CO2, warming, and causality

z, in comments:

"CO2 is not causing global warming, in fact, CO2 is lagging temperature change in all reliable datasets. "

See also my forthcoming paper: "Chickens do not lay eggs, because they have been observed to hatch from them".

More like this

Those must be stray adult Atlantic salmon, because we had no funding to observe them emerging as juveniles from the stream gravel three years ago.

-- State of Maine fisheries biologists.

I'd already noted z's comment and posted about it over at HB's to disseminate this comic masterpiece more widely.

It's fully deserving of the elevation to an actual blog post.

May the maxim "Chickens do not lay eggs, because they have been observed to hatch from them" be used wisely forthwith.

Bravo.

Has anyone ever done a quick "for dummies" explanation of this particular issue? I can't seem to pull it off--every time I try to explain it I get bogged down in details. Help?

I am not worthy to follow in the illustrious footsteps of... well, you know who they are.

As for many other bad arguments, John Cook's Skeptical Science" is a useful resource.

In this case, the argument is:

[co2lag] 8 CO2 lags temperature

RC has more depth, but SS is nice because there's one page with a whole list, and one page per argument describing it briefly, with pointers to real papers.

I've occasionally found newspaper articles or posts that managed to use 10-12 of these bad arguments.

By John Mashey (not verified) on 01 Apr 2008 #permalink

Thanks to John Mashey for the "skeptical scientist" link. I thought it may be interesting for everybody to see here what people usually mention as sceptical arguments against a rock solid CO2 causality. Although I am not paid for this, I took a few minutes to cast my own vote as to the relevance of these arguments / adding some links and comments. I put a Y for YES or a N for NO depending whether I think that

a) the arguments have any relevance related to the topic above and
b) the argument has not yet been refuted by rock solid empirical science.

So is there any relevance on a global scale? Y/N?

1 It's the sun 8.5% Y

2 Climate's changed beforeand Y 7.4% Y

3 There is no consensus 6.3% Y - at least there shouldn't be unless proven by rock solid empirical science

4 Surface temp is unreliable 5.3% N

5 Models are unreliable 4.6% model Y

6 Ice age predicted in the 70's 4.0% N

7 Al Gore got it wrong 4.0% N

8 CO2 lags temperature 3.7% Y The cause-effect dynamics of the gross carbon cycle is not yet entirely understood. Thus a spurious correlation does not confirm nor debunk CAGW in the IPCC magnitude

9 Antarctica is cooling/gaining ice 3.4% Y This goes both for sea ice and continental ice

10 Global warming is good 3.2% Y At least it is not possible to asses the winners and losers of a warming world beyond reasonable doubt.

11 Mars is warming 3.1% mars Y

12 1934 - hottest year on record 3.0% 1934 N

13 Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming Y They are somehow linked to ANY warming with both increasing and decreasing patterns.

14 It's cosmic rays 2.8% Y with low scientific understanding

15 It's cooling 2.8% Y

16 We're heading into an ice age 2.7% Y can not be totally excluded and any possibilities should be taken seriously given the devastating effects for the world's food and energy needs in the event of a major cooling.

17 It hasn't warmed since 1998 2.6% 1998 Y

18 It's Urban Heat Island effect 2.5% uhi Y
Let's call it land use and other (non greenhouse) AGW

19 It's freaking cold! 2.2% cold N

20 Other planets are warming 2.1% planet W

21 Greenland was green 1.9% N

22 Hockey stick was debunked 1.8% hockey Y

23 It's water vapor 1.7% vapor N

24 Mt. Kilimanjaro's ice loss due to land use 1.5% Y
and thus evaporation.
25 We're coming out of an ice age 1.4% Y

26 It cooled mid-century 1.3% Y

27 It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low 1.3% N

28 Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions 1.3% Y
...in the sense that ocean cooling could cause a decrease in CO2 concentration (Roy Spencer)

29 Satellites show no warming in d troposph. 1.0% Y

30 Glaciers are growing 1.0% glacier Y
This is an important one because is important if the trend towards more snow in Antarctica may soon offset thermal expansion and the melting of small glaciers.

31 Neptune is warming 1.0% neptun Y

32 Greenland is cooler/gaining ice 1.0% N

33 Climate sensitivity is low 1.0% Y

34 There is no empirical evidence 0.9% Y

35 Scientists can't even predict the weather 0.8% N

36 Jupiter is warming 0.8% jupiter Y

37 Less than half of published scientists endorse global warming 0.5% schulte N

38 It's aerosols 0.5% N

39 It's the ocean 0.5% ocean Y

40 It's volcanoes (or lack thereof) 0.4% Y

continuation (I had to split the post because of too many links. I hope it is okay with you, Tim. Thank you for your approvals so far.

41 CO2 measurements are suspect 0.4% N

42 It's methane 0.2% methane N

43 Naomi Oreskes' study on consensus was 0.2% N

44 It's Solar Cycle Length 0.2% Y
warming lags 10 years behind sunspot maximum and drives other cycles ( ENSO,PDO, AMO).

45 Water levels correlate with sunspots 0.2% N

46 The sun is getting hotter 0.1% hotsun Y

47 Solar cycles cause global warming 0.1% Y

48 It's the ozone layer 0.0% N

climatepatrol:

I thought it may be interesting for everybody to see here what people usually mention as sceptical arguments against a rock solid CO2 causality.

Eh, what?

z:

I am not worthy to follow in the illustrious footsteps of... well, you know who they are.

z, I know you're worried about the Evil Scientific Inquisition. But think about it... the worst they can do is burn you at the stake, right?

- - -

Simon D:

Russell -- Realclimate has done a few posts like this one that talk about the CO2 - temp. lag in the ice cores.

John Mashey:

As for many other bad arguments, John Cook's Skeptical Science" is a useful resource. In this case, the argument is: [co2lag] 8 CO2 lags temperature

I still prefer z's rebuttal. OK, in all seriousness, the RealClimate and Skeptical Science stuff are good when you actually want to learn about stuff.

However, if you (also) want to see a denialist's head explode, nothing beats the chickens argument.

The only important issue is whether heating from anthropogenic CO2 will cause enough damage to warrant mitigative actions that have there own associated costs.

Models that do not correlate well with reality are currently the basis for the claim that we face such damages. The fact that CO2 has IR absorbtion properties that will theoretically lead to some, as yet poorly quantified, heating is not in and of itself reason to abandon fossil fuel use.

The arguments presented by RealClimate and others to dismiss the CO2 "lag" issue are fatuous. To protest that increasing CO2 levels lagging temperature increases by hundreds of years presents no problem for AGW theory is ludicrous.

Their argument goes like this.

1. Some mysterious process leads to increasing temperatures.

2. This releases CO2 from the oceans.

3. This keeps the temperatures increasing.

4. Eventually some mysterious process leads to cooling in spite of the fact that CO2 levels are still high.

5. CO2 levels remain high for hundreds of years even though temperatures remain low. This is because the mysterious other forces are stronger than the CO2 forcing.

If the illegitimacy of this argument isn't immediately apparent you aren't paying attention or you REALLY want to believe that CO2 is a magical gas.

Imagine that I go to the local hospital and check the charts for people who are healing and then give them an "amulet" that I claim "causes" healing.

If I then monitor those people and they continue to heal can I claim that the amulet is now the "main" cause of the healing?

Now imagine that they begin to get sick again while still wearing the amulet. In fact they deteriorate for years while wearing the amulet. Would you believe me if I told you that the amulet did indeed have healing powers but was being overpowered by stronger forces?

Anyone willing to buy an amulet from me?

When zygotes into chickens hatch,we know chickens lay no eggies natch,And Viscount Monckton wants you sued,Though he's just not yet in the mood;

'Cause the Climate Realist realitywants a One True Source of Energy,And CO2's a friendly gas,it's good for you and me --

There's no warmingThere's no warmingIt's just a Terrist WorldwideConspiracy

There's no warmingThere's no warmingFor polar bears adaptand so will we

You say the science is settled long,Yet I don't agree, so it's wrong;For I do have a PhDfrom an unnamed famous varsity;

And Oreskes is communist,'Cause she's reticent on th' Islamist;From 'conomists to physiciansThey're all part of the plot --

There's no warmingThere's no warmingIt's just a Terrist WorldwideConspiracy

There's no warmingThere's no warmingFor polar bears adaptand so will we

cce,

You need to actually read the RealClimate statement before you glibly throw out Milankovitch cycles as the reason for the beginning of the warming periods.

Here is direct quote from RealClimate on the subject.

From studying all the available data (not just ice cores), the probable sequence of events at a termination goes something like this. Some (currently unknown) process causes Antarctica and the surrounding ocean to warm. This process also causes CO2 to start rising, about 800 years later. Then CO2 further warms the whole planet, because of its heat-trapping properties.

