The Sydney Morning Herald has printed another letter correcting Michael Duffy's wrongheaded column. Bob Beale writes
Accusing a scientist of falsifying data is a grave and professionally damaging charge, about the worst one can make. Michael Duffy was careless and wrong to allege that Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "fudged" climate data during his recent public lecture in Sydney ("Truly inconvenient truths about climate change being ignored", November 8).
Duffy said he was shocked that Dr Pachauri displayed a graph of average global temperatures erroneously showing a sharp climb in the past decade, when in fact there had been a "plateau".
I have checked the graph in detail and watched the lecture on YouTube. It's clear that Dr Pachauri was truthful and Duffy made a naive error: he did not, or could not, see from the body of the hall that the graph showed his "plateau" because he was looking at a longer-term trend line - a running average of the yearly figures. That line includes the figures for the past decade, and it does rise sharply.
It is ridiculous to suggest that Dr Pachauri should have focused attention on the past decade when discussing a climate system that operates on a much longer timescale. The graph shows many other plateaus, peaks and troughs. Over the past century, they amount to a rising trend.
Whatever the short-term picture, it is no comfort that 11 of the past 12 years were the warmest on record. Mr Duffy neglected to mention that truth.
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Good stuff Bob. Calling these guys out as liars is the way to go.
Unfortunately, calling them "careless and wrong" -- or even liars, fools and/or idiots -- is simply not enough.
While that might work with most rational adults, many of these people are far more like the two year old who revels in any and all attention he can get -- whether positive or negative.
I think it will take a charge (and conviction) for libel to stop this garbage.
Unfortunately, most scientists have neither the time nor the money to go after the a-holes who are alleging scientific fraud based on the flimsiest of "evidence". And in some countries, one has to hurdle a pretty high bar to make libel stick.
The worst part is that the a-holes understand this all too well.
JB,
To go with the 'style' of this blog I suggest you may have to grow up a bit before you post here again.
Did I smell the whiff of legal action? Here you are JB, sue me; Pachauri doesn't know what he is talking about;
http://woddfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1978/to:1994/trend/plot/uah/from:…
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1995/to:2000/trend/plot/uah/from:…
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:2001/to:2009/trend/plot/uah/from:…
You can sue me for incompetence JB; I'll try that first link again;
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1978/to:1994/trend/plot/uah/from:…
Now maybe one of you smart litigious guys can tell me the point of breaking up the temperature history around 1998.
Cohenite says "Pachauri doesn't know what he is talking about"
And you do, cohenite?
Ah, yes, of course you do...
but, in addition to Pachauri, Tim Lambert, Eli Rabett and Tamino also do not know what they are talking about, having made your highly regarded list of ten worst blog posts of all times.
I guess I should also be highly honored just to be addressed (or is it "dressed down"? [undressed?] ) by the head of the "Cohenite Academy". Do I get a signed plaque?
Dave A: I wasn't aware that Tim Lambert awarded "style" points. but thanks for telling me. I wouldn't want to lose out on yet another award/honor.
With so many awards, there won't be any room for the Christmas candles on the mantel before you know it.
cohonite,
What do you mean by "the point of breaking up the temperature history around 1998"?
1998 was an exceptionaly hot El Nino year and the denialists therefore like to start their trends there. That way they can gloss over the fact that every year since then except one is hotter than previous year, and ignore the fact that the trend over the longer term is up up up.
Merry Xmas to you JB; Craig, I was thinking of the use Santer, Philipona and others have made of 1998; Douglass and Christy have also done a temperature analysis with ENSO removed so as to isolate the GHG 'effect'; my point is, trends always depend on where you start and begin the data, as well as how you 'refine' that data.
cohenite is as dumb as a bag of rocks. Come to think about it he IS a bag of rocks.
Yeah! Damn Straight. Screw any rigorous statistics, trend analysis, signal/noise ratios, confidence intervals. Screw basic radiative physics. Just pick a point to start your "trend".
Idiot.
Amazing, a denialist lecturing us on this point.
eli; I've always thought of you as an otherwise kindly old gentleman with split personality issues; it seems I was only 1/2 right.
ChrisC and Chris; how about addressing what I raised rather than lapsing into irrelevant ad hom; I say irrelevant because I don't care what you think. Ah what's the point, the real environmental issues are a lost cause while-ever this ego-fest of AGW has traction.
http://cce.890m.com/giss-vs-all.jpg
2008 will be close to 2000.
Wrong again
Dave A
We note your excellent concern trolling and would like to subscribe to your newsletter on same.
I wasn't wrong about you eli; I always knew I'd learn some things from you.
cce; yes very interesting; it reminded me of all the temp data graphs of the 20thC, including Fig 9.5 on p684 of AR4; they all show almost identical temp trends at the beginning and end of the 20thC with the (areosol - mirth) cooling period in the middle; this correlates with PDO phase shift and has nothing to do with CO2 trends, even assuming CO2 measurement is correct. The idea that ENSO is responsible for temp trends is becoming fashionable with a mass of credible science supporting it; ie, White and Cayon, Tsonis et al, and the latest, Compo and Sardeshmukh; there is also considerable evidence to tie in the GPCS of 1976 with the coupling of SST, upwelling rate, El Nino and temp (see Guilderson and Schrag, McPhaden and Zhang, Wijffels and Meyers, Cai et al and McLean and Quirk); a sustained El Nino does not produce heat, as some nongs persist in arguing, it just redistributes it; the irony is this accumulation of heat during a sustained El Nino seems very similar to the proposed mechanism of AGW; Bob Tisdale, as usual, has good take on it.
cohenite writes:
cohenite, the whole point of an oscillation is that it oscillates. It has no effect on the trend. The idea that ENSO is responsible for temp trends may be fashionable, but not with people who know what they hell they're talking about.
The idea that ENSO is responsible for temp trends is becoming fashionable with a mass of credible science supporting it
as Barton said, this is a completely moronic idea.
they all show almost identical temp trends at the beginning and end of the 20thC with the (areosol - mirth) cooling period in the middle;
a tiny problem with this "analysis" is the simple fact, that the WORLD is warmer today than back then.
and we had an increase in CO2.
well, we had an increase delta rays as well, emitted from denilalist brains. and there has been some specualtion that they interact with cosmic rays to increase ENSO activity.
your choice.
Shit, I knew there was some reason why a single sustained note played on an AM radio doesn't monotonically trend towards the ultrasonic!
Yeah, right, but a repeating IR beam can heat the devil out of the Earth!
That respected source of scientific untruth, the George C. Marshall Institute, funder of the Oregon Petition etc., is at it again. They've got a propagandafest being hosted by Roy Spencer who is explaining that AGW is cause by the PDO!
Upcoming Events
WASHINGTON ROUNDTABLE ON SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY
Global Warming as a Response to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
With
Dr. Roy Spencer
Principal Research Scientist, University of Alabama, Huntsville
http://www.marshall.org/subcategory.php?id=24
So that's why the oceans are warming, etc. etc.!
I thought it fitted in nicely with cohenite's ENSO claptrap.
Alright cohenite, how about you start and end with the termini of the 20th century, and use the simplest scientific descriptor of the global temperature trend that is possible...
What is the trend?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assumes that there are no long-term natural sources of energy imbalances in the Earth's radiative budget that would cause natural periods of global warming or global cooling.
yep, Mr Spencer at his best.
he is right, of course. all scientists that have worked on the IPCC report assume that all changes to the climate, even those that happened many million years ago, were caused by humans. none had a natural cause.
a very good thesis, to start some major scientific work with.
shall we guess how many IPCC panel members Mr Spencer asked, before he published "their" opinion?!? ZERO?!?
i am really curious: what major discoveries can we expect, from a paper that starts with such an assumption?!?
facts:
the IPCC indeed DOES look at natural forcings. their conclusion is, that they can NOT explain the temperature rise in the 20th century.
http://www.greenfacts.org/en/climate-change-ar4/images/figure-spm-4-p11…
this rather famous graph can be found on page 11 of the latest report by the panel...
http://tinyurl.com/2bfymb
cohenite:
How about realizing denialist hypocrisy? We've been getting garbage for years about how global warming stopped in 1998 from people who try to pretend their choice of end point doesn't matter and here we have another one of them lecturing that choice of end point matters. The hypocrisy is staggering.
