the alarmist predictions of disaster but this Summary is inconsistent with the AR4 WG1 Science section. It should be noted that the Summary was published before the WG1 report and the editors of the Summary , incredibly ,asked the authors of the Science report to make their reports conform to the Summary rather than the other way around. When this was not done the Science section was simply ignored.Most of the predicted disasters are based on climate models.Even the modelers themselves say that they do not make predictions . The models produce projections or scenarios which are no more accurate than the assumptions,algorithms and data , often of poor quality,which were put into them. In reality they are no more than expensive drafting tools to produce power point slides to illustrate the ideas and prejudices of their creators. The IPCC science section AR4 WG1 section 8.6.4 deals with the reliability of the climate models .This IPCC science section on models itself concludes:
“Moreover it is not yet clear which tests are critical for constraining the future projections,consequently a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate sensitivity has yet to be developed”
What could be clearer. The IPCC itself says that we don’t even know what metrics to put into the models to test their reliability.- i.e. we don’t know what future temperatures will be and we can’t yet calculate the climate sensitivity to anthropogenic CO2.This also begs a further question of what mere assumptions went into the “plausible” models to be tested anyway. Nevertheless this statement was ignored by the editors who produced the Summary. Here predictions of disaster were illegitimately given “with high confidence.” in complete contradiction to several sections of the WG1 science section where uncertainties and error bars were discussed.
In order to predict the disaster required by the policymakers the modelers had to assume a positive feed back to increasing CO2 from increased humidity and cloud cover changes. Measured feed backs are actually negative and indeed must logically be negative otherwise the oceans would have boiled away long ago.
What we have had is a perfect storm of first the misuse and misrepresentation of the data and the scientific method to support the IPCC's political agenda and a rush to the public trough by establishment scientists , second Corporate rent seeking by e.g. Al Gore ,GE ,Goldman Sachs ,Microsoft ,Solar Power companies,and Wind Turbine manufactures and third the enthusiastic adoption of the AGW paradigm by the Politicians who see it as the perfect means to assuage their Messiah complexes and save the world by gathering power to themselves through using fear and then reward their campaign contributing corporate friends and the landowning classes via solar and wind subsidies.
The climate and energy policies of Europe the UK and the USA are economically suicidal and in fact immoral.They raise food prices world wide and would keep billions in poverty by raising energy prices thus slowing the economic and social emancipation of women and thereby worsening the population problem
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Comment in Response to Rodbell on Concordiensis
Dr Norman Page March 7, 2012 at 11:54 pm Permalink
As an Earth scientist I am appalled by the whole tone of this piece. You say “Frankly, the sentiment vacillated between utter disgust and sheer anger. ” You sound like a bunch of priests being appalled at hearing heresy which questions your received truth. In the piece there is nothing but unsubstantiated assertions and appeals to authority not one reference to data of any sort. That you think of yourselves as scientists shows the extent of your self delusion.There is currently a difference in approach to climate science between the sceptical Baconian – empirical appraoch solidly based on data and the Platonic IPCC approach – based on theoretical assumptions built into climate models.The question arises from the recent Muller – BEST furore -What is the best metric for a global measure of and for discussion of global warming or cooling. For some years I have suggested in various web comments and on my blog that the Hadley Sea Surface Temperature data is the best metric for the following reasons . (Anyone can check this data for themselves – Google Hadley Cru — scroll down to SST GL and check the annual numbers.)1. Oceans cover about 70% of the surface.2. Because of the thermal inertia of water – short term noise is smoothed out.3. All the questions re UHI, changes in land use local topographic effects etc are simply sidestepped.4. Perhaps most importantly – what we really need to measure is the enthalpy of the system – the land measurements do not capture this aspect because the relative humidity at the time of temperature measurement is ignored. In water the temperature changes are a good measure of relative enthalpy changes.5. It is very clear that the most direct means to short term and decadal length predictions is through the study of the interactions of the atmospheric sytems ,ocean currents and temperature regimes – PDO ,ENSO. SOI AMO AO etc etc. and the SST is a major measure of these systems.Certainly the SST data has its own problems but these are much less than those of the land data.
What does the SST data show? The 5 year moving SST temperature average shows that the warming trend peaked in 2003 and a simple regression analysis shows an eight year global SST cooling trend since then .The data shows warming from 1900 – 1940 ,cooling from 1940 to about 1975 and warming from 1975 – 2003. CO2 levels rose monotonically during this entire period.There has been no net warming since 1997 – 15 years with CO2 up 7.9% and no net warming. Anthropogenic CO2 has some effect but our knowledge of the natural drivers is still so poor that we cannot accurately estimate what the anthropogenic CO2 contribution is. Since 2003 CO2 has risen further and yet the global temperature trend is negative. This is obviously a short term on which to base predictions but all statistical analyses of particular time series must be interpreted in conjunction with other ongoing events and in the context of declining solar magnetic field strength and activity – to the extent of a possible Dalton or Maunder minimum and the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal a global 20 – 30 year cooling spell is more likely than a warming trend.