I used the word "mysterious" to paraphrase RealClimate's "currently unknown" otherwise my explanation is very faithful to RealClimate's.

Milankovitch cycles do not correspond to the beginning of these warming periods of "currently unknown" cause.

Notice I didn't call you a liar. I just pointed out that your statement is in error. Care to acknowledge that fact?

You're quote-mining, Lance. Simon D pointed to a different RealClimate blog entry, but you chose to ignore it. Why?

bi,

I am not "quote mining". I simply Googled "RealClimate Co2 lag" and went to the very first article listed. The link that Simon provided does not differ substantially from the one I quoted.

There is no proven correlation between the individual warming and cooling periods in the ice core data and Milankovitch cycles. Milankovitch cycles are theorized to be one of a possible many causes that RelaClimatecorrectly lists as "currently unknown".

If you think otherwise then go present youre argument to RealClimate.

Here is the corrected version that I meant to post, so no thoughtful poster need place "(sic)" in their reply.

bi,

I am not "quote mining". I simply Googled "RealClimate Co2 lag" and went to the very first article listed. The link that Simon provided does not differ substantially from the one I quoted.

There is no proven correlation between the individual warming and cooling periods in the ice core data and Milankovitch cycles. Milankovitch cycles are theorized to be one of a possible many causes that RelaClimate correctly lists as "currently unknown".

If you think otherwise then go present your argument to RealClimate.

About Lance's quote-mining, whether through moral degeneracy or mental defect:

Science is based on data, not on what authority X says.
Particularly not on quotes of what Lance says authority X says. What matters is if Milankovitch cycles are correlated with ice ages, or not. They are. Guess who discovered this? Some guy named Milankovitch.

Right above the part you quoted is "Changes in the amount of summer sunshine, due to changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun that happen every 21,000 years, have long been known to affect the comings and goings of ice ages."

So your phony context: "There is no proven correlation between the individual warming and cooling periods in the ice core data and Milankovitch cycles."

is incorrect, both based on what the very article you are quoting said, and based on the facts. The actual context is a discussion of why CO2 lags warming.

The warming event that gets feedback started leads to a *rapid* warming. It is most certainly not *just* based on Milankovitch cycles, particularly if the mechanism behind Milankovitch cycles is purely insolation changes(a recent hypothesis have been proposed - variations in dust in the wobbling orbit).

The Realclimate article http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-t…
explains it in great detail, and should take some of the mystery out of it for you.

Just curious, have you ever argued that the current warming is due to recent increase in solar activity (which would increase insolation, as would orbital changes)?

By Tracy P. Hamilton (not verified) on 02 Apr 2008 #permalink

And, we don't need to know WHAT causes the warming to begin, in order to explain why CO2 increases lag that warming. The lag tells us it's not CO2 in this case, but some other cause. We do know that, whatever the cause, warming the ocean's going to cause CO2 to be outgassed, and that the CO2 thus released will add its own warming input into the system.

Lance has picked an article by searching for "CO2 lag", so not surprisingly he found a short piece that discusses why CO2 lags warming. The article does NOT address the question "what, then, causes the warming". Yes, it says "currently unknown", but does not say, as Lance does, that there's no correlation between Milankovich cycles and the end of ice ages.

And, we don't need to know WHAT causes the warming to begin, in order to explain why CO2 increases lag that warming. The lag tells us it's not CO2 in this case, but some other cause. We do know that, whatever the cause, warming the ocean's going to cause CO2 to be outgassed, and that the CO2 thus released will add its own warming input into the system.

Lance has picked an article by searching for "CO2 lag", so not surprisingly he found a short piece that discusses why CO2 lags warming. The article does NOT address the question "what, then, causes the warming". Yes, it says "currently unknown", but does not say, as Lance does, that there's no correlation between Milankovich cycles and the end of ice ages.

Lance,

Read AR4 WGI Chapter 6, box 6.1 and 6.2, page 445 and 446. The fact that glaciation and deglaciation are controlled by orbital forcing is not in dispute. What remains in dispute is whether the warming starts in the NH or SH, and what the exact mechanism is that changes the CO2 concentrations, although the bulk of the change certainly has to do with the oceans.

This little diversionary romp is because I quoted RealClimate about the initial causes of the warming periods correlated to the CO2 in ice cores.

Milankovitch cycles are thought to occur at periods of 100,000 and 22,000 years. The interplay of the various interplanetary forces and the interactions with terrestrial climate forcings is not well enough understood to label the various periods of observed cooling as direct results of Milankovitch cycles thus RealClimate's allusion to "currently unknown".

I'm not going to chase that one around since it is completely beside the point of the lag question. As I said if you wish to argue the point, do so with them.

The fact remains that CO2 concentrations in the ice cores lag temperature increases by hundreds of years. The best you can do, as RealClimate attempts, is to claim that while CO2 did not start the warming it might have perpetuated it. Of course there is no evidence that this is the case other than naked assertion, nothing in the data proves or even suggests this is so. Also the inconvenient fact that the temperatures went back down, and remained low for hundreds of years, in spite of persistently high CO2 concentrations is downplayed.

They try to retrieve their argument from this unsupported perch by saying that you can't prove that the late arriving CO2 isn't adding to the warming during the upswings and preventing more drastic cooling during the downswings.

Well I can't prove that magic pixies aren't affecting my golf swing but that isn't exactly strong evidence that they are. Clearly appeals to negative proofs are beyond science and not worthy explanations for physical behaviors.

They hope that this little bit of sophistry will divert attention from what is an obvious problem for the theory that atmospheric CO2 concentration is a primary climate forcing.

Lance said: "They hope that this little bit of sophistry will divert attention from what is an obvious problem for the theory that atmospheric CO2 concentration is a primary climate forcing".

That is a complete fabrication. No-one except people like you have ever claimed that CO2 is "a primary forcing" in the past few hundred thousand years. As you have been told above it is orbital variation which has been the "primary forcing" during that time.

CO2 has only become a "primary forcing" over the past 150 years because carbon which has for eons been locked in the earth's lithosphere has now been released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide by burning it.

If you are so stupid as not to realize that what you are saying is a complete distortion of the truth you have no right to claim that you are a "scientist" particularly a wannabe physicist.

Either start telling the truth, learn the truth or shut up. You are a disgrace to science with the nonsense you spout on this and other blogs.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 02 Apr 2008 #permalink

Ian Forrester,

This whole nonsense started when Al Gore, in his movie An Inconvenient Truth, used the ice core data that correlates CO2 to rising temperatures in past geologic ages. It was used to supposedly demonstrate that CO2 causes warming. To claim otherwise would be a bald faced lie.

Unfortunately for Al the data shows that CO2 lags temperature and these graphs cannot be used to support the contention that past levels of increasing CO2 caused increases in temperature. This is obviously a problem for Al and his movie since he claimed that these graphs were evidence that CO2 was the cause of past warming not the much weaker rear action claim of RealClimate that these graphs don't disprove it causes warming.

To now claim that I am somehow "distorting the truth" by pointing out that the data doesn't support the contention, made by Al in his slide show, is perversely disingenuous.

Why not just admit that these graphs were misused and move on?

Speaking of admissions, I notice that you haven't responded to my request that you rescind your claim, not to mention attendant personal insults, that a certain study proved that the arctic had NOT been ice free for thousands of years. Come on Ian, just admit your were wrong. It just makes you look like an ass to pretend you weren't.

Al Gore's actual claim in the film, "The relationship is very complicated. But there is one relationship that is more powerful than all the others and it is this. When there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer, because it traps more heat from the sun inside," is completely consistent with RC's explanantion that CO2 played a significant factor in the interglacial warming cyles.

Try not to get disemvoweled when you write your usual tortured response :)

By Winnebago (not verified) on 02 Apr 2008 #permalink

More lies, distortions and rubbish from Lance.

I have nothing to rescind. What I said is backed up by reputable papers by real scientists not your style of deniers.

And telling people the truth about how you behave is not an insult. It alerts people to how dishonest you are. If you want respect on this blog and elsewhere then try telling the truth for a while, after all that is what science is about.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 02 Apr 2008 #permalink

Sorry Winnebago if my disemvoweled post in the other thread was interpreted as mean spirited. It was meant in total jest.

So let me see, Al gore puts up a graph that shows that temperature and CO2 are correlated and says "But there is one relationship that is more powerful than the others and it is this. When there is more CO2 the temperature gets warmer." Now it turns out that if you actually examine the relationship of the two factors it is clear that CO2 always lags temperature and this is an honest presentation of the evidence?

RealClimate comes to the defense and says that while this lag proves that CO2 didn't "cause" the warming it might have kept the warming going. This is not what Al said is it?

Ian Forrester claims I am being dishonest when I say about RealClimate "They hope that this little bit of sophistry will divert attention from what is an obvious problem for the theory that atmospheric CO2 concentration is a primary climate forcing".