Notice the word trend. What our Bag of Rocks (google the Bag's nom de spew)is talking about here is the SLOPE of the curve, e.g. the rate of warming. That might even be true, but, of course, the rate is pretty poorly bounded and even then, since the PDO, like ENSO is not harmonic, varying in intensity and period, it is not clear even if Bag had gone to rent a clue and used his 401K 201K, 101K to buy one, why the rate should be the same.
The rest is just typical Bag, a bunch of incoherent cut and paste, simply stuff with a few words in common that he found on the sidewalk and dragged in with the cat. Bag is like another guy I know, that when you try and talk with him you end up knowing less than when you started.
I'm sorry; are we off the "it's the sun and/or cosmic rays causing global warming, look at Mars" thing now? It's so hard to keep up with cutting edge science.
Out of perverse interest I checked out the references found within the bag of rocks.
Here's the first two paragraphs of Compo and Sardeshmukh (Climate Dynamics, doi: 10.1007/s00382-008-0448-9.):
"The general warming trend of near-surface temperatures since the late 19th century appears to have
intensified since the mid-1970s (Stott et al. 2006; Knutson et al. 2006), and emerged unambiguously from
a background of simulated natural climate variability after about 1990 (Stott et al. 2006). Global climate
models with prescribed variations of greenhouse gases (GHGs), aerosols, and solar forcing are now
proving successful at capturing the global mean as well as some regional aspects of these temperature
variations (Stott et al. 2006; Knutson et al. 2006; Hegerl et al. 2007).
Figure 1a illustrates the global extent of the recent observed warming as the 1991-2006 average minus the
1961-1990 average. The near-ubiquity of the warming, especially over the continents, is striking. To what
degree is this directly attributable to local GHG increases? For the planet as a whole, there is little doubt
that the inhibition of outgoing longwave radiation by such increases leads to radiative heating of the
surface (i.e. the greenhouse effect), with the warming subsequently modified by water vapor and other
feedbacks (Houghton et al. 2001). But does this also apply locally to each region in Fig. 1a? The primary
conclusion of our study is that it does not. Indeed we find compelling evidence from several atmospheric
general circulation model simulations without prescribed GHG, aerosol, and solar forcing variations
(Table 1) that the continental warming in Fig. 1a is largely a response to the warming of the oceans rather
than directly due to GHG increases over the continents (Table 2)."
A knock-down refutation of anthropogenic global warming, this aint. This is a paper about the causation of regional changes, which everyone will acknowledge are a lot harder to predict. The mechanism advanced is that land-based warming is largely due to water vapour coming from warming oceans. The cause of the oceans warming is not examined. Neither ENSO nor the PDO, Cohenite's current favourite hobby horses (how's that Planck Unit of Time coming on, Cohenite?) are mentioned once.
Neither Google nor Google Scholar can locate any paper by "White and Cayon". The only places the reference occurs are rants by Cohenite in the Marohasy shoggoth pit. Whatever it is, it's pretty obscure.
Tsonis' paper on ENSO, "On the relation between ENSO and global climate change", Meteorol Atmos Phys 000, 1-14 (2003), DOI 10.1007/s00703-002-0597-z leads off with
"Two lines of research into climate change and El Ni~no
Southern Oscillation (ENSO) converge on the conclusion
that changes in ENSO statistics occur as a response to global climate (temperature) fluctuations." Later on in the paper we get "Nevertheless, evidence presented
here is convincing in depth and scope, that global
surface temperatures strongly influence El Ni~no.
In particular, periods of rising temperature encourage
El Ni~no events, while periods of decreasing
temperature encourage La Ni~na events." In other words, this is a paper arguing that global warming causes El Nino. Cohenite has his causality the wrong way around, something made clear in the first sentence of the paper he cites.
In sum, according to Cohenite, two papers that disagree with him and one that can't be found are "a mass of credible science".
On this test, Cohenite's intelligence is about that of the bag of trace-element-doped silicon rocks sitting on the desk in front of me; able to perform google keyword searches and report on the number of hits, unable to understand the results it gets.
very good work. thanks James!
"It's so hard to keep up with cutting edge science."
It's becuase you are so blinded by this thing called evidence, Z.
ouch. really horrible piece about the upcoming heartland "conference" in the boston globe:
The scientists and scholars Heartland is assembling are not members of the gloom-and-doom chorus. They dispute the frantic claims that global warming is an onrushing catastrophe; many are skeptical of the notion that human activity has a significant effect on the planet's climate, or that such an effect can be reliably measured or predicted. Some point out that global temperatures peaked in 1998 and have been falling since then. Indeed, several argue that a period of global cooling is on the way. Nearly all would argue that climate is always changing, and that no one really knows whether current computer models can reliably account for the myriad of factors that cause that natural variability.
http://tinyurl.com/6rf7ez
Re: the Heartland Conference. I have often thought it would be fun to organise a "skeptics" conference, Yes-Men style. Gather up all the creationists, flat earthers, AIDS isn't HIV idiots, holocaust deniers, climate change deniers, etcetera, put them in a room to listen to each other, lock the door and call the media.
But then I realised that it already happens, it's called the Republican Party Convention, and people don't seem to see the joke.
The White and Cayon paper is here;
http://meteora.ucsd.edu/papers/auad/Global_Warm_ENSO.pdf
They say (and in case that link drops out, the paper is in Journal Of Geophysical research, VOL 106, NO C3, pp 4349-4367, MARCH 15, 2001);
"Thus global warming and cooling during Earth's internal mode of interannual climate variability arise from fluctuations in the global hydrological balance, not the global radiation balance. Since it occurs in the absence of extraterrestial and anthropogenic forcing, global warming on decadal, interdecadal, and centennial scales may also occur in association with Earth's internal modes of climate variability on those scales."
Compo and Sardeshmukh state;
"Evidence is presented that the recent worldwide land warming has occurred in response to a worldwide warming of the oceans rather than as a direct response to increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) over land."
Granted, they also say that "The oceans may themselves have warmed from a combination of natural and anthropogenic influences.", but given the wealth of documentation on the trigger mechanism of the upwelling cessation (in 1976, known as the GCS) and its coupling with SST, unless CO2 can cause massive and abrupt, and periodic events like that, which also restart after the 1998 super El Nino, when CO2 was still increasing, then I would suggest the qualification that C & S include is merely the de rigueur genuflection that company scientists have to include in their papers in these heady days of open and transparent scientific discourse.
Tsonis et al state;
"These shifts are associated with significant changes in global temperature trend and ENSO variability. The latest such event is known as the great climate shift (GCS) of the 1970s."
The only valid comment from your spray, James, was your opening admission of "perverse interest".
sod; one of your links is to an AR4 document which opines that all of the CO2 increase over the last century is from Anthropogenic sources. This is wrong, as 2 DOE documents show;
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/environment/057304.pdf
The relevant data is from table 3;
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/glob_c2.pdf
Exhibit 2-1 is relevant;
Combining the data from the 2 sources we see that since the start of the Industrial revolution the increase in CO2 levels of about 103 ppm is 97% due to nature and 3% Anthropogenic. Furthermore the absorption by nature of 98.5% of all CO2 means that of the annual ACO2 emmissions, only 1.5% stays behind in the atmosphere; this was 346 MT in 2004, which is equivalent to 0.04% of the total annual CO2 emmissions from nature and humanity combined. The increase in CO2 is natural. I suppose you'll rabbit on about isotopic differentiation now. Goodie.
"I suppose you'll rabbit on about isotopic differentiation now"
Yer.. who really cares about the evidence now...
Cohenite, still playing the same stupid game. Still attempting to use papers to prove something contradictory to what the authors state. Some things never change.
"I would suggest the qualification that C & S include is merely the de rigueur genuflection that company scientists have to include in their papers in these heady days of open and transparent scientific discourse."
Thing is that no one cares what your personal opinion is. It's pretty much worthless.
Tell me Cohenite, what is the source of energy for ENSO? How can it heat up the world?
Cohenite
The first paragraphs of the papers, which you selected and I quoted, make it quite clear that you have no understanding of what they say, as they clearly acknowledge global warming caused by greenhouse gases; the first one is an examination of regional temperature shifts under global warming, and the second one argues that global warming causes El Nino, not the reverse. Your reply only confirms this point, and also showcases your inability to perform basic arithmetic.