It is clear that the IPCC models , on which AL Gore based his entire anti CO2 scare campaign ,have been wrongly framed. and their predictions have failed completely.This paradigm was never well founded ,but ,in recent years, the entire basis for the Climate and Temperature trends and predictions of dangerous warming in the 2007 IPCC Ar4 Summary for Policy Makers has been destroyed. First – this Summary is inconsistent with the AR4 WG1 Science section. It should be noted that the Summary was published before the WG1 report and the editors of the Summary , incredibly ,asked the authors of the Science report to make their reports conform to the Summary rather than the other way around. When this was not done the Science section was simply ignored..I give one egregious example – there are many others.Most of the predicted disasters are based on climate models.Even the Modelers themselves say that they do not make predictions . The models produce projections or scenarios which are no more accurate than the assumptions,algorithms and data , often of poor quality,which were put into them. In reality they are no more than expensive drafting tools to produce power point slides to illustrate the ideas and prejudices of their creators. The IPCC science section AR4 WG1 section 8.6.4 deals with the reliability of the climate models .This IPCC science section on models itself concludes:
“Moreover it is not yet clear which tests are critical for constraining the future projections,consequently a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate sensitivity has yet to be developed”
What could be clearer. The IPCC itself says that we don’t even know what metrics to put into the models to test their reliability.- i.e. we don’t know what future temperatures will be and we can’t yet calculate the climate sensitivity to anthropogenic CO2.This also begs a further question of what mere assumptions went into the “plausible” models to be tested anyway. Nevertheless this statement was ignored by the editors who produced the Summary. Here predictions of disaster were illegitimately given “with high confidence.” in complete contradiction to several sections of the WG1 science section where uncertainties and error bars were discussed.
A key part of the AGW paradigm is that recent warming is unprecedented and can only be explained by anthropogenic CO2. This is the basic message of the iconic “hockey stick ” However hundreds of published papers show that the Medieval warming period and the Roman climatic optimum were warmer than the present. The infamous “hide the decline ” quote from the Climategate Emails is so important. not so much because of its effect on one graph but because it shows that the entire basis if dendrothermometry is highly suspect. A complete referenced discussion of the issues involved can be found in “The Hockey Stick Illusion – Climategate and the Corruption of science ” by AW Montford.
Temperature reconstructions based on tree ring proxies are a total waste of time and money and cannot be relied on.There is no evident empirical correlation between CO2 levels and temperature, In all cases CO2 changes follow temperature changes not vice versa.It has always been clear that the sun is the main climate driver. One new paper ” Empirical Evidence for a Celestial origin of the Climate Oscillations and its implications “by Scafetta from Duke University casts new light on this. http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/scafetta-JSTP2.pdf Humidity, and natural CO2 levels are solar feedback effects not prime drivers. Recent experiments at CERN have shown the possible powerful influence of cosmic rays on clouds and climate.Solar Cycle 24 will peak in a year or two thus masking the cooling to some extent, but from 2014 on, the cooling trend will become so obvious that the IPCC will be unable to continue ignoring the real world – even now Hansen and Trenberth are desperately seeking ad hoc or epicycle type fixes to locate the missing heat.You might want to open your closed minds by checkinghttp://impactofcc.blogspot.com/2012/02/richard-s-lindzen-reconsidering-climate.htmlor http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/unified_theory_of_climate_poster_nikolov_zeller.pdfIn my first term as an undergrad at Oxford the value of geologists holding multiple working hypotheses was impressed upon me – y’all would do well to keep that thought in mind
As an Earth scientist I am appalled by the whole tone of this piece. You say “Frankly, the sentiment vacillated between utter disgust and sheer anger. ” You sound like a bunch of priests being appalled at hearing heresy which questions your received truth. In the piece there is nothing but unsubstantiated assertions and appeals to authority not one reference to data of any sort. That you think of yourselves as scientists shows the extent of your self delusion.There is currently a difference in approach to climate science between the sceptical Baconian – empirical appraoch solidly based on data and the Platonic IPCC approach – based on theoretical assumptions built into climate models.The question arises from the recent Muller – BEST furore -What is the best metric for a global measure of and for discussion of global warming or cooling. For some years I have suggested in various web comments and on my blog that the Hadley Sea Surface Temperature data is the best metric for the following reasons . (Anyone can check this data for themselves – Google Hadley Cru — scroll down to SST GL and check the annual numbers.)1. Oceans cover about 70% of the surface.2. Because of the thermal inertia of water – short term noise is smoothed out.3. All the questions re UHI, changes in land use local topographic effects etc are simply sidestepped.4. Perhaps most importantly – what we really need to measure is the enthalpy of the system – the land measurements do not capture this aspect because the relative humidity at the time of temperature measurement is ignored. In water the temperature changes are a good measure of relative enthalpy changes.5. It is very clear that the most direct means to short term and decadal length predictions is through the study of the interactions of the atmospheric sytems ,ocean currents and temperature regimes – PDO ,ENSO. SOI AMO AO etc etc. and the SST is a major measure of these systems.Certainly the SST data has its own problems but these are much less than those of the land data.