Before calling me "stupid" and a "disgrace to science" he says angrily, "No-one except people like you have ever claimed that CO2 is 'a primary forcing' in the past few hundred thousand years." Really, no one?

Again I quote Al's words from that section of the film, generously provided by Winnebago, "The relationship is very complicated. But there is one relationship that is more powerful than all the others and it is this. When there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer, because it traps more heat from the sun inside,"

Lets' see now "...one relationship that is more powerful than all the others..." Which one is Al talking about? Why carbon dioxide! So it would seem that unless you consider Al to be "people like" me there are others saying just what I claimed they had said. Unless you want to argue that a forcing that is "more powerful than all the others" doesn't mean a "primary" forcing? Do you really need to sink that low?

Really Ian, try to limit your insulting hyperbole to things that can't be shown to be false immediately (and by folks on your side of the argument no less). Last time you quoted a paper that flatly said the opposite of what you claimed it said and you continue to lie about it even now. All I would have to do is go back through those posts to prove you are lying.

Why not save me the trouble and show everyone that you are willing to admit when you are wrong. It's a strength not a weakness.

Ah, well this brings me to my other forthcoming paper; "What's going on now is the same as what has always gone on, as proved by the fact that it's happening in reverse order".

Lance, your English skills are as poor as your science skills. Are you sure you finished Elementary School?

Primary means first, it has nothing to do with "powerful".

Orbital variations are the first factor to start a warming cycle then it is followed by CO2. This makes CO2 forcing a "secondary" effect.

Good grief, you keep making your self look even more and more stupid, as hard as that is to believe.

When I am wrong I will admit it, but I prefer to show you up every time you are wrong. Try studying the science. Your chances of being accepted as a graduate student in physics get less and less with every post.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 02 Apr 2008 #permalink

Ian Forrester,

I assumed you wouldn't stoop so low as to parse the words "primary" and "more powerful than all the others". I was wrong; your desperation is truly pathetic.

So by your definitions of the word "primary" if a person catches a cold and then is shot it would be correct to say that their primary health problem would be the cold?

Christ is that the best you can do? Just admit you were wrong. I'll be merciful. This is almost making me squeamish.

Lance, digging deeper and deeper.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 02 Apr 2008 #permalink

"So by your definitions of the word "primary" if a person catches a cold and then is shot it would be correct to say that their primary health problem would be the cold?"

What if he's shot by meth fiends for the Sudafed he bought to fight his cold? What then Mr. Smartypants?

By Another PS (not verified) on 02 Apr 2008 #permalink

I was wrong; your desperation is truly pathetic.

This "AGWists are desperate" canard is trotted out so often that it deserves to be christened as another denialist talking point.

With all the major US presidential candidates supporting some sort of carbon tax, the denialists' definition of "desperation" must be pretty... desperate indeed.

Oh, and what's with this obsession with Al Gore again?

Lance:

The only important issue is whether heating from anthropogenic CO2 will cause enough damage to warrant mitigative actions that have there own associated costs.

Models that do not correlate well with reality are currently the basis for the claim that we face such damages.

This is blatantly untrue. Empirically derived estimates for climate sensitivity are presented in papers on this page which also has a list of papers giving sensitivity derived from GCMs. Note that the paper by Annan also has an empirically derived estimate.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 02 Apr 2008 #permalink

Lance:

1. Some mysterious process leads to increasing temperatures.

So Lance, what, pray tell, is your explanation for those "increasing temperatures"? What are you trying to suggest by using the word "mysterious"? That there wasn't really a temperature increase?

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 02 Apr 2008 #permalink

We know that Milankovitch cycles drive the ice ages because they coincide with ice ages. We believe that the CO2 changes, whatever the exact mechanism, amplifies the orbital forcing because the change in albedo and aerosol levels are not adequate to change the global temperatures the required amount. The GHG increases (which include Methane and N2O) fill in this gap, and are consistent with everything we know about them. In fact, the ice cores are among the best empirical evidence of climate sensitivity. That's how science works.

Scientists proposed this very relationship before any lag was even measured or quantified. And it's a bit hard for this to have "started" with AIT, given RealClimate was explaining years before the movie was released.

If is, however, inaccurate for Gore to say that the CO2 relationship is the most powerful, since all of the greenhouse gas changes combined are roughly equivalent to the albedo and aerosol changes (although those are less well defined), each making up about a third of the process.

@ Tracy P. Hamilton

We do know that, whatever the cause, warming the ocean's going to cause CO2 to be outgassed, and that the CO2 thus released will add its own warming input into the system.

This is a nice quote - actually rather a sceptical argument for the IPCC case. What if all - solar cycle change, other patterns such as ENSO,PDO, AMO, shift at the same time, such CO2 outgassing could be a major part of today's increasing CO2 concentration. Now there is evidence that PDO shifts towards more El Niñas at multi-decadal patterns. This could have happened in 2007.

I know the following causes a lot of controversy. Any rose (or black?) colored glasses should be taken off now:

My question: Couldn't it be that upwelling of lots of cold deep water from the ocean will most probably cause a cooling on a global scale and - with a time - may result in a levelling off of the CO2 concentration without changed human policies?

Suddenly the skeptic's argument that humans cause just 3% of the gross CO2 output becomes relevant again.

Roy Spencer's essay 2008.

See also:
Joseph D'Aleo, 2008. Look at that jackpot correlation on his multiple regression analysis 'PDO+AMO versus USHCN V2' as driven by the solar cycles.

And Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen
hates Stalinists and Führeren,
If lots of folks agree it's junk,
then they are wrong, it's treasure sunk;

So next time when you take a pee,
and folks say it's not English tea,
Just tell them in their face that you're
a freedom-loving dude --

There 's no warming,
There 's no warming,
It's just a Terrist Worldwide
Conspiracy;

There 's no warming,
There 's no warming,
For polar bears adapt
and so will we...

There's no warming,

There's no warming.

Coz the ocean's cold.

There's no warming,

there's no warming,

The sun's asleep, we're told.

There's no warming,

there's no warming,

UAH MSU you're right!.

Coz meanwhile even GISS admits, it gets pretty cold at night.

Gotta take heart of the humor invitation of bi and join in the chorus;-)

climatepatrol said

There's no warming,
...
[then lots of other inanities]

Well, the people who probably know about these things better than you (and me), when they look at the data, say something different. As scientists at the UKMO recently reported:

Research published this month in the Journal of Geophysical Research explored how observed extreme daily minimum and maximum temperatures, across different world regions, have changed since 1950.

Minimum temperatures have seen the biggest increases, most notably over Russia and Canada, where the coldest days are now up to 4 °C warmer than they were in the middle of the 20th Century.

The largest changes in maximum temperature were found across Canada and Eurasia where they have typically warmed by 1-3 °C. Warming across the UK was found to be between 0.5 and 2 °C.

Simon Brown, Met Office Climate Scientist said: "This latest research shows that some extreme events are already increasing. The trend is set to continue with our changing climate having a significant impact, with warmer nights and hotter days in the future".

climatepatrol also said

See also: Joseph D'Aleo, 2008. Look at that jackpot correlation on his multiple regression analysis 'PDO+AMO versus USHCN V2' as driven by the solar cycles.

That "paper" by D'Aleo and its potted version over at Watts' blog has been given a comprehensive review by Hansen's Bulldog (aka Tamino). Guess what? Well, if you want to know, then go take a look.

climatepatrol posts (I'm only taking the ones he agreed with):

[[1 It's the sun 8.5% Y]]

No, it isn't. Solar luminosity hasn't shown any trend since 1950. Global warming is up sharply since 1970.

[[2 Climate's changed beforeand Y 7.4% Y]]

Of course it has. So what? The present change is artificial and dangerous. If it were natural it would still be dangerous. Volcanoes have erupted before, too. That doesn't make them pleasant to be near when they go off.

[[3 There is no consensus 6.3% Y - at least there shouldn't be unless proven by rock solid empirical science]]

There is a consensus among climatologists, and it's based on evidence.

[[5 Models are unreliable 4.6% model Y]]

What models, and unreliable in what way?

[[8 CO2 lags temperature 3.7% Y The cause-effect dynamics of the gross carbon cycle is not yet entirely understood. Thus a spurious correlation does not confirm nor debunk CAGW in the IPCC magnitude]]

It's not entirely understood, but the broad outlines have been clear for a long time -- try Googling Berner and Lasaga for the very-long-term carbon cycle, or the IPCC reports for the short-term.

Yes, in a natural deglaciation, temperature leads CO2. That's not what it's doing now, so the observation is kind of irrelevant.

[[9 Antarctica is cooling/gaining ice 3.4% Y This goes both for sea ice and continental ice]]

The GRACE satellite says Antarctica is losing ice mass:

BBC Article

[[10 Global warming is good 3.2% Y At least it is not possible to asses the winners and losers of a warming world beyond reasonable doubt.]]