White and Cayon discusses interannual, that is, year by year, variation caused by El Nino. The line that you quote: "Since it occurs in the absence of extraterrestial and anthropogenic forcing, global warming on decadal, interdecadal, and centennial scales may also occur in association with Earth's internal modes of climate variability on those scales" is a one line speculation at the end of the paper that is not given any analytical treatment. Given that we have plenty of evidence for the causal mechanisms behind global warming, speculating that it might be caused by some natural fluctuation that just happens to occur at the same time as a worldwide increase in greenhouse gasses falls foul of Occam's razor. Just like the idea that I don't get attacked by tigers in Australia because I click my fingers all the time, it's possible but pretty unlikely.
Since you've been unable to understand the bank account metaphor which shows what's wrong with your CO2 figures, let's try another.
I am a blogger named Troilite. Every day I log on to a website named Diatribe, and post 100 words of gibberish. Every day, the webmaster of Diatribe, Lemma, deletes those hundred words and replaces them with 4 words, "rant from Troilite deleted". At the end of the year I do a word count for words published on Diatribe under my name, and come up with 4*365 = 1460. By your reckoning, since Troilite added 100 words a day and Lemma added 4 words a day, only 4/104 or 3.8%, that is 56, of those 1460 words, all of which say "rant from Troilite deleted" were produced by Lemma.
Someone says (you gotta take mercy sometimes)
"I suppose you'll rabbit on about isotopic differentiation now"
Naw, Eli will just point to Ferdinand Engelbeen's discussion
Barton Paul Levenson: You wrote, "cohenite, the whole point of an oscillation is that it oscillates. It has no effect on the trend. The idea that ENSO is responsible for temp trends may be fashionable, but not with people who know what they hell they're talking about."
Your comment would ring true if the frequency and amplitude of El Nino events equaled those of La Nina events. But they don't.
When the number and magnitude of El Nino events are greater than La Nina events, global temperature rises, and when the number and magnitude of La Nina events are greater than El Nino events, global temperature drops. There are a number of ways to verify this. Feel free to create your own.
Or try mine. Take the NINO3.4 SST anomaly data set linked below. If the frequency and amplitude of El Nino events equaled La Nina events, a running total of that data set would be a jagged line with a zero trend because there would be as many increasing periods as decreasing periods. But look at what happens if you graph the running total of that NINO3.4 SST anomaly data set. (Note that I shortened the period to 1915 to 2005 for an upcoming post. But feel free to extend it for the whole data set.)
http://i35.tinypic.com/166wxnk.jpg
The curve mimics the curve of global temperature anomaly time-series data. Try something else. Go find the coefficient determined by Trenberth for the global temperature response to variations in NINO3.4 SST anomaly. Multiply that running total data by the coefficient and plot the curve again. The result might startle you.
Here's the source of the NINO3.4 data set:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/catalog/climind/TNI_N34/index.html
Here's the SST data upon which the NINO3.4 SST anomaly data is based (At the bottom it notes that it's HADSST):
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/Pressure/Timeseries/Data/nino34.long.data
Here's the NINO3.4 SST anomaly data set I used to create the running total:
ftp://ftp.cgd.ucar.edu/pub/CAS/TNI_N34/N34.ASCII
Download the NINO3.4 data and graph away.
Let me try.
Cohenite: You have 24 toy cars. Each month Mummy and Daddy buy a new toy car. But they also make you share with your pesky little brother and each month you have to give him one of your cars and he has to give you one of his.
At the end of the year you have 36 toy cars. That's 12 more. Woohoo! Each month you got one car from your brother and one from Mummy and Daddy. Is only 50% of the increase in the number of cars you have due to your parents giving a new car each month?
The curve mimics the curve of global temperature anomaly time-series data.
doesn t come as a huge surprise, does it?
let us listen to the scientist (Tsonis) quoted by James, again:
"Two lines of research into climate change and El Ni~no Southern Oscillation (ENSO) converge on the conclusion that changes in ENSO statistics occur as a response to global climate (temperature) fluctuations."
Thank you eli; like I say you always come up with something interesting; I had followed Ferdinand's discussions at various sites with such people as Julian Flood and Steve Short and Alan Siddons; here is what Alan had to say;
In 1750, the amount of atmospheric carbon is estimated to have been about 590 gigatons. Today it is 820. That's a 40% increase....which is habitually attributed to man-made combustion. But the atmosphere's pre-industrial delta 13C value is held to be -7. Biogenic fuels have a -26 value. if the 40% increase were due to burning, then the atmosphere should be presently be at -14.6. But it's around -8.2 instead. That's only a 6% change, meaning that 94% of the atmosphere is still in what we assume is its "natural" state."
Alan uses Segalstad's technique with 1750 as the baseline.
Gee, Bob, I wish you had done that graph of NINO03.4SST anomalies when I did that post on base periods.
We have a large pot of water in a room with glass surrounds; the pot and room are heated from above by flouros; the pot of water is connected to a large reservoir of cold water and pump which recirculates the water in the pot; the pump is switched off for 20 minutes, switched on for 20 minutes and then switched off for 20 minutes. Will the temperature trend in the room be different from a scenario where the pump is only switched off for 20 minutes of the hour?
Own goal, cohenite, for about three different reasons just off the top of my head.
Anyone here think he'll figure out why?
And this ...
Is EXACTLY what we see from the creationist community ...
1. Quote paper that underscores some point of evolutionary biology, claiming that it actually support the case that life on earth was designed by a creator.
2. Dismiss the authors' own statements to the contrary by claiming that they don't really believe it, they only say so because it's necessary in order to get their work published.
In other words, evolutionary biologists are really stealth creationists, and scientists publishing results supporting AGW theory are really stealth denialists.
Are are people people double double posting posting because because of of strange strange errors errors while while trying trying to to post post??
I got a strange one I've not seen before, movable type complaining about my using a tag out of context. A close inspection showed nothing wrong with my post, preview loved it, and submitting again worked. But mine has apparently only shown up once, not twice, unlike a couple comments above.
Hmmm, got that error again:
"Rebuild failed: Building date-based archive 'Monthly20081201000000' failed: Build error in template 'Date-Based Archive': Error in tag: Error in tag: You used an 'MTEntryTitle' tag outside of the context of an entry; perhaps you mistakenly placed it outside of an 'MTEntries' container?"
No, cohenite. You can't put part of an URL in italics like you did in comment 32. Doing so makes the ScienceBlogs software put the end of the <a> tag in the wrong place -- and this is not at all surprising.
Just got the same error message. I went back, refreshed, and found my comment had gone through.
cohenite quoting:
Only if you assume that there is no CO2 circulation between the atmosphere and oceans (CO2 going BOTH ways) - a wrong assumption. But we already knew that cohenite does not understand this.
Cohenite is magnificently demonstrating why he is a lawyer and not a scientist. For a long time I have wondered if the persona is not just a parody, especially as the name refers to bits of 'irony' that fall from the sky...
On a more prosaic note, his 'sampling' of science reminds me of the many creationists who populated my teenage years and even my undergraduate years. These folk would take an evolutionary fact and distort or even invert it beyond all recognition, as previous posters have noted. What interests me though is how it was impossible to explain to such twisters of science where they are going wrong - after having butchered the science, they are convinced that they had a better grip of it than the scientists who'd synthesised it in the first place.
This even after they have been told by the people whom they refer to that they have completely misunderstood the science.
Oh, and cementite - I am patiently awaiting the response to my question at #22. Just to see what your summary would be...
It is astonishing to me that this discussion is even happening.