What does the SST data show? The 5 year moving SST temperature average shows that the warming trend peaked in 2003 and a simple regression analysis shows an eight year global SST cooling trend since then .The data shows warming from 1900 – 1940 ,cooling from 1940 to about 1975 and warming from 1975 – 2003. CO2 levels rose monotonically during this entire period.There has been no net warming since 1997 – 15 years with CO2 up 7.9% and no net warming. Anthropogenic CO2 has some effect but our knowledge of the natural drivers is still so poor that we cannot accurately estimate what the anthropogenic CO2 contribution is. Since 2003 CO2 has risen further and yet the global temperature trend is negative. This is obviously a short term on which to base predictions but all statistical analyses of particular time series must be interpreted in conjunction with other ongoing events and in the context of declining solar magnetic field strength and activity – to the extent of a possible Dalton or Maunder minimum and the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal a global 20 – 30 year cooling spell is more likely than a warming trend.
It is clear that the IPCC models , on which AL Gore based his entire anti CO2 scare campaign ,have been wrongly framed. and their predictions have failed completely.This paradigm was never well founded ,but ,in recent years, the entire basis for the Climate and Temperature trends and predictions of dangerous warming in the 2007 IPCC Ar4 Summary for Policy Makers has been destroyed. First – this Summary is inconsistent with the AR4 WG1 Science section. It should be noted that the Summary was published before the WG1 report and the editors of the Summary , incredibly ,asked the authors of the Science report to make their reports conform to the Summary rather than the other way around. When this was not done the Science section was simply ignored..I give one egregious example – there are many others.Most of the predicted disasters are based on climate models.Even the Modelers themselves say that they do not make predictions . The models produce projections or scenarios which are no more accurate than the assumptions,algorithms and data , often of poor quality,which were put into them. In reality they are no more than expensive drafting tools to produce power point slides to illustrate the ideas and prejudices of their creators. The IPCC science section AR4 WG1 section 8.6.4 deals with the reliability of the climate models .This IPCC science section on models itself concludes:
“Moreover it is not yet clear which tests are critical for constraining the future projections,consequently a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate sensitivity has yet to be developed”
What could be clearer. The IPCC itself says that we don’t even know what metrics to put into the models to test their reliability.- i.e. we don’t know what future temperatures will be and we can’t yet calculate the climate sensitivity to anthropogenic CO2.This also begs a further question of what mere assumptions went into the “plausible” models to be tested anyway. Nevertheless this statement was ignored by the editors who produced the Summary. Here predictions of disaster were illegitimately given “with high confidence.” in complete contradiction to several sections of the WG1 science section where uncertainties and error bars were discussed.
A key part of the AGW paradigm is that recent warming is unprecedented and can only be explained by anthropogenic CO2. This is the basic message of the iconic “hockey stick ” However hundreds of published papers show that the Medieval warming period and the Roman climatic optimum were warmer than the present. The infamous “hide the decline ” quote from the Climategate Emails is so important. not so much because of its effect on one graph but because it shows that the entire basis if dendrothermometry is highly suspect. A complete referenced discussion of the issues involved can be found in “The Hockey Stick Illusion – Climategate and the Corruption of science ” by AW Montford.
Temperature reconstructions based on tree ring proxies are a total waste of time and money and cannot be relied on.There is no evident empirical correlation between CO2 levels and temperature, In all cases CO2 changes follow temperature changes not vice versa.It has always been clear that the sun is the main climate driver. One new paper ” Empirical Evidence for a Celestial origin of the Climate Oscillations and its implications “by Scafetta from Duke University casts new light on this. http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/scafetta-JSTP2.pdf Humidity, and natural CO2 levels are solar feedback effects not prime drivers. Recent experiments at CERN have shown the possible powerful influence of cosmic rays on clouds and climate.Solar Cycle 24 will peak in a year or two thus masking the cooling to some extent, but from 2014 on, the cooling trend will become so obvious that the IPCC will be unable to continue ignoring the real world – even now Hansen and Trenberth are desperately seeking ad hoc or epicycle type fixes to locate the missing heat.You might want to open your closed minds by checkinghttp://impactofcc.blogspot.com/2012/02/richard-s-lindzen-reconsidering-climate.htmlor http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/unified_theory_of_climate_poster_nikolov_zeller.pdfIn my first term as an undergrad at Oxford the value of geologists holding multiple working hypotheses was impressed upon me – y’all would do well to keep that thought in mind
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Comment on Dot Earth 1/4/12