We know it will cause more droughts in continental interiors (ask the Australians), more violent weather along coastlines and sea level rise. The bad outweighs the good in any serious estimate.

[[11 Mars is warming 3.1% mars Y]]

And Uranus is cooling, and probably Venus is cooling, and Mercury and Luna are stable. Different worlds have different climate factors varying at different times. Global warming on Mars is due to its changing albedo, because Mars has worldwide dust storms, and where the dust falls determines how much light it reflects afterward:

Hvidberg, C.S. 2006. "The North Polar Layered Deposits, Mars: Topography, Flow and Implications for Timescales." Lunar and Planetary Institute: Fourth International Conference on Mars
Polar Science and Exploration, Davos, Switzerland, Oct. 2-6, 2006.

See also:

Young, Leslie A., Bosh, Amanda S., Buie, Marc, Elliott, J.L., and Wasserman, Lawrence H. 2001. "Uranus After Solstice: Results from the 1998 November 6 Occultation." Icarus 153, 236-247.

[[13 Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming Y They are somehow linked to ANY warming with both increasing and decreasing patterns. ]]

The present warming is artificial.

[[14 It's cosmic rays 2.8% Y with low scientific understanding]]

Cosmic rays haven't shown a trend in 50 years, either.

[[15 It's cooling 2.8% Y ]]

Don't be stupid.

[[16 We're heading into an ice age 2.7% Y can not be totally excluded and any possibilities should be taken seriously given the devastating effects for the world's food and energy needs in the event of a major cooling. ]]

Yes, absent global warming, we'd be in for another ice age in 20,000 to 50,000 years. You'll forgive me if I don't panic.

[[17 It hasn't warmed since 1998 2.6% 1998 Y]]

Why Tim Ball is Wrong

[[18 It's Urban Heat Island effect 2.5% uhi Y Let's call it land use and other (non greenhouse) AGW]]

People who have actually studied the problem say the urban heat island effect is negligible:

Hansen, J., Ruedy, R., Sato, M., Imhoff, M., Lawrence, W., Easterling, D., Peterson, T., and Karl, T. 2001. "A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change." J. Geophys. Res. 106, 23947-23963.

Mann, M. E., Ammann, C.M., Bradley, R.S. Briffa, K.R., Crowley, T.J., Hughes, M.K., Jones, P.D., Oppenheimer, M., Osborn, T.J., Overpeck, J.T., Rutherford, S., Trenberth, K.E., and Wigley, T.M.L. 2003. "On Past Temperatures and Anomalous Late-20th Century Warmth." EOS 84, 256-258.

Peterson, Thomas C. 2003. "Assessment of Urban Versus Rural In Situ Surface Temperatures in the Contiguous United States: No Difference Found." J. Clim. 16(18), 2941-2959.

Peterson T., Gallo K., Lawrimore J., Owen T., Huang A., McKittrick D. 1999. "Global rural temperature trends." Geophys. Res. Lett. 26(3), 329.

[[20 Other planets are warming 2.1% planet W]]

And some are cooling, and some are stable. See above under Mars.

[[22 Hockey stick was debunked 1.8% hockey Y]]

Go read the many threads about this on Tamino's "Open Mind" blog:

Open Mind

[[24 Mt. Kilimanjaro's ice loss due to land use 1.5% Y and thus evaporation.]]

No comment. I don't know what the situation is with Kilimanjaro. I do know that most glaciers are retreating.

[[25 We're coming out of an ice age 1.4% Y]]

From the Milankovic cycles which govern ice ages, we passed the peak of the interglacial 6,000 years ago and would now be cooling if it were not for all the greenhouse gases we're pumping into the atmosphere.

[[26 It cooled mid-century 1.3% Y]]

Heavy industry with little or no pollution controls.

[[28 Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions 1.3% Y ...in the sense that ocean cooling could cause a decrease in CO2 concentration (Roy Spencer)]]

The ocean isn't cooling.

[[29 Satellites show no warming in d troposph. 1.0% Y ]]

Yes they do:

Mears, Carl A. and Wentz, Frank J. 2005. "The Effect of Diurnal Correction on Satellite-Derived Lower Tropospheric Temperature." Science 309:1548-1551.

Santer, Benjamin D., Wigley, T. M. L., Meehl, G. A., Wehner, M. F., Mears, C., Schabel, M., Wentz, F. J., Ammann, C., Arblaster, J., Bettge, T., Washington, W. M., Taylor, K. E., Boyle, J. S., Brüggemann, W. and Doutriaux, C. 2003. "Influence of Satellite Data Uncertainties on the Detection of Externally Forced Climate Change." Science 300:1280-1284.

Santer, Benjamin D., Wigley, T. M. L., Mears, C., Wentz, F. J., Klein, S. A., Seidel, D. J., Taylor, K. E., Thorne, P. W., Wehner, M. F., Glecker, P. J., Boyle, J. S., Collins, W. D., Dixon, K. W., Doutriaux, C., Free, M., Fu, Q., Hansen, J. E., Jones, G. S., Ruedy, R., Karl, T. R., Lanzante, J. R., Meehl, G. A., Ramaswamy, V., Russell, G. and Schmidt, G. A. 2005. "Amplification of Surface Temperature Trends and Variability in the Tropical Atmosphere." Science 309:1551-1556.

Sherwood, Steven C., Lanzante, John R. and Meyer, Cathryn L. 2005. "Radiosonde Daytime Biases and Late-20th Century Warming." Science 309:1556-1559.

[[30 Glaciers are growing 1.0% glacier Y This is an important one because is important if the trend towards more snow in Antarctica may soon offset thermal expansion and the melting of small glaciers.]]

Most glaciers are retreating, not growing:

Glaciers

[[31 Neptune is warming 1.0% neptun Y]]

See above under Mars.

[[33 Climate sensitivity is low 1.0% Y ]]

Most estimates say it's about 3 K per doubling of CO2:

Climate Sensitivity

[[34 There is no empirical evidence 0.9% Y]]

You've got to be kidding.

[[36 Jupiter is warming 0.8% jupiter Y]]

No, it isn't. They discovered hot spots on Jupiter. That's not the same as warming. See here:

Kunde, V.G., Flasar, F.M., Jennings, D.E., Bézard, B., Strobel, D.F., Conrath, B.J., Nixon, C.A., Bjoraker, G.L., Romani, P.N., Achterberg, R.K., Simon-Miller, A.A., Irwin, P., Brasunas, J.C., Pearl, J.C., Smith, M.D., Orton, G.S., Gierasch, P.J., Spilker, L.J., Carlson, R.C., Mamoutkine, A.A., Calcutt, S.B., Read, P.L., Taylor, F.W., Fouchet, T., Parrish, P., Barucci, A., Courtin, R., Coustenis, A., Gautier, D., Lellouch, E., Marten, A., Prangé, R., Biraud, Y., Ferrari, C., Owen, T.C., Abbas, M.M., Samuelson, R.E., Raulin, F., Ade, P., Césarsky, C.J., Grossman, K.U. and Coradini, A. 2004. "Jupiter's Atmospheric Composition from the Cassini Thermal Infrared Spectroscopy Experiment." Sci. 305, 1582-1586.

Showman, A.P. and Dowling, T.E. 2000. "Nonlinear Simulations of Jupiter's 5-Micron Hot Spots." Sci. 289, 1737-1740.

[[39 It's the ocean 0.5% ocean Y]]

The ocean is a net sink for carbon dioxide, not a net source. The Earth's oceans release about 90 gigatons of carbon a year and absorb 92.

[[40 It's volcanoes (or lack thereof) 0.4% Y]]

Human technology puts out more than 100 times as much CO2 as all the volcanoes in the world:

Man versus the Volcanoes

[[44 It's Solar Cycle Length 0.2% Y warming lags 10 years behind sunspot maximum and drives other cycles ( ENSO,PDO, AMO). ]]

Pseudoscience. How could the length of the cycle warm the Earth, precisely? What's the mechanism?

[[46 The sun is getting hotter 0.1% hotsun Y]]

The Sun's output has shown no trend for 50 years:

TSI

[[47 Solar cycles cause global warming 0.1% Y]]

What solar cycles? It can't be TSI or cosmic ray modulation due to the sun's magnetic fields, because those have both been flat for 50 years.

Lance posts:

[[Some mysterious process leads to increasing temperatures.
This releases CO2 from the oceans.
This keeps the temperatures increasing.
Eventually some mysterious process leads to cooling in spite of the fact that CO2 levels are still high.
CO2 levels remain high for hundreds of years even though temperatures remain low. This is because the mysterious other forces are stronger than the CO2 forcing.
]]

I don't see that you've made any real effort to understand the issue. It's not a "mysterious process," it's the Milankovic cycles which govern ice ages. Google "Milutin Milankovic" for details. The variations in CO2 are due to changes in the ocean's temperature from the said variations, which affect how much CO2 it can hold in solution -- Google "Henry's Law."