Good ol BJ; I'm not a creationist; in fact I'd like the AGWer's to be dragged into court in similar proceedings to the recent Dover Hts trial of ID; smugness and an over-inflated sense of superiority count for nothing in court because they the preogative of the Judge. Here is a GISS graph;
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/smooth.jpg
The temperature change from 1900-2000 is from -0.1-+0.3C =0.4C; during this time CO2 went up about 45%; TAR, F.3 states that a doubling of CO2 will result in an increase of temp of 3C; a 45% increase in CO2 should therefore have produced a temp increase of 1.35C; and that 0.4C increase over the 20thC has not had ENSO removed or an allowance for insolation which AR4 estimates at 0.16C. So let's say there has been a GHG effect during 1900-2000 of 0.4 - 0.16 = 0.24, and that's without considering ENSO. Therefore, if the 3C prediction for a doubling of CO2 is going to be validated then the remaining 55% increase in CO2 will have to produce an increase rate = to the following. In temp terms the shortfall after the 45% increase is 3C - 0.24C = 2.76C; we add this shortfall to the 3C to produce a figure of 5.76C; divide this by 55, x by 100 = 10.47C which is the figure the remaining 55% must increase the temp by to be consistent with IPCC/AGW theory.
Whilst we're on the subject of clumsy misuse of graphs, our friend the dizzy Jen is at it again.
I've been avoiding the nightsoil cart for weeks now, but perversity beckoned! In a post "clarifying the role of the sun and global temperatures trends" (gack!) Marohasy appears to think that a <20-year-span graph of global temperature, fitted with what appears to be a 4th-order polynomial for LoBF, proves her point that global temperature (and specifically the last two decades) is soley reliant upon insolation.
There is actually no presentation of insolation history on the graph, although the unwary might assume that the bizarre plot of the 'line of best fit' is such a representation.
If our dissembling Jennifer had used a graph more like this she might have actually presented a true reflection of the science... although then I suppose that the actual interpretation would be diametrically opposite to the denialist one that she is apparently trying to convince her readers of.
The usual suspects are shameless in their barracking (notwithstanding a number of attempts at instruction by stalwarts such as eli), but I really wonder who is fooled by their communal delusion anymore - other than themselves.
cohenite:
Do you ever get tired of bullshitting, cohenite?
Bags, the cute and cuddly bunny within wonders why we bother to fact check a demonstrated bag of rocks. CO2 went from about 295 to 370, from 1900 to 2000 which gives a 26% increase so using 3C per doubling we get an oom prediction of .77 C. The global temperature anomaly increased from ~-0.2 to 0.4 or 0.6 C.
BTW if you are using the graph at Ferdinands place that is for sea surface temperature anomalies not global temperature anomaly. SST reacts more slowly to changes in forcing.
I will not wave stick at the yapping purse dogs on this thread.
Rather, I want to thank sod for the link to the dead-ender conference.
It is amazing how many of these things have the same two dozen speakers. And Dennis Avery? Golden.
It's too bad, though, that we won't see photos of Baliunas cleavage competing with the high-quality spread at the dinner reception.
Best,
D
Oh, and I'd like to see you serve as the plaintiff's lawyer. Watching you try to prove that the physics underlying Climate Science is based on biblical literalism would be a treat.
Not that any judge in the country would let it come to trial. Unless Cohenite is as lousy a lawyer as he is an armchair scientist, he knows that if there were any hope of such a suite succeeding that RW denialist hacks would've been filing a flood of cases over the last couple of decades.
And regarding that error message ... I believe it's messing up when trying to recreate the front page, which is stuck claiming 38 responses to the post (mine above is the 53rd).
I can't help wonder what kind of lawyer cannot parse the difference between thinking like a creationist and being a creationist.
One that thinks like a creationist, perhaps?
Yes eli, you are right about CO2 but wrong about temp; on your graph from wiki the temp anomaly at 1900 is -0.1C, and at 2000 +0.25C; so the CO2 increase should have produced an increase of 3C/26 = 0.78C; instead we got 0.35C; but that 0.35C has to have some insolation removed; TAR and AR4 couldn't get their stories straight about solar forcing with figures ranging from 0.4C - 0.16C; and then there is ENSO; the point is the GHG leftover is going to be bugga all. You also mention Ferdinand again; Ferdinand is and does give a good exposition of isotopic tracing of ACO2, but he is not a disciple of the CO2/temp connection;
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/eemian.html
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/epica5.gif
You also mention the relationship between SST and GMST; Trenberth et al isolate a pretty consistent and short-term lag relationship between SST and GMST which correlates with the GPCS of 1976. I find it strange that this mechanism is downplayed or ignored by AGW supporters and I note noone has responded to Bob Tisdale's post.
BJ; that is a pathetic attempt to restore a correlation between CO2 and temp; even Sceptical Science accepts that an enhanced green-house is necessary for temp increases; the disparity between CO2 movement and temp over the 20thC is not even subtle;
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2HCNlongterm.jpg
http://www.gepcraft.com/WVFossils/last_100_yrs.html
Of course the divergence between CO2 and temp post 2000 is particularly damaging for AGW theory.
Ms beauty; a particularly legalistic distinction that is inherently contradictory; after all, wouldn't a creationist thougt process inevitably lead to an acceptance of creationism; as I said, I don't accept creationism or ID as science; do you?
on your graph from wiki the temp anomaly at 1900 is -0.1C, and at 2000 +0.25C; so the CO2 increase should have produced an increase of 3C/26 = 0.78C; instead we got 0.35C; but that 0.35C has to have some insolation removed; TAR and AR4 couldn't get their stories straight about solar forcing with figures ranging from 0.4C - 0.16C;
Cohenite, you didn t really just try to calculate the CO2 100 year temperature increase by looking at two CHERRYPICKED years?
why not chose 1910 and 1998 instead? looks like a full 1°C, eh?
or the 7th march 1900 and the 22. June 2000? 7.30 a.m. each, or random times of both days? could this start and end point actually matter?
is that the reason, why real scientist come to slightly different results, than you do?
Sod, yes. This is another simple answer to a simple question
Barry Brook has a very nice post on the greenhouse gas, vs total forcing. Turns out that that the additional positive forcings (mostly from other greenhouse gases and the negative ones (mostly aerosols and land use) cancel each other out and the total forcing is roughly the CO2 forcing with the caveat that the uncertainty is larger.
Eli has it that there is a great peak picker in that bag of rocks.
Well sod/eli, equity is a rare commodity at inquisitions; but if the fact that BJ 'requested' that I look at the temp trend between the "termini" of the 20thC (see comment 22 above) doesn't cut any ice with you 2 witchfinders then tough talus slopes.
Cohenite thinks that Kevin Trenberth, lead IPCC author, supports his stance that warming is caused by ENSO not CO2 (and btw Cohenite, Tinsdale was answered by sod above).
To quote Trenberth from his debate with Bill Gray:
"Natural variability does not happen by magic. The energy for warming has to come from somewhere. Ice Ages come and go but have causes associated with changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun, proving that such natural variability has a cause. El Niño is an example of natural variability associated with rearranging heat by ocean currents and we can track where the heat in the warm regions has come from. Similarly, surface ocean warming might occur if the deep ocean cools as currents redistribute heat. Instead we know that the whole ocean is warming and sea level is rising at unprecedented rates. The pattern of observed warming is unlike any natural variation and the rates of change are faster. Hence we can prove that the observed warming is not natural and we can point to the cause: observed increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that trap infrared radiation from
escaping to space."
The full paper is available at Trenberth's home page:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
It includes this paper from '97 on the interaction between El Nino and climate change, in which Trenberth specifically states that the run of El Ninos since the 1970s is "highly unusual and very unlikely to be accounted for solely by natural variability". http://tinyurl.com/6oo8fa (pdf) thus bearing out Tsonis' point that El Nino events are driven by global warming, not vice versa.
Well, James, that is the issue; Vecchi and Soden have also argued that El Nino is AGW driven; they have several papers; this one was in the 31/1/2007 Journal Of Climate;
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~gav/REPRINTS/VS_07_GWnCIRC.final.pdf
It may not want to show, but anyway, the problem with this is that the 1976 partial cessation of deepwater upwelling which kicked off the series of El Ninos and the latter 20thC +PDO finished in 1998 when upwelling resumed (see Wijffels and Meyers 2004, Cai et al 2005 and 2007, McPhaden and Zhang 2004); this suggests natural variation since CO2 continued to increase after 1998 but GMST flat-lined and SST, with the Johnson and Lyman and Willis issues with ARGO, became problematic; unless you accept Keenlyside, and the gist of Keenlyside is that natural variation dominates anthropogenic contribution.
#61: "cohenite-e-nite" - was that a Freudian slip, I wonder?
