Don't trust anything you read in the Investors Business Daily

I'll bet you all that in five years we'll be hearing "but they were predicting a new ice age in 2008! Thus scientists are wrong about global warming!"

An alternative take on the same information would be something like this:

Wow, we're having near record temperatures at the time of a solar minimum, what's it going to be like when we next hit maximum?

Phil

"It is the opinion of scientists, including me, that global warming is a major issue"

I can hear it now: `Oh noes, the Scientific Inquisition got him!'

Thanks for the link, Tim. You (along with the folks at RealClimate) do the lion's share of the work debunking this kind of stuff. I'm just glad I was able to contribute in some small way.

Also seen here http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4248062.html

This is the same thing that left leaning publications such as the Guardian do on an almost daily basis. Only they use excerpts from scientific sources to hype CO2 catastrophism.

Funny Tim never calls them on it.

I also like Tapping's couching the issue to use it to save face if temps start to go down over the next decade by saying,

If there is a cooling due to the solar activity cycle laying off for a bit, then the (sic) a period of solar cooling could be a much-needed respite giving us more time to attack the problem of greenhouse gases, with the caveat that if we do not, things will be far worse when things turn on again after a few decades.

Nice way to prepare for evidence that doesn't support the catastrophism theory. This is the second time in a few weeks I have seen this clever gambit employed. If temps climb it is proof of AGW, if temps dip it is proof that AGW is moderating an otherwise even cooler period and just waiting to clobber us later.

Hard to falsify this little scheme. Of course it is exactly what would happen if natural variabiltiy were at play, but so long as the politically motivated scaremongering is not affected who cares right boys?

I anticipate that a democrat will win the next US presidential election. They will pay mostly lip service to climate change when faced with the reality of the world economies dependence on fossil fuels. It will be interesting to see how certain people react when "feel good/do nothing" proposals are put forth by the new democratic president.

Lance's world: telling the truth about what science states is as evil as lying about what a scientist says.

The goodness and evilness is dependent only on whether or not the quote supports Lance's politically retarded positions.

Nice way to prepare for evidence that doesn't support the catastrophism theory. This is the second time in a few weeks I have seen this clever gambit employed.

And you're an ignoramus. Wait, no, you've got a BS in physics. You're just a common, everyday, pathological liar.

Here's a factoid that alot of people really don't get...

Climate may be influenced by more than one factor!!!

That's right kids. Radiative forcing could go... down... and forcing from increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases could go... up... at the SAME TIME! Who knows... perhaps global temperatures would respond to this variation in forcing?

Now I know this may be a strech for some people, but I hope their mental gymnastics are up to it. Of course some people have been pointing this little "Inconvient truth"
(see here: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/many-factors/
and here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/10/attribution-of-20…
and of course Soro's buddies the IPCC in Chapter 3 of AR4
)
Of course, it never seems curious to certain people that TSI has remained roughly constant since ~1950 wile temperatures continued to ... rise?

Perhaps radiative atmospheric physics has advanced enough to say that if the Earth receives less energy from the sun temperatures will respond, while if the Earth's atmosphere is more opaque to outgoing longwave radiation temperatures may also respond. Oh no... that's far to difficult for me to understand. Must be a scam to get research funding.

Christ dhogaza, don't you ever sleep or go the bathroom? I don't think I have ever posted on this site that you didn't respond within minutes.

Go outside, read a book, get laid. Jeez no wonder you're such an ill-tempered windbag.

Now that you have spewed your usual insult laden phlegm, how about actually responding to my point. If downtrends in temperature are now to be considered evidence in favor of AGW how exactly is the theory to be falsified?

Oh, that's right; tautologies aren't designed to be falsified. My mistake, I keep forgetting that.

Lance...

time zone differences. I'm on the other side of the world.

It's possible to get a BS in physics and yet be an ignoramus. I went to school with plenty.

Go outside, read a book, get laid.

Don't do all three at once.

Also, Lance, you're creating a straw man argument. AGW theory does not state that the Earth will keep warming no matter what happens. Please argue honestly.

ChrisC,

If temperatures begin to decrease then it will be clear that anthropogenic CO2 is not the DOMINANT climate forcing as has been claimed by proponents of AGW theory, but a secondary signal. Perhaps even on the level of noise.

If it is reduced to less than the main "driver" of climate it certainly reduces the weight of arguments that we must take drastic action to reduce its influence on future climate.

If the warmth from anthropogenic CO2 is only "coming along for the ride" as a much smaller signal superimposed on a much larger naturally oscillating signal, and is therefore not driving climate, then there is little reason to worry about it, let alone change the entire world's energy economy.

Well no legitimate scientific or economic reason anyway.

If downtrends in temperature are now to be considered evidence in favor of AGW how exactly is the theory to be falsified?

you could start by showing, that CO2 has NO effect on climate. or that we aren t producing any CO2.

but speaking about the (potentially) sinking temperatures:

we know, WHY the temperature is increasing. the reason is CO2 and it is a LONG TERM effect.

now if we know, WHY the temperature is "sinking" and we KNOW that it is a short term effect then we KNOW that this will only "interrupt" AGW for as short time.

If temperatures begin to decrease then it will be clear that anthropogenic CO2 is not the DOMINANT climate forcing as has been claimed by proponents of AGW theory, but a secondary signal. Perhaps even on the level of noise.

you mean if we have a HUGE volcano explosion, lots of smoke and lower temperature for a couple of years, then that is PROOF that CO2 is unimportant?

doesn t that even sound silly to you?

Wait a minute. I do not understand this post nor the comments. From what I understand is the we have entered a new solar cycle. But this post and comments imply that if this news comes out in a business article then it is untrue and we are not entering a new solar cycle???????

"Don't do all three at once."

Hmmm, there's an idea.

Boris,

I'm not creating a straw man. If temperatures begin to go down over the next decade then clearly man made CO2 is not the main driver of climate.

Measured CO2 levels are going up and if temperatures go down, over a sustained statistically verifiable period, this will be evidence against the AGW theory. Well, at least against the idea that we face catastrophic consequences from it.