And the fact that temperature leads CO2 in a natural deglaciation doesn't mean that's what's happening now. For the past 200 years CO2 has led temperature. I can give you time series data back to 1880 if you're interested.

Lance continues:

[[ The best you can do, as RealClimate attempts, is to claim that while CO2 did not start the warming it might have perpetuated it. Of course there is no evidence that this is the case other than naked assertion, nothing in the data proves or even suggests this is so. ]]

The things in the data that suggest it are as follows.

1) the variations in sunlight distribution are not enough to cause the magnitude of the temperature changes. Something amplifies them. The likely amplifier is CO2.

2) CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

Which of those do you dispute?

What if all - solar cycle change, other patterns such as ENSO,PDO, AMO, shift at the same time, such CO2 outgassing could be a major part of today's increasing CO2 concentration.

Isotope ratios. We measure them.

Barton,

You have grossly exaggerated the level of confidence in the ability to correlate past glaciations events to known orbital/axis parameters. The words "unknown causes" for specific periods of cooling and warming was a direct quote from your beloved RealClimate.

That the earth's orbit and axial tilt vary because of gravitational interaction with other bodies in the solar system is not in dispute. These interactions are chaotic in nature and cannot be determined to any great precision over long periods in the past or in the future.

As I have already said, this is a red herring anyway. The issue at hand was whether the ice core graphs can be used to demonstrate that CO2 "is the most powerful" climate forcing as Al Gore stated when he showed those charts in AIT.

I have to give cce credit for ceding the point gracefully, "It is, however, inaccurate for Gore to say that the CO2 relationship is the most powerful...".

Perhaps others could learn something from his candor, rather than trying to quibble with my use of the term primary.

"So by your definitions of the word 'primary' if a person catches a cold and then is shot it would be correct to say that their primary health problem would be the cold?"

What if he's shot by meth fiends for the Sudafed he bought to fight his cold? What then Mr. Smartypants?

Hehe.

Well you got me there Another PS. The cold would definitely have been the primary cause of his problems.

Couldn't it be that upwelling of lots of cold deep water from the ocean will most probably cause a cooling on a global scale and - with a time - may result in a levelling off of the CO2 concentration without changed human policies?

don t be silly. scientific hypotheses do NOT start with the phrase "couldn t it be".

1. fact: humans are adding CO2 to the atmosphere

2. fact: CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is rising.

yes, a miracle could remove the CO2 from the atmosphere. but we should NOT base our actions on the hopüe fro a miracle.

and please stop using Anthony watts as a source. he simply doesn t know enough about statistics or climate to run th blog the way he does. a significant number of his posts are total nonsense. (do some reading on tamino s site for this..)

ps: Lance obviously hasn t understood the egg problem in this topic. you are misrepresenting RC to support your false claims.

climatepatrol said:

Gess What? It is just the U.S., not global correlation? I have no problem with that

Another dish of your favourite fare, I see: tripe.

@Barton Paul Levenson

Thank you very much for all your professional insights. That'll give me a lot of homework. At least I can scratch out some of the Ys right away and make N out of them (N=irrelevant or proven wrong).

@P. Lewis
(#53 followup): Admittedly, it is better to use the dropdown menue TREND, not ANOMALY and then the POLAR view to get the proportions right. Then it is good to always choose the right BASE PERIOD. But the idea is the same: Whenever the U.S. is cooling, the global average is cooling and vice versa. How much of the pronounced warming of 1975-2003 is due to CO2 and not an indirect effect driven by the strongest solar cycles (peaking 1955 and 1985) along with its time lag in ocean heat uptake due to strong El Ninos, by a decrease of black soot and other aerosols, by contrails, has to my present knowledge yet to be quantified empirically (not merely by models). But I will do my homework first.

Barton, showing supreme patience, responded to Climatepatrol's dubious list of points with quite some effort. I'd like to comment a little further though on CP's "[point] 10 - Global warming is good":

At least it is not possible to asses (sic) the winners and losers of a warming world beyond reasonable doubt.

Barton notes:

We know it will cause more droughts in continental interiors (ask the Australians), more violent weather along coastlines and sea level rise. The bad outweighs the good in any serious estimate.

In case he is commenting on just the human 'good vs bad' equation, I think it is important to note also, for the umpteenth time, that there is no doubt at all, not even unreasonable doubt, that many many species and even ecosystems will suffer immensely from increased CO2. Ask just about any ecologist, whether plant or animal, and they'll have quite a lot to say about this. And it's not just temperature that is the problem. Lower oceanic pH, and shifting equilibria in plant associations which arise from different photosynthetic adaptations to CO2 concentrations, are two inescapable issues that no amount of denying will make disappear.

There is no doubt at all that there are some very bad ecological consequences sluicing down the pipeline already, and the tap ain't bein' turned nearly fast enough to fix that mess...

Of course, if the denialist Ostriches beg to differ, I would dearly love to see upon what evidence they base their claims.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 03 Apr 2008 #permalink

The words "unknown causes" for specific periods of cooling and warming was a direct quote from your beloved RealClimate.

Quote mining from an article that ISN'T ADDRESSING THE ISSUE is nothing more than outright lying.

climatepatrol:

Couldn't it be that upwelling of lots of cold deep water from the ocean will most probably cause a cooling on a global scale and - with a time - may result in a levelling off of the CO2 concentration without changed human policies?

Yes, but I don't think we can afford to wait until the next ice-age.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 03 Apr 2008 #permalink

"Why are denialists so obsessed with Al Gore?"

Because their views are driven entirely by partisan politics and right-wing ideology so they assume that those who disagree wit them have similar motivations.

You know like how anyone who thinks torture is bad is a terrorist sympathiser.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 03 Apr 2008 #permalink

To summarise Climate Patrol at 11:

1. There's insufficient evidence to prove warming

2. Warming is occurring and its caused by cosmic rays AND the sun and Volcanims AND aerosols AND changes in ocean currents.

3. There is no warming. That same data that's insufficient to prove warming proves conclusively that colling is occurring.

4. Al Gore is fat.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 03 Apr 2008 #permalink

Barton... you wrote.."What solar cycles? It can't be TSI or cosmic ray modulation due to the sun's magnetic fields, because those have both been flat for 50 years".

Solar flux has gone from over 200 to about 80 in the last few years. Solar cycle 23 has not ended yet, despite two false starts. The length of the sunspot cycle has varied from 9 years to 14 years(since records have been kept) if you think this is flat?..well...

Soviet style dis-information seems to be your forte. Not just you but most of the warmists on this site.

1) the variations in sunlight distribution are not enough to cause the magnitude of the temperature changes. Something amplifies them. The likely amplifier is CO2.

What temperature changes? They are no longer there. Amplifies them?? To amplify you need a source of energy, where is this so called energy coming from? CO2 is not the likely cause of your mystical amplification.

The theory of sunspot/cosmic rays/magnetic fields/climate driver relys on cosmic ray deflection, the nucleation of water particles forming clouds which reflect more sunlight.
The whole CO2 thing is getting tiresome.
All the climate drivers are currently going in the negative direction except the level of CO2. If CO2 was the primary climate driver the temperature would be going up but it is not. Get off stuck on stupid and understand that the climate is changing and CO2 is a greenhouse gas but the change has changed direction and CO2 is being overpowered by the main climate drivers.
It is hard to admit you have been made a fool by con-artists but it happens all the time. Even after it has been proved that you have been conned it is very hard to admit the fact. Con-artists know this and rely on this to keep people quite about being conned. It takes an exceptional person to stand up and admit to all and sundry that they were conned or that they were wrong in their position.

Kent, you appear to be trying to start an argument different from the one that everyone else is having.

Your position appears to be that we;re all doomed due to a maunder minimum starting. This does not in any way, shape or form disprove AGW.

sod says,

1. fact: humans are adding CO2 to the atmosphere.

Ok.

2. fact: CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is rising.

Yeah, so.

And you think this constitutes a scientifically compelling argument?

The question is how much does that increase in CO2 effect the earth's climate and is there compelling evidence that we should do something about it. I believe we disagree on these points.

The chicken and the egg comments were just more of the arrogant clucking that typifies this site.

If CO2 was the primary climate driver the temperature would be going up but it is not.

Well, kent (along with the gang over at Watts' place) has at least made a testable prediction. Tamino has even quantified the test for those who are interested. You can go with the world's climate scientists and predict that the "Global Warming stopped in 1998" argument will suffer a whimpering death in coming years as temperatures continue to rise. Or you can cast your lot with the whizbangs who proudly reported the correlation between two sorted lists of data[1], and look forward to your vindication in a cooling trend. It's up to you.

[1] As dsquared once remarked in a different context, "I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth."