James Haughton: Actually, sod simply expressed an opinion and cited a paper. He made no effort to explain why the curve of a running total of a NINO3.4 SST anomaly data set mimics global temperature anomaly.
Additionally, my comment above was in response to Barton Paul Levenson's statement, "cohenite, the whole point of an oscillation is that it oscillates. It has no effect on the trend." He's wrong simply because ENSO doesn't follow the testbook definition of an oscillation.
You can verify that Levenson's statement is wrong in another way by examining at the curve of global temperature anomaly. 1998 was the record year in most depictions of it. Without the peak created by the 1997/98 El Nino, the trend from 1900 to 2000 would be less, as would the trend with any starting point you should choose over the 20th Century. A solitary ENSO event does impact trends, as does the frequency and amplitude of ENSO events over a time period, regardless of the cause.
Last, I suggest you read your Trenberth quote again. You quoted him as having said, "highly unusual and very unlikely to be accounted for solely by natural variability". He's expressing opinion, not stating fact. The weasel words "very unlikely" are his qualifiers.
I could cite papers from the WMO that contradict your collective opinions, but why? I have no need to play reference poker. I see your Trenberth and raise you a Tsonis. It's a waste of time. If you, sod, and the others make an effort to explain why a running total of that NINO3.4 SST anomaly data set mimics global temperature anomaly, I'd be happy to discuss it with you.
Regards.
PS: My last name's Tisdale, no "n".
Bob,
"If you, sod, and the others make an effort to explain why a running total of that NINO3.4 SST anomaly data set mimics global temperature anomaly, I'd be happy to discuss it with you"
Nino 3.4 is basically a subset of the global temp anomaly.
For ENSO to be a driver of the climate it would need a source of energy. ENSO is actually just a process of heat redistribution. Authors have suggested that it is simply a reflection of AGW. What is the energy source according t you?
NT: Good to hear from you. How would you like to do this, Q&A?
You wrote, "What is the energy source [of ENSO] according t you?" During El Nino events, the majority of heat is supplied by the Pacific Warm Pool and upwelled in the eastern equatorial Pacific.
Your next question would logically be, but where does the heat in the PWP come from? Other than the usual suspects (solar irradiance, variations in cloud cover, wind-driven and coastal upwelling, etc.), the majority of the heat is simply recycled by the North Pacific Equatorial Current from the eastern Pacific to the west. Watch the following video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT5cdbrZqhY
I'll let you choose the next question.
Regards
So, Coheniteenite, what you're saying (since this is what your references say) is that cooling due to La Nina conditions in the Pacific since 1998 is cancelling out CO2 driven warming so that temperatures have flattened rather than rising or falling. I don't think many people here would have a problem with that. Of course, it contradicts pretty much everything else you've said (assuming you are also Eli's beloved bag of rocks).
What do you suppose will happen when the La Nina stops?
(From McPhaden and Zhang 2004 abstract:
"Intensified circulation led to the development of anomalously cool tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures, which may have affected Pacific marine ecosystems and global climate. The abruptness of the rebound also obscures presumed anthropogenic warming trends in the instrumental temperature record of the tropical Pacific.")
NT, you wrote: "Nino 3.4 is basically a subset of the global temp anomaly."
NINO3.4 is a subset of global temperature anomaly, but it is also a significant upwelling point of warm water from the western equatorial Pacific, from the PWP. That warm subsurface water in the PWP is not a part of the subset of global temperature anomaly, but occasionally surfaces in the eastern equatorial Pacific during El Nino events.
You wrote, "For ENSO to be a driver of the climate it would need a source of energy."
ENSO does have a source of energy, the Pacific Warm Pool.
You wrote, "ENSO is actually just a process of heat redistribution."
Agreed, it takes subsurface water from the PWP (not included in the calculation of global temperature anomaly) and upwells it. Some of it warms the atmosphere. Much of it warms the eastern Pacific, until it is returned by the North Equatorial Current to the western Pacific where it is accumulated again in the PWP.
NT, it's late here. I'll catch up with you in 6 hours or so.
Regards
Bob,
Ok, so the energy for ENSO is derived from solar in the end, but is largely the movement of heat around the oceans.
So, can you see any relationship between TSI and ENSO?
Do you know how long it takes to complete a 'cycle' that is for the water to move through the whole process?
This is important as what you are suggesting is that the deep ocean is acting as a heat repository.
Have you attempted to quantify the amount of energy stored in the PWP?
Is there enough there to account for the 'warming'?
Also, if the PWP is acting to warm the earth, how long until it depletes?
Does it have a recharge rate? Have you quantified the 'recharge' of the PWP?
BTW how do you expect ENSO to react to AGW? Or have you excluded AGW by default?
A RUNNING TOTAL of a NINO 3.4 SSTA data set "mimics" what?!?...Bob, you need more than six hours sleep!
Freudian slip; yes, this is such a sexy topic I can barely control myself.
James, if ENSO is being run by ACO2 then you would think the second +ve PDO of the 20thC would exhibit characteristics different from the +ve PDO at the beginning; trend rate would be a good criteria, you maybe you are able to think of others; here is FIG 9.5 of Ch 9 of AR4, p 684;
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch09.pdf
The trend at the beginning of the century is identical to the trend at the end (form your own opinion by all means), which would imply that a natural process is repeating; Bob has isolated this symmetry with his NINO 3.4SST anomalies as well; I do recall seeing a recent paper on SOI being different in the latter part of the century compared with the first part but I can't put my hands on it at this stage.
Cohenite says:
Cohenite, your 'analysis' is simple, but it is not by any stretch of the imagination scientific. My reference to the beginning and the end of the 20th century did not mean that you should use only those two points - there are 98 other points in between.
The simplest scientific/statistical analysis that one might expect a high school student to do would be a linear regression, and if one used the slope and intercept parameters from such a line one would find that the temperature increase is 0.6C over a century, with an R^2 of 0.7.
Using the two endpoints is an ignorant thing to do. It's as simple as that. Why do you imagine that statistics were developed in the first place?
If you can't even start at this basic level then any other calculation you come up with is just rubbish. Perhaps you should have paid somewhat more regard to eli's lesson.
As to my "pathetic attempt to restore a correlation between CO2 and temp", erm, you are once again putting words into my mouth (after claiming that I called you a creationist which, as LB pointed out, I did not). I am merely trying to ascertain your capacity to obtain a statistical description of a trend, and your capacity to make inferences based upon an understanding of the relevant factors that are associated with that trend.
So far you are not demonstrating yourself to be a 'reliable witness'.
This may be so in the eyes of a lawyer, where 'impressions' can be more important than an accurate synthesis of complex parameters, but in the eyes of scientists the 'disparity' is eminently predicatable if one has an understanding (and an acceptance) of all of the forcings.
Of course anyone who produces such drivel has no idea of scientific analysis of complex systems over very short peroids time. Your comment in this regard is pure idiocy.
Cohenite, this is just lame. I asked for the "simplest scientific descriptor of the global temperature trend that is possible". No-one with even a passing acquaintance of the brochure advertising Data Analysis 101 would do what you did. Except maybe someone, with an agenda, who was trying to twist the facts.
You come up with a lot of scientific-sounding phrases, but your ongoming monograph is pure scientific gobbldegook.
Fair dinkum BJ, put a key in your behind and off you go on one of your indeterminate sermons from the mount; in court you would be classified as a witness with selective memory; check out comments 4 & 5 above and then by all means continue with your lecture about stats 101. But that's about enough for me; deja vu is taking over.
Cohenite.
Nice theatrics, but you did not address the point, which was that your capacity for even semi-accurate precise of data is entirely absent.
Were you a witness, the judge would direct you to answer the quesion.
Nick: You wrote, "A RUNNING TOTAL of a NINO 3.4 SSTA data set "mimics" what?!?...Bob, you need more than six hours sleep!"