Few people argue that CO2 has NO influence on climate, certainly not me. The question is whether it is such a powerful influence that we face large scale negative consequences worth taking prophylactic measures to prevent.

If anthropogenic CO2 is having a measurable but secondary effect on global temperature than this is quite a different issue than the one commonly used to justify world wide taxation and restrictions on fossil fuels.

Sod,

Try not to put words in my mouth. Of course if some huge climate event could be shown to be responsible for the decline, such as your volcano example, the jury would have to wait to see what happened when the dust cleared, but normal solar cycles being shown to dominate climate would certainly weaken any catastrophic AGW claims.

If the earth's climate is only being slightly shifted from its natural oscillation that is controlled by solar influences it doesn't make much sense to institute drastic measures to shift the wiggle slightly downward about its mean value.

Perhaps radiative atmospheric physics has advanced enough to say that if the Earth receives less energy from the sun temperatures will respond, while if the Earth's atmosphere is more opaque to outgoing longwave radiation temperatures may also respond. Oh no... that's far to difficult for me to understand. Must be a scam to get research funding.

This parody of lance left me ROTFLOLing.

I'm not creating a straw man. If temperatures begin to go down over the next decade then clearly man made CO2 is not the main driver of climate.

You've just created another strawman while insisting you didn't create a strawman.

That's very clever.

Now that you have spewed your usual insult laden phlegm, how about actually responding to my point. If downtrends in temperature are now to be considered evidence in favor of AGW how exactly is the theory to be falsified?

Your so-called point is a LIE. Why would I respond to a LIE other than to point out it is a LIE, and that LIARS ARE POND SCUM?

If temperatures begin to go down over the next decade then clearly man made CO2 is not the main driver of climate.

Lance, your thinking on this is keeping you from understanding. There is no "main driver" of climate--that's a hopelessly vague term.

Lance, I'll give you an even-money bet that temperatures in the next decade will go up by twice the per-decade rate in the 20th Century. Let me know if you want to put your money where your mouth is.

La Nina combined with reduced solar activity should not equal a reason for complacency or belief that AGW has stopped. Both are short term transitory. There is no sign that production of GHG's is heading for any kind of decline, and using La Nina and reduced solar activity as excuses for making minimal efforts towards restraint seems very shortsighted. It will probably take the next strong El Nino to have the urgency of the issue taken seriously. But I wouldn't hold my breath for any real efforts to phase out coal, especially by any Australian Gov't. Not any attempt to restrict coal exports at the source! It's going to be the consumers who are going to be held responsible for those emissions. But failing to do anything about emissions won't be reason to restrict access to Aussie coal! A bit cynical to think that, but when couched in terms of short term economic hardship versus future costs, I expect short term will win. And that is how it will be pitched to the public, by well resourced vested interests.

A millennial perspective on Arctic warming from 14C in quartz and
plants emerging from beneath ice caps
http://www.glyfac.buffalo.edu/Faculty/briner/buf/pubs/Anderson_et_al_2
008.pdf

What I find interesting is figure 3 which shows this area was ice
free from 6,000 years ago until 2,800 years ago, then there was
intermittent ice cover from 2,800 years ago until 1,100 years ago and
ice covered for the last 1,100 years.

Isn't it odd that this area has only been covered by ice for the last
1,100 years and the rest of the last 6,000 years this area had less
ice than today? That means that more than 80% of the last 6,000 years
that area has had less ice cover than today and it was actually ice
free for more than 50% of the last 6,000 years.

Perhaps a bigger question would be why has this area been covered in
ice for the last 1,100 years?

Cheers

Jim

Your link doesn't quite work, try the first one on this list:
http://www.glyfac.buffalo.edu/Faculty/briner/buf/pubs/

On a very quick look at the abstract, the paper does not seem to say what you think it says.

Tim drools,

"I do not understand this post nor the comments. ... this post and comments imply that if this news comes out in a business article then it is untrue and we are not entering a new solar cycle???????"

Which part of the phrase "took a scientists statements and work out of context" do you not understand?

Lance screams,

"This is the same thing that left leaning publications such as the Guardian do on an almost daily basis. Only they use excerpts from scientific sources to hype CO2 catastrophism."

Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it!

I see the crapmill continues to churn...

Well, once again we see the powerful arguments of the what-agw? folks, and their deep understanding of how truth is achieved by honest debate.

Seems to me, if there were any intelligent argument against agw, by now somebody would have posted it, by random chance even if they couldn't recognize it among the bullshit.

But let me show my scientific openmindedness; perhaps one of the skeptics could explain for me the mechanism between a solar minimum and lower temperatures, when the minimum being discussed is "extraordinarily low levels of magnetism", not heat.

Jim: Notice the reference in the article to insolation changes. These resulted from orbital changes (Milankovitch cycles) that increased high Arctic insolation during the mid-Holocene and subsequently reduced it. The trend toward reduced insolation continues today, which as the paper points out makes the current melting even more significant.

Lance, hand-waving at this makes it seem larger than it really is. As it happens Tapping is the author of a reconstruction finding that the *maximum possible* irradiance reduction in the event of a Maunder Minimum repeat is 1.5 w/m^2 (in absolute terms, so the effective forcing change would be a fraction of that, let's say .25 w/m^2.). That's equal to about 10 years of CO2 accumulation at present rates. So things could cool slightly for a brief period (on the order of .05C), but we'd be right back on track very shortly. Given natural variability (which has swings much larger than .05C), the effect on the climate would be on the edge of detectability. We would absolutely know it was happening, though, since solar irradiance is measured with excellent accuracy. But as Tapping points out, any benefit we would see from such a solar reduction would be relatively short-lived and would be paid back later. Summing up, there's no basis in any of this for arguing that CO2 is not the main driver of climate.

That said, if you're confident that we're entering a solar grand minimum and that Tapping's maximum irradiance reduction will be forthcoming, all else being equal you should take Brian's bet.