Andy - At various times over the last year you have appeared to consider climate science more objectively - yet here you go again with the notion of a "fundamental Republican science problem " . The Hadley Sea Surface Temperature data is the best metric for climate change . The 5 year moving SST temperature average shows that the warming trend peaked in 2003 and a simple regression analysis shows a nine year global SST cooling trend since then ..The data shows warming from 1900 – 1940 ,cooling from 1940 to about 1975 and warming from 1975 – 2003. CO2 levels rose monotonically during this entire period.There has been no net warming since 1997 – 14 years with CO2 up 7.9% and no net warming. Anthropogenic CO2 has some effect but our knowledge of the natural drivers is still so poor that we cannot accurately estimate what the anthropogenic CO2 contribution is. Since 2003 CO2 has risen further and yet the global temperature trend is negative. This is obviously a short term on which to base predictions but all statistical analyses of particular time series must be interpreted in conjunction with other ongoing events and in the context of declining solar magnetic field strength and activity – to the extent of a possible Dalton or Maunder minimum and the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal a global 20 – 30 year cooling spell is more likely than a warming trend. Please see http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/Scafetta_models_comparison_ATP.pdf IPCC models are junk science.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Comment on Tom Nelson post re Read Me Harry file 12/1/11
Here is part of an article written in 2000 by the Tim M(itchell)who wrote some of the CRU data base programs Harry refers to in the famous Harry Readme email
"Climate change and the ChristianIs global warming the end of the world or media scare-mongering?Global warming is often seen as either the end of the world as we know it, or as mere media scare-mongering. Which is right?Could it be that I, a respectable Christian, am partly to blame? Might I need to change the way I live? Before we search for climate changes, we ought first to understand what it is that might be changing.The climate system is made up of the earth's atmosphere, oceans, ice, vegetation, and streams. It is both beautiful and complex. Humans have a mandate to forecast its behaviour and use it (Genesis 1:28). However, we feel in awe of its destructive potential, seen in such things as hurricanes and floods, which are part of the curse inflicted upon the earth following the Fall (Genesis 3.17). Moreover, control and certainty belong to God alone (Job 38-41). So there is a possibility that our actions may affect the climate system in unexpected ways. It was claimed in the 1970s that the earth might be about to enter an ice age. The evidence for this was minimal, but the decades of painstaking research that have followed the 1970s have unveiled both the natural variability in the climate system, and the dramatic effects of human actions.To assemble a record of global climate changes over the last 150 years we use instrumental records, such as rain gauges and thermometers. Since it is only recently that such instruments have been widely used, to reconstruct climate changes prior to the 19th century we are compelled to use indirect sources of information, such as tree ring widths and ice core layers.Using this mixture of data, we have assembled global temperature records for the last millennium. There is much natural variability throughout the records, but there is also a 20th-century rise in global temperature that is unprecedented in its magnitude and rate of change. Is it merely a coincidence that this global warming has come at the same time as the huge expansion in human population and industrialisation that we have seen in the 20th century?..........Firstly, now that we know the consequences, should we continue to pollute? Secondly, given that we may be responsible for hurting our fellow humans, should we help them? To my mind, the Scriptures are clear. Humans are stewards, not masters, of God's creation (Genesis 2.15), and one day we will have to account for our stewardship (Luke 19.11-27). While it is not wrong to change the atmosphere, it is wrong to change it more than we need, certainly if it is at the expense of poor people. Making money at the expense of the weak is condemned (Luke 20.47), and to assist the weak is praised (James 1.27). Yet continuing as we are will make us richer at the expense of the poor. Given that we have stolen from the poor of the world by our pollution, we might learn from Zacchaeus (Luke 19.8). In our selfish world, each state pursues its own interests........The government urges us to reduce our energy usage so that we may indulge ourselves in other ways, but we have a higher motive for reducing waste (1 Timothy 6.17-19). Although I have yet to see any evidence that climate change is a sign of Christ's imminent return, human pollution is clearly another of the birth pangs of creation, as it eagerly awaits being delivered from the bondage of corruption (Romans. 19-22).Tim Mitchell works at the Climactic Research Unit, UEA, Norwich, and is a member of South Park Evangelical Church."Sounds like his motivations are similar to Sir John Houghton.Did this conciously affect the way he assembled the data bases? Who can say?
Sir John Houghton is a key promoter of the Cause and has used his top positions in the Met Office and IPCC to propagandise the warmist viewpoint. He is a religious evangelist and has said eg.
"Christians and other religious people believe that we've been put on the earth to look after it. Creation is not just important to us, we believe also it is important to God and that the rest of creation has an importance of its own... we are destroying forests, important forests. When I say "we" I mean "we" the human race of which we are part. We are party to the destruction, we allow it to happen, in fact it helps to make us richer. We really need to take our responsibility as ‘gardeners' more seriously"
Wiki says
He was brought up as a Calvinistic Methodist in the Presbyterian Church of Wales and has remained a strong Christian throughout his life and sees science and Christianity as strengthening each other and believes strongly in the connection between Christianity and environmentalism. Houghton's evangelical Christianity combined with his scientific background has made him a significant voice in evangelical Christian circles. Winning the support of Richard Cizik one of the most prominent Evangelical lobbyists in the United States is a notable example of how Houghton has had a significant effect. He is currently an elder at Aberdovey Presbyterian Church.......