Slightly off-topic, and not breaking news, but I was interested to learn recently that Peter Norvig did his own reality check on Oreskes and Peiser. It serves to underline just how lopsided the scientific debate really is. But among us amateurs, who cares? If I can list a bunch of talking points that make me doubt a thing, then it must be doubtful, right?

Eli was the first to use the Google Scholar search method back in the early Schulte days (Sept 2007).

1. A large majority of the references dealt with the economic and biological consequences of global climate change showing the wide scientific consensus agreeing with the IPCC AR4

2. In the first 200 or so listings there were none that argued against the conclusions of the IPCC AR4.

Everybunny is welcome to repeat this exercise. Remember to use the advanced search in Google Scholar, enter the string "global climate change" in the match exact phrase box and set the limits for the year that you want.

Please send your results to Princess Denial c/o Energy and Environment.

Fergus Brown went even deeper,/a>

Lance, in #54 above you wrote:

"That the earth's orbit and axial tilt vary because of gravitational interaction with other bodies in the solar system is not in dispute. These interactions are chaotic in nature and cannot be determined to any great precision over long periods in the past or in the future."

In th present context (T/CO2 variations from ice cores), "long times" is tens to hundreds of thousands of years. Please provide a reference to the peer-reviewed literature that supports your second sentence for time scales of less than one million years.

By Robert P. (not verified) on 03 Apr 2008 #permalink

but why would cold water come welling up from the deep? it's denser than warm water, and they get very layered, and mixing between the upper and lower levels of the ocean is very slow, is it not?

Lance:

The question is how much does that increase in CO2 effect the earth's climate

Lance, I still haven't heard a statement from you saying you were wrong when you said:

Models that do not correlate well with reality are currently the basis for the claim that we face such damages (from AGW).

As I pointed out above, empirically derived estimates for climate sensitivity are presented in papers in the second list on this page.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 03 Apr 2008 #permalink

kent writes:

[[Soviet style dis-information seems to be your forte. Not just you but most of the warmists on this site.]]

Listen, you disgusting little toad, I had relatives who died in the fucking GULAG. Accuse me of something like that to my face and you'll get your ass kicked.

Uh, Tim.

Barton Paul Levenson just physically threatened another poster. I had a post disemvoweled for making an obviously facetious remark that another poster should off himself with a plastic bag.

So I guess it's OK to make actual physical threats so long as you are a climate alarmist.

kent, just because you dislike the information that is imparted to you doesn't make it disinformation. Anyway, how do you know it's not McCarthy/Hoover-style disinformation, or Nixonian disinformation, or GW Bush disinformation, or just your plain ignorance in the face good information? You don't! But around 90% of the respondents here probably know which cap fits. Shall we have a vote?

@ P. Lewis, #47

Extreme value analysis of observed daily temperature anomalies from a new quasi-global data set indicates that extreme daily maximum and minimum temperatures (>98.5 or <1.5 percentile) have warmed for most regions since 1950.

is a quote from your metoffice paper link "Brown, S. J., J. Caesar, and C. A. T. Ferro (2008), Global changes in extreme daily temperature since 1950, J. Geophys. Res."

Sure. No doubt about that. But in terms of more weather extremes, I care little about the opinions of any metoffice person. I just like to see facts.

Is there any evidence of more extreme variations in temperatures worldwide? Yes or no?

Well, the opposite is true for Switzerland, just for an instance: Changes in variability and persistence of climate in Switzerland by Martin Beniston and Stéphane Goyett, 2007.

There seems to be little evidence that the proportion of CO2 that currently drives temperature change will cause more extreme weather events, although some more extreme events (in terms of wind shear) may have been detected during periods of ocean warming (such as 1975-2005).

Er, Tim

I actually concur with Lance over BPL's recent statement:

kent writes:

[[Soviet style dis-information seems to be your forte. Not just you but most of the warmists on this site.]]

Listen, you disgusting little toad, I had relatives who died in the fucking GULAG. Accuse me of something like that to my face and you'll get your ass kicked.

Why BPL would want to kick kent's beast of burden is beyond me ... seems downright cruel to the donkey. Can't abide animal cruelty. If he meant that, then that's a disemvowelling offence. If he didn't, then ... well, your decision is final.

But in contrast to Lance, I don't think his "topping" comment was facetious, and he's repeated it and tried to make it sound facetious. Surely that's worth another disemvowelling? Anyway, he's a snitch and no one likes a snitch, and snitches should be disemvowelled ... Hmm! I think I got a consonant wrong ... Ah! There it is, to the right of 'v' ...

climate patrol said:

But in terms of more weather extremes, I care little about the opinions of any metoffice person. I just like to see facts.

Well them there's facts in those UKMO climate scientists' JGR paper. I couldn't care less whether you like them or not.

climatepatrol:

But in terms of more weather extremes, I care little about the opinions of any metoffice person. I just like to see facts.

Question for you: Is a thermometer reading a "fact" or an "opinion"?

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 04 Apr 2008 #permalink

climatepatrol

First, an apology of sorts. I didn't realise that you'd tried changing the discussion point to storm variability. Fine, but that was not the issue and I've got no time or desire to follow it up now.

But so that everyone who can't be bothered to follow your ref link knows what they say about Switzerland, the abstract says:

This paper investigates the shift in variance under conditions of atmospheric warming, under the paradigm that a warmer climate induces greater variability, as has been suggested by a number of other studies. Based upon observational data since 1900 at both a low and a high elevation site in Switzerland it is shown that, at least for these locations, the inter-annual and decadal variability of both maximum and minimum daily temperatures has in fact decreased over the course of the 20th century despite the strong warming that has been observed in the intervening period.

The decrease in climate variability is attributed to changes in daily weather conditions as well as these aggregated in weather types, with an observed reduction in the more perturbed weather types and an increase in the weather patterns that exhibit greater persistence, particularly since the 1960s and 1970s. The greater persistence recorded in daily weather conditions associated with more elevated pressure fields helps to explain the decrease in variability during a period where minimum and maximum temperatures have been observed to rise considerably since 1900.

An insight into the future behavior of temperature variability in Switzerland, based on the daily results of a regional climate model applied to the IPCC A-2 emissions scenario (a high greenhouse-gas emissions scenario leading to strong climate forcing during the 21st century) suggests that a warmer climate may induce greater variability in maximum temperatures, but also greater persistence beyond selected thresholds; in the case of minimum temperatures, variance remains close to current conditions in the latter part of the 21st century, but the persistence of cold events diminishes substantially, as can be expected in a climate that is estimated by the climate model to warm by about 4°C on average in Switzerland.

As the/your(?) discussion of the guts of the paper there makes clear:

They demonstrated that the temperatures at both sites have increased by approximately 2°C over the most recent four decades. However, here comes the surprise. The authors note that whatever the period considered, the variance decreases with increasing temperature. Let's say it again: So the minimum temperatures were less extreme, but the maximum temperatures were also less extreme.

This is contrary to to horror scenarios which suggest that the weather will be more violent with rising temperatures, right?

which ties in nicely with those "metoffice people's" general conclusions on temperature changes in the last 50 years.

That last sentence is all contrarian hyperbole isn't it? And there seems to be a conflation in the discussion, but I've no time sadly to delve deeper. Anyway, one study in a mountainous region with its probable own regional microclimate imprint is hardly evidence against increased weather variability regionally or globally. Now Europe as a whole or the USA ...

>climatepatrol:
>> @ Tracy P. Hamilton

>>We do know that, whatever the cause, warming the ocean's going to cause CO2 to be outgassed, and that the CO2 thus released will add its own warming input into the system.

>This is a nice quote - actually rather a sceptical argument for the IPCC case. What if all - solar cycle change, other patterns such as ENSO,PDO, AMO, shift at the same time, such CO2 outgassing could be a major part of today's increasing CO2 concentration.

That wasn't me you're quoting. Second, only a major-league idiot would deny that humans are the reason CO2 is increasing because humans are burning hydrocarbons.

By Tracy P. Hamilton (not verified) on 04 Apr 2008 #permalink

In addition to my usual caveat to not dignify the troll, I will point out that at the time the C02 warming lag post by Jeff Severinghaus was put up on RealClimate I criticized it fiercely for its wording, and in particular, "Some (currently unknown) process causes Antarctica and the surrounding ocean to warm." The post author, who has particular expertise in the subject, should for that very reason have sought feedback on how other people would understand the post - it begged to be quote-mined. I understood exactly what he meant but I also knew it was self-sabotaging.

It should be a lesson to us in what Eli Rabbett calls elocution, cf http://rabett.blogspot.com/2008/03/elocution-lessons-ethon-brought-in-m…

It's just as self-sabotaging to dignify Lance. No demonstrated honesty or competence so far, and the battle has moved on to mitigation, anyway.