BTW, I think I was actually the first to post something on this (in what I used to think was a quite prominent place, but apparently not). I wants credit, I do.

One more reason Lance is usually ahead in The Troll Race:

The cute way he uses "catastrophism" as a pejorative.Spectators are requested not to tell him it doesn't mean what he thinks it does. The trolls are to be both unhelped and unhindered.

It was with great sadness we learned that one of the trolls was apparently banned from competition for abuse of something. But you have to say it was great news for Lance.

"If temperatures begin to decrease then it will be clear that anthropogenic CO2 is not the DOMINANT climate forcing as has been claimed by proponents of AGW theory, but a secondary signal."

By this reasoning, of course, a nearby supernova, a major asteroid impact or a truly massive volcanic eruption of the type that comes along every few million years would also "disprove" AGW.

By a similar logical process, lobotomising a newborn would be definitive proof that nurture not nature is the "primary" determinant of IQ.

Steve Bloom #26- do you have any pointers to information on the Milankovitch cycles during the holocene? They would be very interesting.

"...but normal solar cycles being shown to dominate climate would certainly weaken any catastrophic AGW claims."

Except that what is being talked about here is not a "normal solar cycle".

"One more reason Lance is usually ahead in The Troll Race:

The cute way he uses "catastrophism" as a pejorative"

What's even cuter is how he combines it with "Al Gore is the Pol Pot" economic catastrophism of his own.

It might impress anyone reading this site who wanted to learn about AGW if people could lay off the abuse and note that the paper quoted by Jim about ice in Baffin Island contains the following quote:

" Radiocarbondates on vegetation appearing beneath retreating ice caps indicate that some plateau ice caps have existed continuously since (around) 350 AD, demonstrating that the current warming is unique in at least the past 1600 years. Lake cores and in situ 14C inventories in quartz document a trend toward more frequent ice cover in recent millennia, coincident with reduced summer insolation (Figure 2a), making the current ice-cap retreat even more unusual. Collectively, these data extend the timeframe in which 20th century warming is unprecedented in this part of the Arctic well beyond the past 400 years established by Overpeck et al.(end quote)
This is good evidence that the MWP was not as warm as the temperatures we have now. Surely concentrating on that point is more interesting to others than just swapping insults.

The part I loved in the article is: "I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of energy on this planet."
Boy howdy, them first-class scientists may have stumbled on the reason night-time temperatures are warmer. Need I remind everyone that the stars are only out at NIGHT!? Score another one for first-class science, it's the best kind of science.
Thanks to friend E for pointing this out to me. rb

re 12:

"'Go outside, read a book, get laid.'
Don't do all three at once."

Any two out of three works, though. Grin.

Arby said:"Need I remind everyone that the stars are only out at NIGHT!? Score another one for first-class science, it's the best kind of science."

Uh, the stars are always there. You only see them at night, but believe me, they're still there. Score one for smart asses, eh?

Lance said:
"the jury would have to wait to see what happened when the dust cleared, but normal solar cycles being shown to dominate climate would certainly weaken any catastrophic AGW claims."

Lance - why? You left out the part of your argument where you connect your premise with your conclusion.

If CO2 forcing causes about 3C/2xCO2 temp increase and we know the rate of increase in CO2 and therefore the rate of increase of the CO forcing - all fo which is approximately true - and for some period of time - a couple sun spot cycles, say - a strong negative forcing from decease insolation causes a net negative forcing - how on earth is that evidence against a strong long-term positive forcing effect of CO2?

Be specific, please, Lance. You have a degree in physics - I'm sure your professors often made you show your work, so you know how.

gator: Heck, you caught me.

What is not news is that a reporter took someone's statements out of context and reported them in a way to further their reporting/political agenda. Happens all the time, left, right, center, doesn't matter. The news media are nobody's friend.

Shorter ben:

Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it!

What is not news is that a reporter took someone's statements out of context and reported them in a way to further their reporting/political agenda. Happens all the time, left, right, center, doesn't matter. The news media are nobody's friend.

you got that wrong again, ben.

basically ALL "sceptic" reporting in the right wing media is made up of such "misunderstandings" and "misreprensentations".

if you remove them, you are stuck with articles about/by the Pielke clan...

Thanks for this Tim. I posted this at Bolty's blog where he had slavishly repeated it.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comme…

?

More hilarity from Ye Olde Chronicles of ye Great Denialist Crapmill:

"When the voiceover [in the CEI ad] says 'Greenland's glaciers are growing, not melting', we see the abstract of a paper entitled 'Recent Ice-Sheet Growth in the Interior of Greenland', with a glowing halo around the word 'Growth'. Eagle-eyed viewers may spot the fact, however, that the article is only talking about the 'interior', and not the edges. In fact, the paper stresses that available data confirms that the edges are thinning."

I invite all "warmists" (heh heh) to spread this little tidbit far and wide. Show the denialists that we, too, can be good at mindless propagation of stuff!

Guthrie, the Wikipedia article is quite good (although the second sentence has a mistake) and includes the basic plots for recent times. It should be possible to find whatever details you want through the links there. One of them is to the paper projecting another 30,000 years or so for this interglacial, and I suspect it would include specifics about the Holocene up through the present.

Lance writes:

[[normal solar cycles being shown to dominate climate would certainly weaken any catastrophic AGW claims.]]

Lance, there are four ways we know changes in sunlight aren't driving the present global warming.

1) We've been measuring the Solar constant (also called Total Solar Irradiance, TSI) from satellites like Nimbus 6 and -7 and the Solar Maximum Mission, going back several decades. We have excellent proxies for before that, going back to around 1600 AD. TSI has not increased or decreased appreciably in the past 50 years, so it can't have been driving the sharp upturn in global warming of the last 30.

http://members.aol.com/bpl1960/LeanTSI.html

2) Increased sunlight would heat the stratosphere first, since that's where the ozone layer absorbs solar ultraviolet light. Instead, the stratosphere is cooling, as predicted by the climate modeling. Partly this is due to ozone depletion, but it's also due to increased carbon dioxide, since the heat balance in the stratosphere is between ozone heating and carbon dioxide cooling.