Houghton is currently Honorary Scientist of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research at the Meteorological Office; Honorary Scientist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory; a Trustee of the Shell Foundation; and Chairman of the John Ray Initiative.[3]
Previously Sir John was
a Member of the UK Government Panel on Sustainable Development (1994–2000)
Chairman, Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (1992–98)
Chairman or Co-Chairman, Scientific Assessment Working Group, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (1988–2002)
Director General (later Chief Executive), UK Meteorological Office (1983–91)
Director Appleton, Science and Engineering Research Council (also Deputy Director, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory)(1979–83);
Professor of Atmospheric Physics, Oxford University (1976–83).
As can be seen by this brief career summary from Wiki he has been a key influence in the IPCC warmist paradigm.
"Climate change and the ChristianIs global warming the end of the world or media scare-mongering?Global warming is often seen as either the end of the world as we know it, or as mere media scare-mongering. Which is right?Could it be that I, a respectable Christian, am partly to blame? Might I need to change the way I live? Before we search for climate changes, we ought first to understand what it is that might be changing.The climate system is made up of the earth's atmosphere, oceans, ice, vegetation, and streams. It is both beautiful and complex. Humans have a mandate to forecast its behaviour and use it (Genesis 1:28). However, we feel in awe of its destructive potential, seen in such things as hurricanes and floods, which are part of the curse inflicted upon the earth following the Fall (Genesis 3.17). Moreover, control and certainty belong to God alone (Job 38-41). So there is a possibility that our actions may affect the climate system in unexpected ways. It was claimed in the 1970s that the earth might be about to enter an ice age. The evidence for this was minimal, but the decades of painstaking research that have followed the 1970s have unveiled both the natural variability in the climate system, and the dramatic effects of human actions.To assemble a record of global climate changes over the last 150 years we use instrumental records, such as rain gauges and thermometers. Since it is only recently that such instruments have been widely used, to reconstruct climate changes prior to the 19th century we are compelled to use indirect sources of information, such as tree ring widths and ice core layers.Using this mixture of data, we have assembled global temperature records for the last millennium. There is much natural variability throughout the records, but there is also a 20th-century rise in global temperature that is unprecedented in its magnitude and rate of change. Is it merely a coincidence that this global warming has come at the same time as the huge expansion in human population and industrialisation that we have seen in the 20th century?..........Firstly, now that we know the consequences, should we continue to pollute? Secondly, given that we may be responsible for hurting our fellow humans, should we help them? To my mind, the Scriptures are clear. Humans are stewards, not masters, of God's creation (Genesis 2.15), and one day we will have to account for our stewardship (Luke 19.11-27). While it is not wrong to change the atmosphere, it is wrong to change it more than we need, certainly if it is at the expense of poor people. Making money at the expense of the weak is condemned (Luke 20.47), and to assist the weak is praised (James 1.27). Yet continuing as we are will make us richer at the expense of the poor. Given that we have stolen from the poor of the world by our pollution, we might learn from Zacchaeus (Luke 19.8). In our selfish world, each state pursues its own interests........The government urges us to reduce our energy usage so that we may indulge ourselves in other ways, but we have a higher motive for reducing waste (1 Timothy 6.17-19). Although I have yet to see any evidence that climate change is a sign of Christ's imminent return, human pollution is clearly another of the birth pangs of creation, as it eagerly awaits being delivered from the bondage of corruption (Romans. 19-22).Tim Mitchell works at the Climactic Research Unit, UEA, Norwich, and is a member of South Park Evangelical Church."Sounds like his motivations are similar to Sir John Houghton.Did this conciously affect the way he assembled the data bases? Who can say?
Sir John Houghton is a key promoter of the Cause and has used his top positions in the Met Office and IPCC to propagandise the warmist viewpoint. He is a religious evangelist and has said eg.
"Christians and other religious people believe that we've been put on the earth to look after it. Creation is not just important to us, we believe also it is important to God and that the rest of creation has an importance of its own... we are destroying forests, important forests. When I say "we" I mean "we" the human race of which we are part. We are party to the destruction, we allow it to happen, in fact it helps to make us richer. We really need to take our responsibility as ‘gardeners' more seriously"
Wiki says
He was brought up as a Calvinistic Methodist in the Presbyterian Church of Wales and has remained a strong Christian throughout his life and sees science and Christianity as strengthening each other and believes strongly in the connection between Christianity and environmentalism. Houghton's evangelical Christianity combined with his scientific background has made him a significant voice in evangelical Christian circles. Winning the support of Richard Cizik one of the most prominent Evangelical lobbyists in the United States is a notable example of how Houghton has had a significant effect. He is currently an elder at Aberdovey Presbyterian Church.......