Nick, scroll up to comment #37. There's a graph of it there using monthly data. Here's one that compares a running total of annual NINO3.4 data (the Trenberth NINO3.4 data, which is HADSST NINO3.4 SST anomaly) that's been scaled to global temperature anomaly (HADCRUT3GL). They agree well, don't you think?
http://i31.tinypic.com/14rzb8.jpg
Bob, I think you missed my questions up at #68
Cohenite,
no one took much notice of your comment 4 or 5 becuase they are just stupid. Why would you consider such a short time scale. Here's an even shorter one...
woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:2008/to:2009/trend/plot/uah/from:2008/to:2009
(just add the http etc)
You keep laming on about how you wish it was in court. No one cares. What scientist would consider a court room a valid institution for determining the validity of a scientific theory? The only reason you wish it was in court is because you're incapable of conducting a reasonable scientific debate. You have to try and steer it into the legal realm to get any traction.
Hi NT; "What scientist would consider a court room a valid institution for determining the validity of a scientific theory?" Jimmy Hansen.
NT, you wrote: "Bob, Ok, so the energy for ENSO is derived from solar in the end, but is largely the movement of heat around the oceans. So, can you see any relationship between TSI and ENSO?"
As noted before, there is also transfer of heat with the atmosphere. ENSO is very effective way to reduce tropical heat by distributing it to the poles, where it can be better radiated into space. There a couple of webpages that describe that process--NASA, NOAA, one of those.
With regards to TSI and ENSO, here's a graph of TSI from 1854 to 2007--raw and smoothed with 11-year filter.
http://i37.tinypic.com/2147dpe.jpg
And here's one of NINO3.4 SST anomaly--raw and smoothed with a 133-month (~11-year) filter.
http://i33.tinypic.com/2ufaphw.jpg
The intensity and frequency of El Nino events have risen in response to the increase in TSI since the beginning of the 20th Century.
NT, you wrote: "BTW how do you expect ENSO to react to AGW? Or have you excluded AGW by default?"
I don't exclude AGW by default. Infrared can only warm the top few centimeters of sea water, where solar warms a few hundred meters.
NT, I'll address the balance of your questions after I have some caffeine, but for the most part, the answers will be no. If I had the capacity for all those calculations, I wouldn't be blogging with you, now, would I? But GCMs, as a whole, fail to model basic ENSO functions, like proper upwelling frequency and amplitude, so they wouldn't consider many of the complexities either.
Last, it's well established that the frequency and amplitude of El Nino events are greater than La Ninas when global temperatures are rising, and that the frequency and amplitude of La Nina events are greater than El Ninos when global temperatures are falling, but the fact that running total of NINO3.4 SST anomaly data creates a curve that mimics global temperature anomaly implies that the cause and effect may be different than currently accepted. It implies that each ENSO event creates a step change in global temperature and that global temperature is responding to ENSO events, not vice versa.
Regards.
cohenite:
Obviously never gets tired of bullshitting (blatant cherrypicking in this case).
cohentite:
You are classified as an incorrigible bullshitter.
Bob,
Ok, so if TSI is driving ENSO it would seem important to know how long it takes for the extra heat in the Oceans to leave the system. You should also attempt to find out how much energy is stored in the PWP. The TSI is a known number, it should be enough to calculate a rough figure for the heat storage of the PWP, I assume you are invoking some storage for the heat? Then you could calculate how long it takes for the PWP to release this. Perhaps with an analysis of isotopes?
It's very interesting, but as it stands the theory is light. Finding correlations is fine (and fun) but is only the start, the real work starts by trying to decipher the mechanism (if it exists) behind the correlation.
So if you don't exclude AGW, do you see it as having any particular effect?
Cohenite,
assuming he did, that's a grand total of one.
I think you will find, however, this his preferred venue would be through Journals.
but the fact that running total of NINO3.4 SST anomaly data creates a curve that mimics global temperature anomaly implies that the cause and effect may be different than currently accepted.
the "mimic" or better said correlation gives exactly ZERO information about the cause-effect relationship.
you would get exactly the same picture, if it was the other way round.
the only way to prove your "assumption" is a strong causal chain of events. good luck.
ps: did you ever wonder, why nobody but you had the idea, that the relationship actually is the other way round? why scientists don t think it is? while you, layman, actually do?
NT: You're getting ahead of me. Hopefully, the following will answer some of your repeated questions. I'll look at your comment #79 when I get a chance later today.
As I noted in my comment #77, I don't have to capacity to run the calculations you requested, but I'll provide links to what I have done.
You wrote, "Do you know how long it takes to complete a 'cycle' that is for the water to move through the whole process?"
I can't answer your question directly, but refer to my following posts:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/10/tropical-sst-anomalies-revisited…
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/10/pacific-warm-pool-vs-enso.html
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/11/equatorial-pacific-warm-water-vo…
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/11/average-subsurface-temperature-o…
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/11/nino34-sst-warm-water-volume-sub…
After the 97/98 El Nino, it took approximately 2 years for the equatorial warm water volume anomaly to return to zero.
http://i37.tinypic.com/359d1me.jpg
After the 97/98 El Nino, it took approximately 2 years for the Western equatorial warm water volume anomaly to return to zero. For the lesser El Ninos prior to it, it appears to vary between 1.5 to 2 years.
http://i35.tinypic.com/dh7diq.jpg
You wrote, "This is important as what you are suggesting is that the deep ocean is acting as a heat repository."
Just a correction: The Pacific Warm Pool is not "deep ocean". The PWP is generally considered the area in the western Pacific where SST exceeds 29 deg C. And for waters that feed El Ninos, I don't believe we're talking about depths greater than a couple hundred meters. Refer to video from the NASA Scientific Visualization Studio titled "Visualizing El Nino".
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a000200/a000287/a000287.mpg
Deep sea or deep ocean layer is considered to be depths greater than 1800 meters.
You wrote, "Have you attempted to quantify the amount of energy stored in the PWP?" No, nor have I seen it done.
You wrote, "Is there enough there to account for the 'warming'?" Don't know, and I haven't seen it discussed.
You wrote, "Also, if the PWP is acting to warm the earth, how long until it depletes?" Can't answer your question. A better question: Will there be a lagged response of the PWP to the decrease in Southern Ocean SSTs? The Humboldt current feeds water from the ACC to equatorial Pacific.
http://i35.tinypic.com/s3djds.jpg
You wrote, "Does it have a recharge rate?" Refer to above links and comments about cycles.
You wrote, "Have you quantified the 'recharge' of the PWP?" No, nor have I seen any studies that quantify it.
Bob, firstly NINO3.4 data samples a slender strip (5N to 5S) of the equatorial Pacific SSTs from 120W to 170W, and you're comparing that to a global land and sea temperature metric (HADCRUT3GL). Secondly, you're SUMMING 90 years of anomalies together and grafting that over 90 years of UNSUMMED anomalies, all the while without a worry about scaling disparity. That's nonsense, Bob.
@Sod
Since your question is ill-posed, I beg to join the discussion. Scientists play with the idea that the relationship could actually - at least in part - be the other way round:
(Compo & Sardeshmukh 2008, page 11).
from the abstract:
The oceans may themselves have warmed from a
combination of natural and anthropogenic influences.
As usual, cohenite has it bass ackwards.
The rule of law is validated by acceptance of testimony from scientific provenance. It's a fundamental principle underlying the rules of evidence. Without forensic scientific finding in the determination of fact, the courts would still be practicing Trial by Ordeal, and we'd still be burning witches and heretics in the public square. Hansen's testimony is validating the rule of law, not vice versa.
Something one would think a lawyer would know.
This is only trivially true. Advection (the turbulent mixing from wave action) gradually distributes that warming throughout the upper ocean layer (above the thermocline). Additionally, by continuously warming the surface layer, downward IR reduces the boundary temperature differential, slowing the rate that absorbed solar energy stored in deeper water during the day can be transferred to the atmosphere, thus indirectly warming the deep ocean.
Bye the bye, Bob, there is no up-welling of sub-surface waters in the El Niño cycle. Surface water in the Western Pacific Warm Pool is driven eastward on the surface by a combination of the prevailing westerly winds, made predominant by the occasional reduction of the tropical easterlies (the Doldrums), and gravity.
One should really try to understand the mechanics of a phenomenon before making pronouncements about causality.
Bob Tisdale:
The total forcing (as W/m^2) in your graphs for solar irradiance is on the order of a fraction of a watt/m^2.
First, we appreciate folk who try to use actual data.
Second, the total forcings at the surface are many times the increase in solar irradiance. Yes, TSI is a factor.
No, it is not the sole causative factor nor the most important forcing.