Anyway, for future quote-mine battles - what Jeff Severinghaus meant was that even stipulating the precise degree of solar forcing and fine-grained analysis of the precise mechanisms involved involving Antarctica are not completely provable - though climate scientists are using the provably most likely interpretations of available data at every turn - we nonetheless have a warming picture that has an acceleration that best fits the greenhouse contribution of C02 released from the ocean. The warming is not due to a cause currently unknown to Severinghaus. He's saying, don't quibble about the different known pathways and contributions, because stipulating most of them leads to the same results.

It reminds me of the Russian saying that whether you whack the pole with the owl or the owl with the pole, the owl is still dead. And, I would add, the cause is the collision of the owl and the pole. And trolls, this is why some of us (Dano and I come to mind) regard you with such contempt. The more honest and detailed the explanation, the more dishonestly and exploitively you respond - you punish real scientific experts for not resorting to sound bites, then project on to people that accept the scientific consensus that they're using sound bites.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 04 Apr 2008 #permalink

Lance:

You have grossly exaggerated the level of confidence in the ability to correlate past glaciations events to known orbital/axis parameters.

Instead of making ignorant assertions, why don't you read something that actually does show correlations between past glaciation events and known orbital/axis parameters such as Ice Ages in Detail.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 04 Apr 2008 #permalink

So the minimum temperatures were less extreme, but the maximum temperatures were also less extreme.

This is contrary to to horror scenarios which suggest that the weather will be more violent with rising temperatures, right?

I don't suppose climatepatrol has lived anywhere near cyclone (hurricane) affected areas otherwise he would be more likely to realize that during the cyclones themselves, the temperature is not particularly extreme. In fact usually the maximum temperature during cyclones is usually a little cooler than average. He apparently doesn't realize the difference between extremes of temperature and extremes of violent weather.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 04 Apr 2008 #permalink

Chris O'Neil,

I wonder if any of the people that reflexively lambasted my "quote mining" of RealClimate even understand the physics of, and evidence for, Milankovitch cycles correlation to past "ice ages".

I followed your link to Tamino's Open Mind". Here is something that will perhaps shed some light on the issue.

There is some correspondence; lots of the ups and downs of the precession cycle correspond to ups and downs of the 23,000-year cycle in the LR04 stack. But there's also a lot of change in the 23,000-year LR04 cycle that doesn't correspond to changes in the precession cycle. Unravelling exactly why the obliquity and precession cycles sometimes lead to strong response, and sometimes only to weak response, is one of the as-yet unsolved mysteries of paleoclimate.

Looking back at the first graph, we see that not only have the cycles gotten stronger over time, there's a steady increase in the average ice coverage of the planet. The reason is as yet unclear, but may be related to a slow decline in the average CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. This much is abundantly clear: the cycles of earth's obliquity and precession are definitely driving the ice ages, or at the very least determine their timing. Still, there's a lot to learn about ice age cycles; that's one of the things that makes science fun!"

Did you notice the part about

"Unravelling exactly why the obliquity and precession cycles sometimes lead to strong response, and sometimes only to weak response, is one of the as-yet unsolved mysteries of paleoclimate."

...and this " There are other unsolved mysteries ...Still, there's a lot to learn about ice age cycles; that's one of the things that makes science fun!"

So now I have shown that both RealClimate and Tamino agree that the exact cause and timing of glaciation events is "mysterious".

Doubtless some twit will claim I am again "quote mining"(probably one of the hot air twins, Marion Delgado and Dano).

Again I point out that I was dragged into this diversion by quoting RealClimate on a point that makes ZERO difference to my original argument, that the data from ice cores shows no causal link between CO2 and warming in past glacial periods. Again I credit cce for at least ceding this obvious point.

BPL,

I didn't find your outburst particularly offensive. I was just noting the subjective standard for disemvoweling.

"you punish real scientific experts for not resorting to sound bites, then project on to people that accept the scientific consensus that they're using sound bites."

perfect synopsis.

Lance:

So now I have shown that both RealClimate and Tamino agree that the exact cause and timing of glaciation events is "mysterious".

Maybe one day you will learn Lance that science is not about determining answers to an infinite number of significant figures. Until then your writings merely reveal your ignorance and naivety.

my original argument, that the data from ice cores shows no causal link between CO2 and warming in past glacial periods

So you're saying that a change in CO2 did not cause a change in temperature. How on earth can you say that? Tell us one time when the CO2 rose significantly but the temperature did not rise significantly soon afterwards.

BTW, I still haven't heard a statement from you saying you were wrong when you said:

Models that do not correlate well with reality are currently the basis for the claim that we face such damages (from AGW).

As I pointed out above, empirically derived estimates for climate sensitivity are presented in papers in the second list on this page.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 04 Apr 2008 #permalink

"[[Soviet style dis-information seems to be your forte. Not just you but most of the warmists on this site.]]

Listen, you disgusting little toad, I had relatives who died in the fucking GULAG. Accuse me of something like that to my face and you'll get your ass kicked."

The Levinson troll is, of course, the same creature that has repeated called me an anti-semite and refused to apologise for doing so despite knowning that I'm a Jew who had relatives die the holocaust.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 05 Apr 2008 #permalink

BPL scripsit:

I apologize to Kent and to the blog at large for that last post. If I'd taken a moment to think and/or calm down I probably wouldn't have posted it.

Lance seems to have missed the money quote from Tamino ...

" This much is abundantly clear: the cycles of earth's obliquity and precession are definitely driving the ice ages, or at the very least determine their timing."

Lance seems to think that since Tamino points out that we don't know all the details, we know nothing, and also seems to think that his selective quoting shows that Tamino agrees.

While the full quote Lance so kindly provided shows just the opposite.

Once again Lance proves that he is a liar and an idiot and an idiotic liar.

Hypothesis confirmed!

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 05 Apr 2008 #permalink

dhogaza:

Lance seems to think that since Tamino points out that we don't know all the details, we know nothing

Gah, what do you expect from denialists? Part of the modus operandi is to go around searching for words like "unknown", "unsolved", and "mysterious" in posts and papers on climate science, and then blow them up to humonguous proportions.

Are you pedantic little cretins still kicking that shabbily constructed straw man? I was never claiming that Milankovitch cycles were not a large part of the reason for past glaciation events. As I have said about ten times now I was just paraphrasing the beginning of RealClimate's argument about the correlation of CO2 and the warming events of the ice core record.

No one, including me, is claiming that Milankovitch's theory is incorrect, just that it is not so fully understood as to be used to give exact explanation for the beginning or extent of any particular glaciation event. Again, that is why RealClimate used the words "unknown causes".

Do you nimrods get it now? If not then go argue with your demigods at RealClimate.

Lance ("little cretin"),

I still haven't heard a statement from you saying you were wrong when you said:

Models that do not correlate well with reality are currently the basis for the claim that we face such damages (from AGW).

As I pointed out above, empirically derived estimates for climate sensitivity are presented in papers in the second list on this page.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 05 Apr 2008 #permalink

As I have said about ten times now I was just paraphrasing the beginning of RealClimate's argument about the correlation of CO2 and the warming events of the ice core record.

I was just paraphrasing! I was just paraphrasing! I was just paraphrasing! I was just paraphrasing! I was just paraphrasing!

That's what science PhD students are supposed to do in Lance's world, I guess. Just throw up a bunch of quotes and paraphrases, and say he's just paraphrasing. Ergo, he's right -- because he's never actually said anything from his own brain, so he can't be wrong.

Thanks to Chris (at #96) for the ref to Hansen 1993, whch really should have "Hansen in Wonderland" as its title, based on his Fig. 10 with its title "Wonderland model geography" (p.147). The whole paper makes Lewis Carroll a paragon of realism, with its model runs to 3000 (Fig.11), and the helpful enlargement showing that while it will be VERY HOT in about 2780, by 2800 global heat will have moderated to much what it was in 2000, without any help from Kevin Rudd and Ross Garnaut. Thank goodness!

That's the good news, the bad news from Wonderland is that there will be droughts and floods, usually in the same place at the same time. Wonderland's climate is produced by models that explicitly show past ice ages not to have been all that cold (p.147, contrary to the paleo evidence relied on by wunderkind Hansen in much of the paper). The main model "keeps ocean horizontal heat transport fixed" (p.149) - a deft elimination of El Nino etc worthy of Humpty Dumpty's "when I use a model it means just what I choose it to mean, - neither more nor less". Similarly the feedbacks from clouds could be as much as -2 W/m2 (p.152), or not, as the case may be in Wonderland c3000, but enough in the real world to cancel the forcing from doubled CO2. Hansen's Woderland ends with the admission that "unless monitoring plans are rectified, fundamental uncertainties ...will persist indefinitely", as indeed they would but for the satellite data that increasingly conflict with Hansen's Humpty Dumpty.

By Reality check (not verified) on 05 Apr 2008 #permalink

Reality check:

the helpful enlargement showing that while it will be VERY HOT in about 2780, by 2800 global heat will have moderated to much what it was in 2000, without any help from Kevin Rudd and Ross Garnaut. Thank goodness!