Houghton is currently Honorary Scientist of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research at the Meteorological Office; Honorary Scientist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory; a Trustee of the Shell Foundation; and Chairman of the John Ray Initiative.[3]
Previously Sir John was
a Member of the UK Government Panel on Sustainable Development (1994–2000)
Chairman, Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (1992–98)
Chairman or Co-Chairman, Scientific Assessment Working Group, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (1988–2002)
Director General (later Chief Executive), UK Meteorological Office (1983–91)
Director Appleton, Science and Engineering Research Council (also Deputy Director, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory)(1979–83);
Professor of Atmospheric Physics, Oxford University (1976–83).
As can be seen by this brief career summary from Wiki he has been a key influence in the IPCC warmist paradigm.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Comments on IPCC SREX Summary for Policy Makers
Here is a comment I made on the SciGuy Houston Chronicle site and a subsequent exchange on the same thread.
November 18, 2011 at 4:00 pm
It’s amazing that the IPCC is finally paying attention to the real world. The most important thing they say is
“Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”.
Note uncertainty in the “sign” means they think the earth may even be cooling- but they still shy away from using the c word.I have suggested in various web comments that the Hadley Sea Surface Temperature data is the best metric for climate change . The 5 year moving SST temperature average shows that the warming trend peaked in 2003 and a simple regression analysis shows an eight year global SST cooling trend since then .The 5 year moving SST temperature average shows that the warming trend peaked in 2003 and a simple regression analysis shows an eight year global SST cooling trend since then .The data shows warming from 1900 – 1940 ,cooling from 1940 to about 1975 and warming from 1975 – 2003. CO2 levels rose monotonically during this entire period.There has been no net warming since 1997 – 14 years with CO2 up 7% and no net warming. Anthropogenic CO2 has some effect but our knowledge of the natural drivers is still so poor that we cannot accurately estimate what the anthropogenic CO2 contribution is. Since 2003 CO2 has risen further and yet the global temperature trend is negative. This is obviously a short term on which to base predictions but all statistical analyses of particular time series must be interpreted in conjunction with other ongoing events and in the context of declining solar magnetic field strength and activity – to the extent of a possible Dalton or Maunder minimum and the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal a global 20 – 30 year cooling spell is more likely than a warming trend.This seems to be now at least compatible with the IPCC.As to Texas weather simple empirical observations show that1) the PDO has an approximate 30 year cycle2) During the last period of negative PDOs from 1940 – 75 global temperatures fell 0.25 – 0.3 degrees3) The PDO has been negative for the last few years. During this phase La Ninas become more frequent El Ninos less frequent. The empirical weather system changes mean that the Jet stream has a more meridional component with the formation of blocking highs, greater weather variability because of sharper temperature gradients across the edges of the highs bringing e.g.more tornadoes and snowricanes to the eastern USA more snow to the western mountains hence more spring flooding in the interior and droughts in Texas.4. The solar magnetic field strength decline since 2004 is unprecedented in the satellite age – and suggests the possible disappearance of sunspots in the next 5 – 10 years as last seen in the little ice age and the Maunder minimum.http://www.sott.net/articles/show/164199-Livingston-and-Penn-paper-Sunspots-may-vanish-by-2015-My forecast is not based on such an extreme event but it remains a possibility.5 .The SST 5 year moving average rolled over circa 2003and regression analysis since then shows a decline which would amount to 0.28 in 30 years.It’s really about time that the Chronicle published an op ed along the lines of the above comments.
Glenn Beak says:
November 18, 2011 at 11:55 pm
“Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”.Note uncertainty in the “sign” means they think the earth may even be cooling- but they still shy away from using the c word.
No, it means that while the Earth is warming, it is a long term climate trend that will show a lot of variation. It means your “eight year global SST cooling trend” is well within expected random variation.
The solar magnetic field strength decline since 2004 is unprecedented in the satellite age – and suggests the possible disappearance of sunspots in the next 5 – 10 years as last seen in the little ice age and the Maunder minimum.
The paper you and Watts mention came out in 2006. It used data mostly collected between 2000 (when sunspot cycle 23 peaked) and 2005. With a straight face they claim “A linear extrapolation of thesetrends suggests that few sunspots will be visible after 2015.” The monthly sunspot count in 2004 ranged from 18 to 51. Last month 88 sunspots were observed.