Best,
D
Luminous Beauty: You wrote, "Bye the bye, Bob, there is no up-welling of sub-surface waters in the El Niño cycle. Surface water in the Western Pacific Warm Pool is driven eastward on the surface by a combination of the prevailing westerly winds, made predominant by the occasional reduction of the tropical easterlies (the Doldrums), and gravity."
I suggest you watch the equatorial Pacific subsurface temperature anomaly videos available through NOAA before you state there is no upwelling.
Nick: I discussed scaling in my first comment on this thread. The scaling factor as I noted in comment 37 is provided by Trenberth.
In "Evolution of El Nino-Southern Oscillation and Global Atmospheric Surface Temperatures", JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 107, NO. D8, 10.1029/2000JD000298, 2002, Trenberth et al identified the global temperature reaction to the 97/98 El Nino: "The regression coefficient based on the detrended relationship is 0.094 deg C per N3.4 and is deemed more appropriate. The N3.4 contribution is given in Figure 3. It shows that for the 1997-1998 El Nino, where N3.4 peaked at ~2.5 deg C, the global mean temperature was elevated as much as 0.24 deg C (Figure 2), although, averaged over the year centered on March 1998, the value drops to ~0.17 deg C."
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/papers/2000JD000298.pdf
The global temperature response is approximately 9% that of the change in NINO3.4 SST anomaly. That's not nonsense. Download the data set I provided, calculate the running total, apply the coefficient, and graph it against the global temperature data set of your choice. Then tell me why it works. Don't tell me it's nonsense.
very nice article explaining el nino.
One oceanic process altered during an El Niño year is upwelling, which is the rising of deeper colder water to shallower depths.
the closest thing mentioned to upwelling "warm" water is closing the upwelling of cold water...
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gl)/guides/mtr/eln/upw.rxml
Dano: My two graphs, NINO3.4 and TSI, were in response to NT's specific question. Nothing more, nothing less.
(Sarcasm on.) And thanks ever so much for the links to the Climate Science 101 illustrations. I'm sure you can do better than that. If you would, please provide me with a link to long term (1850 to present) upper-, mid-, and low-level cloud cover data, so that I can amend my graphs for NT. (Sarcasm off.)
Thanks.
To bolster his claim that "The idea that ENSO is responsible for temp trends is becoming fashionable"
cohenite says "a repeating IR beam can heat the devil out of the Earth!
So, coehenite, why do you suppose that the ordinary solar irradiance cycle that repeats itself (roughly) every 11 years does not lead to long term warming?
By your (legal?) logic, the increase in solar output that occurs during each solar cycle (min to max) should also sum over time, leading to long term (runaway?) warming of the earth, right?
So why doesn't the ordinary solar cycle lead to such warming over time?
Note: I am referring to the change in solar irradiance over a single solar cycle -- min to max -- about 1 W per meter squared at the top of the earth's atmosphere), not changes in the cycle itself over time. The latter* would not be considered periodic. In other words, for argument's sake, I am assuming the sun repeats its 11 year cycle perfectly ad infinitum. I am well aware that it does not repeat precisely, but as an analogy to coehenite's "repeating IR beam", my assumption is perfectly valid (though in the case of the sun, it is not just IR, of course)
*Note: Though it is a completely separate issue from the claim cohenite makes above ("a repeating IR beam can heat the devil out of the Earth!") the actual change in the solar cycle over the past few decades is very small, at any rate. According to this graph from the Max Planck Institute Solar output has simply not gone up much in that time, certainly not enough to account for most of the recent warming.
I've been running into the BS skeptic "It says the sky is blue. Therefore, it's red" interpretation of Compo et al's research a lot, too. Is there a better refutation of that somewhere? "No, it doesn't refute AGW. You must be high." obviously doesn't carry much weight with such reality ignoring skeptics. Are there any other statements or papers from Compo that might help with such an ignorant analysis?
Well, thanks Bob for knowing that GHGs are the main forcing at the surface by far. Why muddle the discussion implying otherwise?
We aren't trotting out the long-ago addressed and put to bed denialist argument about WV now to further muddy the waters are we?
Best,
D
One oceanic process altered during an El Niño year is upwelling, which is the rising of deeper colder water to shallower depths.
Yes, of course. Basic.
It is the cold water upwelling that makes the Pacific off the coast of S America so rich in biota. The folks there have been dependent on it for hundreds (thousands?) of years, and when The Little Boy comes (around Christmas), it makes for hard fishing. And off of the United States, the upwelling doesn't happen (one reason why the whales migrate where they do is the turnover) and tropical fish are seen very far north (billfish caught by sport fishermen out of SFO, e.g.).
Best,
D
Luminous Beauty and sod: To avoid a protracted debate about my use of the word upwell, I will provide a link to a NASA video that not only illustrates the surface process, but also shows the subsurface process. About 1:43 min into the video, the cross-section view of the equatorial Pacific shows the warm subsurface water being driven eastward from the PWP by a flattening of the thermocline, and ends with it rising to the surface.
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a000200/a000287/a000287.mpg
Dano: I'm not muddying the waters but responding in kind to you. I wrote the following back in comment 63, addressed to James Haughton. "If you, sod, and the others make an effort to explain why a running total of that NINO3.4 SST anomaly data set mimics global temperature anomaly, I'd be happy to discuss it with you." I'll make the same suggestion to you.
Tell me why the running total of NINO3.4 SST anomaly data (link above) that's been scaled with coefficient of ERSST3.4 SST anomaly to global temperature anomaly (link above) not only mimics the global temperature anomaly curve (link above)but correlates quite nicely with it (link above).
Provide an explanation and I'll be happy to discuss it. Don't provide links to this and that paper. Explain why that correlation works as well as it does.
The point is, Bob, that your use of the word is at odds with the technical use of the word. It is a little point, not worth debating.
I'd much rather you respond to my other point.
Bob,
If you are adding 9% of data point n to data point n+1 it has no real physical meaning. You are just numerically forcing a slope of 9% on the data. That you can scale that slope on a graph to match the slope of another graph is also meaningless.
It is trivial that ENSO is a major variable in the natural fluctuations of average global temperature. It would be remarkable if there was no correlation in the normalized data sets.
Ms Beauty again misses the point;
"The rule of law is validated by acceptance of testimony from scientific provenance."
2 things; scientific expertise may present fact or interpret fact; ie: is it a fact that the Earth is warming; if so who or what is the cause; at law there is a profound difference between facts as presented by scientific expertise and the determination of guilt and liability; a host of mitigating and exculpatory circumstances may be applicable. Dr Hansen would not only be arbitar of both levels of fact but also guilt and liability as well. That is an usurptation of the court.
The second point is, a legal process is predicated on 2 antithetical sides (which none-the-less may have convergent elements hence in pre-trial process the facility of 'agreed facts'); I don't see any evidence of Dr Hansen, or other spokespeople for AGW, contemplating, not only an alternative scientific expert view, but a right for that alternative view to be heard.
JB; your insolation/temperature graph is striking; an excellent correlation between solar and temp until 1976 and then divergence; 1976 of course was when the upwelling business started which Bob and the others are discussing. I put this to you; a +ve PDO began in 1976 with attendant increases in SST and GMST; a natural mechanism is offered for that, the upwelling mitigation; so some natural imput into rising temp is present; if you say the rising CO2 took over from insolation at the 1976 point, and in fact caused the 1976 event, why was it ineffective prior to that, notably in the cool period in the '40's?
Regards the beam; I was being tongue in cheek; the repeating beam is not a reference to the sun but the atmosphere sourced lonwave down radiation which is put forward as the greenhouse mechanism.
In the court of public opinion, we are all our own fair arbiters.
Anyone with an opinion can publicly call for anyone they reasonably suspect of malfeasance to be held legally accountable.
That and a dollar will get you a donut. It sure doesn't usurp the rule of law.
Bob, I ran your graph, but if you measure the El Nino anomaly against a baseline of 1950 to 1979, and the background temperature is steadily rising from colder before 1950 to warmer after 1979, then every anomaly is going to appear bigger and bigger against that past baseline, because the anomaly measurement will include the background temperature rise since the 1950-79 period. By summing the anomalies, I think all you are doing is replicating the background trend. You would need to sum the anomalies measured against, say, a 10 year moving average centred on the anomaly year (long enough to encompass an El Nino and a La Nina at any rate) to show that the anomalies were increasing, as opposed to the background temperature increasing.