3) Increased sunlight would heat the equator and low latitudes more than the poles and high latitudes, due to Lambert's cosine law -- great latitudes are slanted away from the sun, which is one of the reasons the poles are colder and the equator hotter in the first place. Instead, we're seeing "polar amplification" -- again, predicted by the climate modelers -- due to something called the ice-albedo feedback.

4) Increased sunlight would act more during the day than during the night (duh!). But nighttime temperatures have been rising slightly faster than daytime temperatures. That's consistent with increased atmospheric opacity due to more greenhouse gases, but it is not compatible with increased solar heating.

Some denialists try to say it's not TSI that matters, but the sun's magnetic cycle or the galactic cosmic rays it mediates. The problem is, most of these other cycles follow the TSI cycle (the 22-year sunspot cycle). Like TSI, galactic cosmic rays show no trend over the past 50 years.

It ain't the sun.

It's those pesky stars, I tells ya. rb

Brian Schmidt,

"Lance, I'll give you an even-money bet that temperatures in the next decade will go up by twice the per-decade rate in the 20th Century. Let me know if you want to put your money where your mouth is."

Sure, sounds like fun. How much did you have in mind?

Marion Delgado,

I happen to disagree with your opinion on AGW that does not make me a "troll". I make civil posts and try to make lucid points backed by empirical evidence. I don't spew insults and emotionally overheated rhetoric like dhogaza, but since he and other abusive posters toe the party line they get a pat on the back instead of opprobrium.

Lee,

You say...

"If CO2 forcing causes about 3C/2xCO2 temp increase and we know the rate of increase in CO2 and therefore the rate of increase of the CO forcing - all of which is approximately true - "

Uh, pardon me? That is the whole question and I don't believe your proclaiming it "approximately true" counts as proof. Nice try at asserting your conclusion.

Global temperatures have remained almost flat for the last decade and the coming year is forecast to be cooler than 2007. Now before anyone starts screaming "cherry picking" I'll admit that doesn't mean that the long term warming trend won't continue. But if the current leveling off of temperatures continues, with no large negative forcing in evidence it will certainly put into doubt estimates of a 2.5+C climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2.

Protestations to the contrary only highlight the attempts of some to place AGW beyond the reach of falsification.

Lance:

"I make civil posts and try to make lucid points backed by empirical evidence. I don't spew insults and emotionally overheated rhetoric like dhogaza, but since he and other abusive posters toe the party line they get a pat on the back instead of opprobrium."

Oh, the irony.

"Global temperatures have remained almost flat for the last decade and the coming year is forecast to be cooler than 2007."

Is "almost flat" an alternative way of saying "not flat"?

bi,

Almost flat means just what is says. The last ten years show no statistically significant increase in global average temperatures.

Lance screams,

"The last ten years show no statistically significant increase in global average temperatures."

What was the statistical test exactly? What was the baseline? What was the confidence level? Or are you just dropping some nice big words just to sound scientific?

Now, back to our regularly scheduled "Clinton did it! Clinton did it!"...

bi screams,

"What was the statistical test exactly? What was the baseline? What was the confidence level? Or are you just dropping some nice big words just to sound scientific?"

Shorter ben, again:

Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it! Clinton did it!

I guess ben or Lance could've simply pointed us to the exact source which says that "global temperatures have remained almost flat for the last decade", so that we can find out for ourselves exactly what this "almost" means. But they didn't, instead preferring to play silly games. I wonder if they realize they're being full of garbage?

Well, no matter, because I happen to know where this silly claim came from: a particularly ridiculous Boston Globe column by one Jeff Jacoby:

In fact, 2007's global temperature was essentially the same as that in 2006 - and 2005, and 2004, and every year back to 2001.

No statistical test, no confidence level, no nothing. "Essentially the same" is merely a sneaky way of saying "not the same".

And don't even get me started on the "global warming doesn't exist and is caused by the sun" genius argument... oops, too late:

Sorokhtin dismisses the conventional global warming theory that greenhouse gases ... is causing the earth to grow hotter. ... he points to solar activity ... as having the greatest effect on climate.

And, not forgetting the quote-mining of Svensmask and Friis-Christensen...

In a recent paper for the Danish National Space Center, physicists Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen concur: "The sun . . . appears to be the main forcing agent in global climate change," they write.

Here's what they actually think:

In conclusion, the results presented in L+FC graph used by the documentary do not exclude the impact of other climate forcing agents on the climate at any period in the last 400 years, including anthropogenic greenhouse gases. To suggest as much is incorrect. Indeed, the lack of correlation demonstrated by Lassen and Friis-Christensen beyond 1985 (omitted in the program [The Great Global Warming Swindle]) highlights that there must be other climate forcing agents at work. Alternatively, this could indicate that solar cycle length is not (as is the case for the sunspot number) a perfect descriptor of solar activity associated with climate.

bi, I have nothing to add to either side of the debate on AGW, I was just pointing out that you are being a dip. What exactly is the "Clinton did it!" crap? If anyone is "screaming," it's you. Quick being a dick.

bi,

I don't believe I "screamed" anything. There are several data sets (RSS, UAH, GISS etc.) and many ways to calculate statistical variance from the mean. If I choose one set of data and one statistical technique no doubt someone or other will say I chose the wrong data or technique to emphasize my point.

All reasonable techniques on any of the main data sets from the last ten years will show little or no warming.

There are several data sets (RSS, UAH, GISS etc.) and many ways to calculate statistical variance from the mean. If I choose one set of data and one statistical technique no doubt someone or other will say I chose the wrong data or technique to emphasize my point. All reasonable techniques on any of the main data sets from the last ten years will show little or no warming.

hm. least square on GISS shows NORMAL warming.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm

you might want to read "wiggles" and "garbage" by Tamino as well...