Dr Norman Page says:
November 19, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Glenn you are still making the same gross scientific error of judgement or deliberate misrepresentation that was made by IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers previous to this latest one ( thru AR4) This was the assumption that they or you knew or know what the natural variability was/is.. You cannot possibly say that the ” “eight year SST global cooling trend” is well within expected random variation ” if you dont know what the expected range of random variation is.To say nothing of the fact that to say a variation is random also implies that you don’t know what the cause is and can’t be bothered to find out.In AR4 for example the Summary for Policymakers is inconsistent with the AR4 WG1 Science section. You should note that the Summary was published before the WG1 report and the editors of the Summary , incredibly ,asked the authors of the Science report to make their reports conform to the Summary rather than the other way around. When this was not done the Science section was simply ignored.. I give one egregious example – there are many others.Most of the predicted disasters are based on climate models.Even the Modelers themselves say that they do not make predictions . The models produce projections or scenarios which are no more accurate than the assumptions,algorithms and data , often of poor quality,which were put into them. In reality they are no more than expensive drafting tools to produce power point slides to illustrate the ideas and prejudices of their creators. The IPCC science section AR4 WG1 section 8.6.4 deals with the reliability of the climate models .This IPCC science section on models itself concludes:
“Moreover it is not yet clear which tests are critical for constraining the future projections,consequently a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate sensitivity has yet to be developed”
What could be clearer. The IPCC AR4 science section itself says that we don’t even know what metrics to put into the models to test their reliability.- i.e. we don’t know what future temperatures will be and we can’t yet calculate the climate sensitivity to anthropogenic CO2.This also begs a further question of what mere assumptions went into the “plausible” models to be tested anyway. Nevertheless this statement was ignored by the editors who produced the Summary. Here predictions of disaster were illegitimately given “with high confidence.” in complete contradiction to several sections of the WG1 science section where uncertainties and error bars were discussed.
The importance of the new report is that finally the IPCC recognises that the uncertainties of climate prediction are much greater than they previously acknowledged. They are now in the embarassing position of having to acknowledge that the whole UN CO2 scare is built on very uncertain foundations and they somehow need to as quietly as possible change their position.The first thing they do is to change the definition of climate change (Global Warming no longer seems a convenient term to use) They say :
“several of the definitions used in this Special Report differ inbreadth or focus from those used in the AR4 and other IPCC reports.]
Climate Change: A change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to naturalinternal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.2[INSERT FOOTNOTE 2: This definition differs from that in the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where climate change is defined as: “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed overcomparable time periods.” The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between climate change attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and climate variability attributable to natural causes.]
In other words where previously climate change meant change due to human activity now it means change due to human and natural causes . As previously quoted in the original post they now say that they can’t distinguish these causes for the next 30 years.The rest of their predictions re extreme events are simply trivial and tautologous speculation – they simply say that if warming continues, certain extreme events are more likely to occur. If they don’t know what is happening in the next 30 years they certainly don’t know what will happen in th next hundred.As to the Pennington sun paper – first Pennington updates the measurements on an ongoing basis . He is not measuring sunspot numbers as your answer would imply . He measures the trends in Umbral intensity Umbral Magnetic field strength. If you check post #604 on this thread ( page 41 Sunspot Magnetism Livingstone and Penn) message linkhttp://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread you will see that his original trends have continued as originally forecast up to the present. The key thing anyway in this matter is not the sunspot number but the magnetic field strength and its effect on the solar wind. The idea is that if the Umbral intensity trend increases ie temperature gets hotter- then by 2015 the spot will be indistinguishable from the background ( not non existent ) as in the Maunder minimum when earths climate cooled.
November 18, 2011 at 4:00 pm
It’s amazing that the IPCC is finally paying attention to the real world. The most important thing they say is
“Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”.
Note uncertainty in the “sign” means they think the earth may even be cooling- but they still shy away from using the c word.I have suggested in various web comments that the Hadley Sea Surface Temperature data is the best metric for climate change . The 5 year moving SST temperature average shows that the warming trend peaked in 2003 and a simple regression analysis shows an eight year global SST cooling trend since then .The 5 year moving SST temperature average shows that the warming trend peaked in 2003 and a simple regression analysis shows an eight year global SST cooling trend since then .The data shows warming from 1900 – 1940 ,cooling from 1940 to about 1975 and warming from 1975 – 2003. CO2 levels rose monotonically during this entire period.There has been no net warming since 1997 – 14 years with CO2 up 7% and no net warming. Anthropogenic CO2 has some effect but our knowledge of the natural drivers is still so poor that we cannot accurately estimate what the anthropogenic CO2 contribution is. Since 2003 CO2 has risen further and yet the global temperature trend is negative. This is obviously a short term on which to base predictions but all statistical analyses of particular time series must be interpreted in conjunction with other ongoing events and in the context of declining solar magnetic field strength and activity – to the extent of a possible Dalton or Maunder minimum and the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal a global 20 – 30 year cooling spell is more likely than a warming trend.This seems to be now at least compatible with the IPCC.As to Texas weather simple empirical observations show that1) the PDO has an approximate 30 year cycle2) During the last period of negative PDOs from 1940 – 75 global temperatures fell 0.25 – 0.3 degrees3) The PDO has been negative for the last few years. During this phase La Ninas become more frequent El Ninos less frequent. The empirical weather system changes mean that the Jet stream has a more meridional component with the formation of blocking highs, greater weather variability because of sharper temperature gradients across the edges of the highs bringing e.g.more tornadoes and snowricanes to the eastern USA more snow to the western mountains hence more spring flooding in the interior and droughts in Texas.4. The solar magnetic field strength decline since 2004 is unprecedented in the satellite age – and suggests the possible disappearance of sunspots in the next 5 – 10 years as last seen in the little ice age and the Maunder minimum.http://www.sott.net/articles/show/164199-Livingston-and-Penn-paper-Sunspots-may-vanish-by-2015-My forecast is not based on such an extreme event but it remains a possibility.5 .The SST 5 year moving average rolled over circa 2003and regression analysis since then shows a decline which would amount to 0.28 in 30 years.It’s really about time that the Chronicle published an op ed along the lines of the above comments.