Can you read out to us the paragraph on p. 149 that refers to Figure 11?

@P. Lewis
Thanks for your valuable imputs. Because of the controversy and ambiguity owing to the complexity of the subject, the point on the sceptical argument list has a Y.

@Tracy P. Hamilton
#81
Sincere apologies for the misquoting. This defetes my purpose to shed a better light upon the seemingly most stupid list of sceptical arguments regarding CO2 causality. As to your imput, kindly find my answer in connection with my original post as discussed by Barton Paul Levenson.

@dhogaza
It was your comment I quoted.

bi #99. Can you read out to us the last sentence in the caption to Fig.12?

The real issue is Hansen's use of models running to 3000 to force policy change in 2008.

By Reality check (not verified) on 06 Apr 2008 #permalink

climatepatrol:

What if all - solar cycle change, other patterns such as ENSO,PDO, AMO, shift at the same time, such CO2 outgassing could be a major part of today's increasing CO2 concentration.

Except we don't have an El Nino today.

It's amazing how easily denialists understand El Nino when it suits their argument.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 06 Apr 2008 #permalink

Lance:

I was never claiming that Milankovitch cycles were not a large part of the reason for past glaciation events.

You did, of course, claim that ice cores showed that CO2 did not cause warming as in:

my original argument, that the data from ice cores shows no causal link between CO2 and warming in past glacial periods

You still haven't provided any evidence at all for this such as telling us one time when the CO2 rose significantly but the temperature did not rise significantly soon afterwards.

Considering you have also still not stated you were wrong when you said:

Models that do not correlate well with reality are currently the basis for the claim that we face such damages (from AGW).

after I stated a page with a list of empirically derived climate sensitivities, I guess I'll have to keep calling you a little cretin while you continues to ignore reality.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 06 Apr 2008 #permalink

@Chris O'Neill,

Please don't call those with questions denialists anymore. This is an open "church" here, hopefully. I don't want to use any ill tasted vocabulary here to fight this overused term.

Yes, we are in a strong El Niña now. That's why global warming stopped or paused and the ocean is back to the temperature it had 8 years ago. It's all a question of proportion between natural and anthropogenic ingredients. The temperature of the water that let off a lot of "steam" (Kathrina et al. 2005, Arctic Ocean 2007) is in a cooling phase now. For those who have not noticed: There is a POSITIVE anomaly in global sea ice cover RIGHT NOW according to Cryosphere today. Why is there so much sea ice? May I hazard a guess as non-scientist? If there is more "Ninas" like this until 2015 or so, and another big volcano, then we are back in the seventies. Impossible? On what grounds? How can you reheat the water by simply putting an infrared lid on the pan? Kidding aside, I am convinced it takes several hundreds of years until the oceans' heat content will be seriously affected by the additional anthropogenic heat content of a doubled CO2 in the athmosphere. However, Roger Pielke Sr., the specialist for Ocean heat budget, says clearly that there are other anthropogenic influences (other than CO2) on regional scales that have to be addressed now. I don't want to digress more here. I'll combine this on the above "particularly stupid";-) sceptical list later if God and Tim allow.

#104
Oh, I just noticed the real point of Chris O'Neill that we are in an El Niña and CO2 concentration keeps rising. Upwelling water is a CO2 source according to Keeling & Revelle 1985. One emergent property is clear across timescales: atmospheric CO2 can increase quickly, but the return to lower levels through natural processes is much slower (Scott C. Doney1 and ÂDavid S. Schimel, 2007). And guess what: CO2 concentration seems to be levelling off already according to:

Mauna Lea in situ (less than +1% p.a. 2006-2008)

Ian Gould, never missing an opportunity to kick someone when they're down, posts:

[[The Levinson troll is, of course, the same creature that has repeated called me an anti-semite and refused to apologise for doing so despite knowning that I'm a Jew who had relatives die the holocaust.]]

1. It's "Levenson."

2. I had relatives die in the Holocaust, too.

3. You're still an antisemite. There are plenty of nominally Jewish antisemites. Cf Noam Chomsky.

Climatepatrol: bingo, you are almost the first to notice!

Barton: Well said, my late 1st wife was a lucky descendant of escapees from Russian pogroms in the 1880s, Gould is as much beyond belief as Chomsky - and Loewenstein here in Oz.

By Reality check (not verified) on 07 Apr 2008 #permalink

climatepatrol:

And guess what: CO2 concentration seems to be levelling off already according to:

Mauna Lea in situ (less than +1% p.a. 2006-2008)

Whoopee doo.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 10 Apr 2008 #permalink

El Niña

Oxymoron of the day!

dhogaza and Barton:

Thank you for the Spanish course and definition correction.
La Niña is the correct one.

And the Tamino-lobbying seems to have caught up as well. :-)
Believe me or not: I hadn't even looked at that Muana Loa er Mauna Loa graph as presented bei NOAA and used by Watts (even Tamino makes mistakes, but that's really, really beside the point here). Anyway, the "super La Niña" that may have caused this dip at Mauna Loa, for which Antarctica is absolutely unsensitive for, seems to weaken as well. Just don't get hysterical right away when a skeptic starts to look at data and sees some variability in the natural CO2 budget as well. We know that eh? (copyright Realclimate):-)

Well CP, for someone who claims to have been interested in climate since he was a little denialist, you certainly get basic stuff wrong. FWIW, El Nino is called that because it usually manifests in South America about the time of Christmas, El Nino, being the name of the Christ child in Spanish. Nino by itself would be meaningless wrt climate.So yeah, it was a real clanger. La Nina, being the opposite phase of the cycle was named much later by contrast.

Just don't get hysterical right away

Don't even say:

And guess what

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 11 Apr 2008 #permalink

If you don't have basic respect, stop lecturing me about things I know, SIR!

By climatepatrol (not verified) on 11 Apr 2008 #permalink

@Chris O'Neill

The above #115 was not directed to you. I appreciate your imputs.

I just happended to spot something on the original dataset which turned out to have been noticed by people who really know much more about the issue than I do. Here is a quote from The Blackbird with regard to Tamino's rebuttal mockery Shocking ... uh ... Surprising ... um ... Notable ... well ... Rather Ordinary News from Mauna Loa...

...Some have made a big deal out of the fact that last month shows a decline in the seasonally adjusted value.

.

...Why would anyone rebut the non-existent claim about the one month drop, without citing anyone who has suggested any such thing? Well, not citing or linking is a good way to prevent readers from discovering there is no such claim. It is rather well known that rebutting the unmade claim that is vaguely similar to something made by a widely read blogger is generally easier than addressing arguments anyone actually made. In this case, the "one month" claim might seem vaguely related to the contents of an article Anthony Watts actually posted, which simply shows some data which happens to include a two month drop in the detrended (i.e. seasonally adjusted) values.

It turns out the two month drop in the detrended values represents a record drop. ...

So, I bet you are wondering how I know Anthony, posted only because the two month drop struck him? Well, because responding in comments on April 4th -- well before the "rebuttal" appeared, Anthony said:

"I looked at 2004 also, but this seems a little bit different. 2004 has one month of drop, this has two, with a larger effect on the running mean. Though, part of that could be an endpoint effect of the data."

I don't know what other people think, but I consider something that happens onces ever 150 times is fairly remarkable- that is, worthy of making a remark as Anthony did.

Does a two month drop this large mean the relentless climb in CO2 has leveled off? Does it mean much about climate change? Who knows? I think most would suggest it's premature to declare the rate of rise ended. As Anthony Watts observed:

It will be interesting to see in the coming months what happens globally,. . .

Yes. It will be interesting.

Records do get broken, and unusual, even remarkable things happen. This ties for the record drop set back in the 60's. The current drop may be due to the cool seas associated with La Nina, in which case, CO2 will rise when the next El Nino occurs. Or, the current drop may be instrument error; NOAA's web page tells us that we should wait for post-calibration before taking recent data as gospel.

In any case, we are still emitting carbon at a significant clip; so the CO2 will likely resume rising as it has in the past. If so, this will simply be a blip.

The event is nevertheless worthy of remarking. I'm sure we'll all be watching for next month's data and also checking the data after NOAA runs its normal post-calibrations..

Of course we are talking about a drop in the rate of increase which Anthony Watts is well aware of, mind you. Are you on the same page with me? Is there something basically wrong you see in "The Blackbird post" which, to my basic understanding, supports my comment #114?

..Some have made a big deal out of the fact that last month shows a decline in the seasonally adjusted value.
.
...Why would anyone rebut the non-existent claim about the one month drop, without citing anyone who has suggested any such thing?

It was in response to a thread on Watts' blog, some defenders of which had drifted into hostile territory, thus triggering a post by Tamino.

So, what was that about a "non-existent claim"?