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/08/31/garbage-is-forever/

Lance posts:

[[Global temperatures have remained almost flat for the last decade ]]

I've seen you many times on Tamino's "Open Mind" blog. You were then when he posted his mathematical analysis showing that the trend from 1998 was significantly up. You couldn't refute it. Now you come in here repeating the same old crap you know has already been refuted?

You're being dishonest. There's no excuse for this kind of behavior.

BPL, #48: That's one of the more cogent and informative comments I've seen on one of these threads, thanks. Not that it will do any good with the denialist knuckleheads, but I thank you for taking the time and effort. rb

Credit due to Steve Bloom for catching this first as he notes in #29 -- and I'd read it there and forgotten it myself til reminded, as others came along in that same thread who'd failed to notice his early warning.

And as I did there I'm suggesting a new blogging award should be created for the first person to spot and publicly point to a lie that will be picked up and repeated assiduously around the world.

I'm suggesting a pair of unlaced bronze boots, along the lines of the Orwell Award:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40431000/jpg/_40431049_bba-award_…

With an inscription:

"A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on."
-- Mark Twain.

Steve deserves at the very least a virtual trophy, unless someone trumps this find during the calendar year. Of course, there's a lot more year to come. Keep yer eyes open.

Dagnabbit, I forgot to use "markdown" to fix that link. I sorry. I try be better.

BPL,

I have posted on Tamino's blog exactly one time (July 31st 2007, 6:51 pm) on the topic of Surfacestations.org and it had NOTHING to do with Tamino's mathematical analysis of the temp trend since 1998.

Unlike some posters I'll skip calling you a liar and assume you are just confused.

Try to be a bit more circumspect next time. Remember WWJD.

re 50, Lance.

I note you completely disregarded the question I asked you. Yo has stated a premise, and claimed a conclusion - I had asked you to tell us how your premise supports your conclusion. You didn't even mention that issue - why not?.

Lee,

You state your conclusion "...a strong long-term positive forcing effect of CO2" as part of your premise"...CO2 forcing causes about 3C/2xCO2 temp increase... ".

This is called question begging and is an example of circular reasoning.

There is no "argument" for me to answer.

I am not disputing that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, just your assertion that there is a +3C per doubling of CO2 effect on global temperatures. Just because you say it is "approximately true" doesn't make it so.

The whole issue hinges on the sensitivity of the climate to CO2. If CO2 continues to go up, and temperatures do not, it will be an inescapable conclusion that your claimed sensitivity is way off. If temps decrease you can't then claim that a negative solar influence can be held responsible for overwhelming the CO2 effect after having claimed that positive solar influences were not responsible for most of the previous increase.

Well not credibly anyway.

re #48:

And it can't be an increase in solar heating, because it affects winter temps more than summer temps, similar to day/night, and tropic/arctic. In fact, this whole pattern is entirely consistent with reduction of heat loss, and entirely in opposition to any model emphasizing increasing heat input, including the current craze postulating greater heating due to a reduction in cloud cover because of a reduction in cosmic rays, due to solar magnetic flux or the earth's passage through the galactic plane.

And it can't be an increase in solar heating, becase the moon ain't heating up.

Lance, I didn't state a conclusion.

I asked you to connect your premise and your conclusion.

I put in a clue for you, a paragraph asking "IF" (not that word) CO2 causes warming at at some rate, and if there is a decrease in a different forcing (solar, in this case) that outweighs that for some time, then how does that cast any doubt on the AGW/CO2 mechanism for warming.

You made a strong claim that a solar downturn leading to cooling would cast doubt on the role of CO2. Ive asked you to support that connection - how does your premise lead to your conclusion? Why would it be evidence that there is a hole in the CO2 mechanism? You are trying manfully to avoid answering that, but its a transparent dodge. Why aren't you answering that question?

Lance,

I checked and you were right. I had you confused with another poster, fred. I apologize for calling you dishonest.

As BPL points out, there are many fingerprints of warming due to increases in tropospheric greenhouse gases, that include:

- stratospheric cooling;
- variation in diurnal and noctural temperature ranges;
- lattitude variation of enhanced warming;
- outgoing longwave radiation anomalies that can be accurately measured by sattelites.

AGW manifests itself in more ways than a simple increase in global temperature. These are observable and falsifiable. However, to make things simple, I propose the following

1. we have a quantitative estimate of the climate sensitivity of the Earth to both increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and of total solar insolation (TSI... measure of the sun's output) as well as natural variablity such as PDO, SAM, NAO ect...;

2. Greenhouse gas concentrations are measured at various sites arounf the world (Muna Loa, Cape Grim ect), hence we have reasonable estimates of GHG concentration in the atmosphere. Solar observatories such as SOHO measure TSI very accurately;

3. Using a variety of measurements over the whole globe (satellites, surface stations, ships, SYNOPS, IR imagery) we have estimates of average surface, lower, mid upper troposhperic and straotoshperic temperatures;

4. Using said measurements and quantitative estimates, we can see how the Earth's global temperatures in a variety of atmospheric levels differ, and how the various forcings differ. We can then test our understanding by comparing the quantitative estimates of climate sensitivity with what is observed. If a low max in the 11 year solar cycle occurs and temperatures fall by an amount that is more than expected and statistically significant, there may be a problem with our estimates of climate sensitivity, or our measurements of forcings

Now here the kicker... We've been doing this for more than twenty years! That's right sports fans, detection and attribution studies have narrowed down various climate sensitvities to a level where we can say with a high degree of statistical confidence, that recent warming is due primarily to increasing concentration of Green House gases.

It's always possible that new information will come to hand to falseify this theory. However, at this stage there is no scientific reason to delay the implementation of GHG cuts. The basic physics has been in for almost a century, and agrees well with observations. Those who claim that AGW is "un-falseifiable", without mentioning names, have obviously not read enough of the current science to input anything meaningfull.

Sorry for the loooooooong post.

No problem BPL. I don't agree with your opinion on the magnitude of climate forcing due to CO2, but I have observed you to be a fair and honest person. I figured you just had me confused with someone else.