Glenn Beak says:
November 18, 2011 at 11:55 pm
“Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”.Note uncertainty in the “sign” means they think the earth may even be cooling- but they still shy away from using the c word.
No, it means that while the Earth is warming, it is a long term climate trend that will show a lot of variation. It means your “eight year global SST cooling trend” is well within expected random variation.
The solar magnetic field strength decline since 2004 is unprecedented in the satellite age – and suggests the possible disappearance of sunspots in the next 5 – 10 years as last seen in the little ice age and the Maunder minimum.
The paper you and Watts mention came out in 2006. It used data mostly collected between 2000 (when sunspot cycle 23 peaked) and 2005. With a straight face they claim “A linear extrapolation of thesetrends suggests that few sunspots will be visible after 2015.” The monthly sunspot count in 2004 ranged from 18 to 51. Last month 88 sunspots were observed.
Dr Norman Page says:
November 19, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Glenn you are still making the same gross scientific error of judgement or deliberate misrepresentation that was made by IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers previous to this latest one ( thru AR4) This was the assumption that they or you knew or know what the natural variability was/is.. You cannot possibly say that the ” “eight year SST global cooling trend” is well within expected random variation ” if you dont know what the expected range of random variation is.To say nothing of the fact that to say a variation is random also implies that you don’t know what the cause is and can’t be bothered to find out.In AR4 for example the Summary for Policymakers is inconsistent with the AR4 WG1 Science section. You should note that the Summary was published before the WG1 report and the editors of the Summary , incredibly ,asked the authors of the Science report to make their reports conform to the Summary rather than the other way around. When this was not done the Science section was simply ignored.. I give one egregious example – there are many others.Most of the predicted disasters are based on climate models.Even the Modelers themselves say that they do not make predictions . The models produce projections or scenarios which are no more accurate than the assumptions,algorithms and data , often of poor quality,which were put into them. In reality they are no more than expensive drafting tools to produce power point slides to illustrate the ideas and prejudices of their creators. The IPCC science section AR4 WG1 section 8.6.4 deals with the reliability of the climate models .This IPCC science section on models itself concludes:
“Moreover it is not yet clear which tests are critical for constraining the future projections,consequently a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate sensitivity has yet to be developed”
What could be clearer. The IPCC AR4 science section itself says that we don’t even know what metrics to put into the models to test their reliability.- i.e. we don’t know what future temperatures will be and we can’t yet calculate the climate sensitivity to anthropogenic CO2.This also begs a further question of what mere assumptions went into the “plausible” models to be tested anyway. Nevertheless this statement was ignored by the editors who produced the Summary. Here predictions of disaster were illegitimately given “with high confidence.” in complete contradiction to several sections of the WG1 science section where uncertainties and error bars were discussed.
The importance of the new report is that finally the IPCC recognises that the uncertainties of climate prediction are much greater than they previously acknowledged. They are now in the embarassing position of having to acknowledge that the whole UN CO2 scare is built on very uncertain foundations and they somehow need to as quietly as possible change their position.The first thing they do is to change the definition of climate change (Global Warming no longer seems a convenient term to use) They say :
“several of the definitions used in this Special Report differ inbreadth or focus from those used in the AR4 and other IPCC reports.]
Climate Change: A change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to naturalinternal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.2[INSERT FOOTNOTE 2: This definition differs from that in the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where climate change is defined as: “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed overcomparable time periods.” The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between climate change attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and climate variability attributable to natural causes.]
In other words where previously climate change meant change due to human activity now it means change due to human and natural causes . As previously quoted in the original post they now say that they can’t distinguish these causes for the next 30 years.The rest of their predictions re extreme events are simply trivial and tautologous speculation – they simply say that if warming continues, certain extreme events are more likely to occur. If they don’t know what is happening in the next 30 years they certainly don’t know what will happen in th next hundred.As to the Pennington sun paper – first Pennington updates the measurements on an ongoing basis . He is not measuring sunspot numbers as your answer would imply . He measures the trends in Umbral intensity Umbral Magnetic field strength. If you check post #604 on this thread ( page 41 Sunspot Magnetism Livingstone and Penn) message linkhttp://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread you will see that his original trends have continued as originally forecast up to the present. The key thing anyway in this matter is not the sunspot number but the magnetic field strength and its effect on the solar wind. The idea is that if the Umbral intensity trend increases ie temperature gets hotter- then by 2015 the spot will be indistinguishable from the background ( not non existent ) as in the Maunder minimum when earths climate cooled.
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