Lee,

I thought I had answered your question but I'll try again.

The approximately 0.7C increase in global mean temperature observed over the last 100 years is claimed by proponents of AGW to be mostly due to increases in anthropogenic CO2. Also, other possible climate forcings such as total solar irradiance (TSI) and its interaction with cloud forming galactic cosmic rays have been discounted by said proponents as possible causes of the observed warming.

If over the next ten years CO2 continues to increase in atmospheric concentration and temperatures do not increase and there is no new climate forcing introduced (volcanoes, asteroid impact etc.) then it is evidence that CO2 was not mostly responsible for the increase in temperatures observed over the last century and that we face no dire consequences from a doubling of atmospheric CO2.

I think that is stating it as clearly as I can.

ChrisC,

I could do a point by point critique of your lengthy laundry list of AGW "finger prints" if you like, but for now I'll say that you have overstated the evidence.

There just isn't empirically verifiable quantitative evidence to support the conclusion that climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 is 2.5C or greater. This is the crux of the issue.

All reasonable techniques on any of the main data sets from the last ten years will show little or no warming.

If George Orwell were still alive, would he write a book entitled "1998"?

Lance claims to have partially completed a PhD progam in physics. There's no way in the world that he CAN'T know that cherry-picking, as he and so many others do with 1998, is inherently dishonest. Which I'd say justifies my characterization of him, though my case doesn't rest on that evidence alone.

Lance, on what basis do you justify your choosing 1998 as a starting point for your claim that warming has been flat. It's a false claim, regardless, but hey, c'mon, give us a little love and justify your choice.

dhogaza,

Ten years is just a nice round number that happens to have significance to humans because, barring mutation or meat cutting accidents, they have ten digits on their hands. Why there is even a special english word for ten years, a decade. Climate scientists even refer to changes on the "decadal scale" so it's not some arcane time period I chose to fit my nefarious purposes as you have inferred.

I never claimed it was the definitive climate interval. I even said people would accuse me of cherry picking as you have.

Never the less, temperatures have not increased in any statistically significant way during the last ten years and this year is starting off at well below the average of the last thirty years.

Maybe it is only a brief respite from the increase evident over the last thirty years or maybe it is the beginning of a downward trend.

Time will tell.

Anyone else notice that Lance has changed his argument?

Lance, you originally argued that if a downturn in solar output caused a decrease in temperatures, that this would be evidence that CO2-induced warming is minor and not a worry.

I asked you to defend that argument. Instead, you have responded by making a different argument.

BTW, TSI has been discounted as a cause for the warming of the last 50 years because there is no trend in TSI over the last 50 years.
And cosmic rays have een discounted because teh evidence does not match the hypothesis, and because the evidence for the postulated mechanism suffers from weak evidence at best, and what there is actually largely counters the claimed mechanism.

And stop being a transparently dishonest twit, Lance. You aren't choosing 1998 because we have 10 fingers, and you freakiing well know it. If people were choosing 10 year periods for that reason, then last year, they would have bene using 1997, and the year before that, 1996.

In 1008, 1998 was a startilingly warm year compared to what came before. In 1999, 1998 was stilla startlingly warm year, compared to waht came before an dafte. 1998 was exceptional, clearly a large deviation from the baseline.

For the last several years, temps have been very, very close to those of 1998, and 2005 was likely warmer than 1998. What was extreme a decade ago, is now the norm. To pick a time period starting with the most extreme deviation from baseline, and claim anything based on it, is simply dishonest - even if we do ahve 10 fingers.

Lee,

I think you are mistating my argument. My last post clearly states the same argument I have been making all along in this thread.

Calling me a "transparently dishonest twit" says more about you than me I'm afraid.

There just isn't empirically verifiable quantitative evidence to support the conclusion that climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 is 2.5C or greater.

There's plenty of evidence that CS could be much higher than 2.5 deg C. In fact, observational estimates of CS are notorious for being unable to exclude high sensitivities, in most cases up to 6C.

But you qualified your statement so much that you could move the goalposts for days. Let me say now, I'm not interested. If you want to point to possible flaws in empirical estimates of CS, please do so. But your statement does not accurately reflect the literature.

Lance, Ive quoted you:

"the jury would have to wait to see what happened when the dust cleared, but normal solar cycles being shown to dominate climate would certainly weaken any catastrophic AGW claims."
Earlier, you said:
"I'm not creating a straw man. If temperatures begin to go down over the next decade then clearly man made CO2 is not the main driver of climate."
and:
"Of course if some huge climate event could be shown to be responsible for the decline, such as your volcano example, the jury would have to wait to see what happened when the dust cleared, but normal solar cycles being shown to dominate climate would certainly weaken any catastrophic AGW claims."

IOW, you are saying that a downturn in solar output, would be different in some way from a 'huge climatic event' such as a volcano, and if solar downturn causes cooling, then AGW isn't a problem.

---

BTW, I called you a transparently dishonest twit for your cherrypicking about starting a trend with 1998, and your justification about it being a decadal period. Can I assume that up until Dec 31, 2007, you were using 1997 as your starting year? No? And that starting Jan 1, 2009, you will use 1999 as your starting year?

How about just using all the freaking data - that's the honest way to analyze data.

"There just isn't empirically verifiable quantitative evidence to support the conclusion that climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 is 2.5C or greater. This is the crux of the issue."

Ahh, well if that's the crux, then I can help you with that:

"An Observationally Based Estimate of the Climate Sensitivity", J. M. Gregory et al, Journal of Climate Volume 15, Issue 22 (November 2002)

"A probability distribution for values of the effective climate sensitivity, with a lower bound of 1.6 K (5th percentile), is obtained on the basis of the increase in ocean heat content in recent decades from analyses of observed interior-ocean temperature changes, surface temperature changes measured since 1860, and estimates of anthropogenic and natural radiative forcing of the climate system. ... The median is 6.1 K, above the canonical range of 1.5-4.5 K; the mode is 2.1 K."

"Calling me a "transparently dishonest twit" says more about you than me I'm afraid."

"There just isn't empirically verifiable quantitative evidence to support that conclusion, is the crux of the issue."

Lance (#50) said: "Global temperatures have remained almost flat for the last decade and the coming year is forecast to be cooler than 2007. Now before anyone starts screaming "cherry picking" I'll admit that doesn't mean that the long term warming trend won't continue".

Then in #52 he said: "The last ten years show no statistically significant increase in global average temperatures".

Lance which data are you referring to when you make those statements? Also, what statistical technique did you use to arrive at "no statistically significant increase"?

If you plot the GISS surface data from 1998 to 2007 then do a linear regression you will find that the temperature increased at a rate of 0.0205 degrees C per year during that time period. That is quite a high rate. (note that I cherry picked the warm year of 1998 as my starting point, the rate would have been even higher if I had used 1997 or 1999).

How did you arrive at your conclusions, draw a straight line between the 1998 and 2007 values? That is what it sounds like to me. I'm sure that they show that this is wrong in high school math classes let alone graduate level physics classes.

How did you arrive at your conclusions, draw a straight line between the 1998 and 2007 values? That is what it sounds like to me.

I doubt if he even did that. My guess is he's just parroting what he's read elsewhere.

My guess is that his only original contribution to the "warming stopped in 1998" is his claim that if God didn't want him to lie about the data, he would not have given him ten fingers.

Heh... I wonder exactly what "graduate level physics" Lance actually does know... is he bluffing even on that count?

There just isn't empirically verifiable quantitative evidence to support the conclusion that climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 is 2.5C or greater.

And this just isn't true. From Climate sensitivity from empirical observations:

"There have been a number of studies that calculate climate sensitivity directly from empirical observations, independent of models.

Hansen 1993 looks at the last 20,000 years when the last ice age ended and empirically calculates a climate sensitivity of 3 ± 1°C.

Lorius 1990 examined Vostok ice core data and calculates a range of 3 to 4°C.

Hoffert 1992 reconstructs two paleoclimate records (one colder, one warmer) to yield a range 1.4 to 3.2°C.

Gregory 2002 used observations of ocean heat uptake to calculate a minimum climate sensitivity of 1.5.

Tung 2007 performs statistical analysis on 20th century temperature response to the solar cycle to calculate a range 2.3 to 4.1°C."

Refer to the link for the citations. BTW, this is number 32 on the list of skeptic arguments.

Lance posts:

[[If over the next ten years CO2 continues to increase in atmospheric concentration and temperatures do not increase and there is no new climate forcing introduced (volcanoes, asteroid impact etc.) then it is evidence that CO2 was not mostly responsible for the increase in temperatures observed over the last century and that we face no dire consequences from a doubling of atmospheric CO2.]]

It would be evidence of more than that. It would be evidence that much of what we know about radiation physics and even quantum theory is wrong. It would require a huge paradigm shift in basic physics.

Lance writes:

[[Never the less, temperatures have not increased in any statistically significant way during the last ten years and this year is starting off at well below the average of the last thirty years.]]

Lance, do the regression of temperature anomalies on years for 1998-2007 (N = 10). Then do them for 1988-2007 (N = 20). Then 1978-2007 (N = 30). Make a list of the p-values of the regressions. Do they tell you anything?

There are two hypotheticals in this case:

1) that the sun is entering another "Maunder Minimum" (with essentially no sunspot cycles) [It's a little early to tell that to say the least]

2) that another "Maunder Min' would result in global cooling.

Some solar experts (eg, Leif Svaalgard) do not believe the sun's energy output ( total solar irradiance) has changed appreciably since the time of the last maunder Min.

Here's some reconstructions of TSI since 1700. Note that, according to Svalgaard, TSI basically has the same value today that it did back in 1700 (when it was still in the maunder min)

So pondering the effect of a new Maunder Min on global warming may amount to little more than a "double hypothetical".

BPL,

I'm taking your suggestion. Frankly dhogaza was correct when he said I was "parroting" what I have read elsewhere. I have not performed the calculations myself. (Honestly, how many of you have taken the time to download the data sets and then performed the statistical analysis?)

I will take the time with the RSS, UAH and GISS data, from the last ten years, time permitting and get back to you.

Lance:

Frankly dhogaza was correct when he said I was "parroting" what I have read elsewhere. I have not performed the calculations myself. (Honestly, how many of you have taken the time to download the data sets and then performed the statistical analysis?)

At least I bother with hunting down the publications which do contain such calculations. I'm sure that the "sources" you're parroting from don't even bother with the concept of "calculation".

How about showing that you actually know something about physics: in F = GMm/r² why do we like to use the Earth's radius as an approximation for r?

Here are the results from the regressions I suggested (GISS land-sea global temperature anomaly on year):

10 points:R^2 29%F 3.28t 1.81p 0.11
20 points:R^2 61%F 28.0t 5.29p 0.000050
30 points:R^2 73%F 74.5t 8.63p 0.0000000022

In other words, the warming 1998-2007 is not significant because the sample size is not large enough. That's why picking 1998 as the starting date is "cherry picking." Why are they using the last 10 years and not the last 20, 30, 120, or 150?

I have annual temperature anomaly and CO2 time series data for 1880-2007 if anyone wants a copy.

Lance:

Honestly, how many of you have taken the time to download the data sets and then performed the statistical analysis?

I downloaded NCDC and GISS to do various regressions years ago. I can't imagine anyone who hasn't done any regressions at all can contribute much to any global warming debate.

bi,

That expression is the simplified scalar equation. Oh, and you do know it is not relativistically correct right?

BPL,

You are making my point that any calculation of the linear trend using the data of the last ten years is not statistically significant as I said.

Chris O'Neil,

Doing a linear regression on the data sets isn't likely to shed new light on the situation. I assumed that the numbers I have seen quoted by Tamino and others were correct. But, I am going to do it myself just to satisfy my curiosity.

Of course linear regression is only useful in determining if data fits a linear trend line. There is no reason to believe that increases (or decreases) in average global temperature should be linear in nature.

Lance posts:

[[You are making my point that any calculation of the linear trend using the data of the last ten years is not statistically significant as I said. ]]

My point was that your point is vacuous. You are using the fact that the trend isn't significant over 10 years to infer that there is no warming or that warming has stopped. But all it means is that you're using too small a sample size. There's no reason to think the trend in the past 10 years is any different from the trend in the previous 10 years. "Global warming stopped in 1998!" is just not true.

You are making my point that any calculation of the linear trend using the data of the last ten years is not statistically significant as I said.

YOU chose a short period.

YOU chose the starting point to be an obvious outlier!

YOUR discovery that there is little correlation is a joke.

just EXTEND the time period and change the starting point, perhap?!?

Of course linear regression is only useful in determining if data fits a linear trend line. There is no reason to believe that increases (or decreases) in average global temperature should be linear in nature.

linear regression works pretty fine on the temperature development over the last 100+ years.

it doesn t work well with FEW data points and a FLAWED choice of starting point.

BPL,

The sample size is not the problem. I can construct a data set of ten points that has an r^2 value approaching unity and p value approaching 0. The problem over the last ten years is with the non-linearity of the data. Temperatures have gone up and down in a pattern that is highly non-linear.

The real question is whether temperatures will continue to increase in the future. If the average global temperatures do not increase you can use as much past data as you like but the ever decreasing rate of temperature change is going to falsify the claimed correlation with atmospheric CO2 which is projected to keep right on increasing.

Attempts to shift the discussion to linear regression are not going to change this fact.

The sample size is not the problem. I can construct a data set of ten points that has an r^2 value approaching unity and p value approaching 0. The problem over the last ten years is with the non-linearity of the data. Temperatures have gone up and down in a pattern that is highly non-linear.

that is total NONSENSE!

here is the data:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.txt

it is NOT "non-linear" or moving "up and down".

the one single PROBLEM there is, is your choice of an OUTLIER as starting point in a short term analysis.

a regression on the last 9 years (yes, that is shorter, but AVOIDING the outlier) gives an IMPRESSIVE fit:

y = 0.03x + 0.3467
R² = 0.6338

(0.03 gives you a warming rate of 0.3°C per decade!!!)

That expression is the simplified scalar equation.

Does that sound like an answer? I guess not...

Temperatures have gone up and down in a pattern that is highly non-linear.

And in a fit of pure genius, you somehow try to "prove" that there's no "statistically significant" increase in temperature precisely by appealing to linear models.

If the pattern is non-linear, why not try to find a non-linear model to fit the data with?

(But... oh no! That'll bring us right back to those treasonous climate models by Hansen et al.! Oh, the horror...)

Lance posts:

[[The sample size is not the problem. I can construct a data set of ten points that has an r^2 value approaching unity and p value approaching 0. The problem over the last ten years is with the non-linearity of the data. Temperatures have gone up and down in a pattern that is highly non-linear. ]]

You do not have enough points to be able to test for nonlinearity. Look at the size of the standard deviation for those ten points. You just don't have enough data. If a linear fit isn't significant, can you imagine how adding extra variables would look by partial-F test?

You are looking at noise and thinking it's signal.

Of course linear regression is only useful in determining if data fits a linear trend line. There is no reason to believe that increases (or decreases) in average global temperature should be linear in nature.

So why don't you take it up with Tamino, rather than the peanut gallery here? Tamino's a professional statistician who claims, at least, to have made some fairly high-profile contributions to the theory and practice of statistical analysis.

So go take him down.

And why don't you take that big brain of yours and take down Gavin Schmidt and the other bozos at RealClimate, since you clearly know more about their profession than they do? They welcome serious skeptical contributors.

Frankly dhogaza was correct when he said I was "parroting" what I have read elsewhere.

Tell us something we didn't know already, Lance. Any other confessions you'd like to know?

bi,

You asked, "How about showing that you actually know something about physics: in F = GMm/r² why do we like to use the Earth's radius as an approximation for r?"

I'm not sure what you are asking here. Perhaps you mean that because if we use the radius of the earth for "r" in Newton's equation for universal gravitation then the gravitational force "F" on a mass "m" at the earth's surface can be set equal to ma with "M" being the earth's mass

F = GMm/r^2 = ma

... then you can eliminate m on both sides and set the result equal to little "g" the acceleration due to gravity at the earth's surface.

GM2/r^2 = a = g

Is that what are you asking or is it something else?

Oops, the "2" next to the "M" in the last equation is unneccessary since I defined "M" as the earth's mass. I originally use "M1" and "M2" for "m" and "M".

Excuse the typo.

Bzzt: they're ba-a-a-a-ck.

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=332289
Lorne Gunter, National Post
Monday, February 25, 2008

"... Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon...." lgunter@shaw.ca

Already being quoted around the intartubes.
See Andy Revkin's dotearth at the NYT for example.

Unless solar activity has the miraculous effect of sucking vast quantities of C02 out of Earth's atmosphere and into deep space, I don't see how it could affect the overall trend of increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.

But then again, I believe in plate tectonics.

Another howler in the IBD editorial is this:
For instance, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research in Germany report the sun has been burning more brightly over the last 60 years, accounting for the 1 degree Celsius increase in Earth's temperature over the last 100 years.

Oooh, scary, and eminent German researchers concluded this!!

I searched and found the actual news release ( http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/pres… ). It indeed says "the Sun is in a state of unusually high activity, for about the last 60 years"
But the news release starts with
"solar activity affects the climate but plays only a minor role in the current global warming"
and concludes
"This means that the Sun is not the cause of the present global warming."

IBD just MADE UP their "accounting for" conclusion. Shame on them.

solar activity cycle laying off for a bit, then the a period of solar cooling could be a much-needed respite giving us more time to msn nickleri attack the problem of greenhouse gases, with the caveat that if we do not, things will be far worse when things turn Ameritania Hotel New York on again after a few decades. However, once again it