Cohenite:
1) the scientific process is not predicated on two antithetical sides and a search for guilt or innocence, but on a shared search for truth (with lots of bitching and argument en route). Of course, the fact that you have wilfully brainwashed yourself into constructing a "side" and sticking to it at all costs was made rather clear by you at one point:
cohenite: "I just totally disagree with the AGW model of forcing for the absorption which occurs; and I probably disagree with the AGW mechanism of absorption, including the capacity, whatever that is; and I disagree with the EG theory of positive feedbacks, whatever they are. Got it?"
I got it. Whatever it is, you're against it. Today you post on blogs about how AGW is a dangerous conspiracy by scientists. 40 years ago you would probably have been handing out pamphlets warning us that water flouridisation is a dangerous conspiracy by communists. 80 years ago, I expect you would have been writing letters to the paper about how Einstein's relativity is a dangerous conspiracy by someone, too, and loudly championing Starck and quoting from "100 authors against Einstein". (Btw, anyone who wants to can check out cohenite's attempts to claim that Einstein was wrong about black-body radiation on Marohasy, discussed here.)
But if you're determined to get this into a court somehow, I suggest you offer your services pro bono to John Coleman who has been loudly proclaiming that he's going to sue Al Gore for fraud, real soon now, for several years.
2) Cooling in the 40s was most probably due to aerosol pollution. This has been explained to you numerous times.
3) What do you mean, longwave down radiation is "sourced" in the atmosphere? I think it's time for a quote from Chris Crawford's Greatest Hits: "cohenite, I have difficulty making sense of your writings; you sling around all sorts of impressive technical terminology, but the underlying physical reasoning doesn't make any sense."
using technical terms in a slightly different way, than anybody else does?
denialists at work....
James; a link to my anti-Einstein utterance please; there isn't one at your source, this coby person's blog. BTW, not that it matters, I'm for flouridation and think Einstein is just nifty.
May I come back to the beginning of the very lively debate here (I am here the first time), to Pachauri's IPCC temperature curve with the various gradients. The shortest term gradient of the last 30 years has the biggest slope of almost 0.2 Celsius per decade. It starts around 1975, where a cooling period ended, which seems to have started right after the second world war. In the IPCC 2001 technical report of working group one, dealing with the scientific basis, it is argued that the increase of CO2 really got substantial only since the fifties, but any warming was compensated or even overcompensated by the large SO2 emissions (cloud forming, cooling), caused by burning sulfur-rich coal or oil. Only when de-sulphurization took off, the CO2 warming was effective - just around 1980. So all temperature variations before 1950 are of different origin. Using that view, only the gradient starting around 1975 makes sense.
Now, as I understand, Michael Duffy has critized Pachauri for not mentioning the plateau in the temperature curve which seems to be a signature of the first decade of the present century. He might also have included that it was not pointed out by Dr. Pachauri that the plateau occurs inspite of the unprecedented increase of the CO2 emissions during the present decade.
Ignorance or scientific dishonesty or something else? The CO2 increase is mainly caused by the increase of the Chinese coal consumption, in 2008 close to 3 billion metric tons, up from 1 bn in 1998. To a lesser extent, India is also contributing (0.5 bn tons), so are Indonesia (0.2 bn), Vietnam (0.2 bn?) and others. The Chinese coal is very rich in sulfur, so is the Indian coal, therefore. the SO2 emissions have reached a new maximum - probably, as hard data on SO2 are not easy to find.
This could lead to the following scenario: Whenever China decides to de-sulfurize its coal, the CO2 warming would take off again - and according to IPCC views, unstoppably. Remember, Dr. J. Hansen has put the 'tipping point' close to 350 ppm CO2, we are approaching 390 ppm..
De-sulphurization may happen with the economic stimulus package, the Chinese are setting up now. Putting China in the pillory will not help collaboration. Could it be that Pachauri is just a shrewd politician?
I wonder how many of those, who have critized Michael Duffy, endorse the above scenario.
James,
I'm afraid you've grievously mis-characterized cohenite.
Not so much Einstein was wrong, but rather Bizarro World Einstein was right.
Ms Beauty; for once we are in agreement; Bizarro World is a perfectly apt metaphor; of course Jimmy Hansen is the real Superman; the only conundrum is which of Superman's multifarious girlfriends is Al Gore?
Cohenite:
I see no reason to provide Marohasy with traffic.
Here is the relevant exchange:
"Cohenite, I just skimmed through the Robitaille paper, and it's pretty weird. In the first place, note that it was not published in a peer-reviewed journal; it appears that it was never published anywhere. That's always a bad sign.
But what's REALLY wrong with the paper is that it is disputing an issue that was made obsolete more than 100 years ago! Stewart's Law and Kirchoff's Law were both attempts to explain blackbody radiation using classical physics. Classical physics didn't work -- blackbody radiation under classical physics should, theoretically, yield impossible results. The problem was resolved by none of than Albert Einstein who introduced the quantum nature of radiation. He won the Nobel Prize for that work.
Thus, the Robitaille paper is irrelevant to modern physics."
Posted by: Chris Crawford at August 19, 2008 03:07 PM
"Chris; the paper's conclusion makes it plain that the application of Stewart's Law is consistent with the Planck and Boltzman constants, so I don't understand your point about the quantum nature of radiation; Stewart's Law is completely relevant to AGW since it deals with the process of absorption and emission and the consequences for temperature which flow from that.
As to the paper being published; my understanding is that it was, but I will check on that."
Posted by: cohenite at August 19, 2008 06:59 PM
And, after claiming that a non-peer-reviewed paper disproved Einstein's quantisation of radiation, but promising to "check on that", he was never heard from again.
Someone else calling themselves "cohenite" then started posting long rants about cyanobacteria, before disappearing. Some other Cohenite also blabbered for a while about "packets of local thermal equilibrium", but then went silent after a confrontation with Eli.
None of these can be the same person currently blithering about ENSO, since he neither uses the same terminology of "Planck Units of Time" and "non quantum units of space" of the original Cohenite, nor came through with his "check on that", nor admitted that he had been talking a load of bollocks before being called on it by Chris Crawford. The only similarity between these multiple Cohenites is a certain style of arguing best characterised by the term "Chewbacca defence".
Bob, you need to be able to answer the questions about quantities of heat and recharge etc. if you want to deduce that ENSO is responsible for the increase in temp over the last century.
What you have is an interesting correlation. Nothing more. You cannot reasonably claim that ENSO is responsible for the past century increase in temp.
James,
Cohenite is the Champion of double (and triple!) think. He can simulatenously believe many mutually exclusive things.
From wiki; "The Einstein coefficients are fixed probabilities associated with each atom, and do not depend on the the state of the gas of which the atoms are a part. Therefore, any relationship that we can derive between the coefficients at, say, thermal equilibrium will be valid universally."
The paper Mr Crawford was dismissive of is here;
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0805/0805.1625.pdf
Robitaille argues that universality is constrained by the nature of the object and its enclosure; he concludes that "Planck's solution to the blackbody problem remains valid for cavities which are perfectly absorbing...(and)..That blackbody radiation loses universal significance also changes nothing, in fact, relative to the mathematical foundations of quantum theory ". (p6)
In a related paper published concurrently, Robitaille says;
"In his derivation of the Planckian relation, Einstein has recourse to his well-known coefficients. Thermal equilibruim and the quantized nature of light (E=hv) are also used. All that is required appears to be (1) transitions within two states, (2) absorption, (3) spontaneous emission, and (4) stimulated emission. However, Einstein also requires that gaseous atoms act as perfect absorbers and emitters or radiation. In practise, of course, isolated atoms can never act in this manner. in all laboratories, isolated groups of atoms act to absorb and emit radiation in narrow bands and this only if they possess a diapole movement. This is well established in gaseous emissions. As such Einstein's requirement for a perfectly absorbing atom, knows no physical analogue on Earth. In fact, the only perfectly absorbing materials known, exist in the condensed state. Nonetheless, for the sake of theoretical discussion, Einstein's perfectly absorbing atoms could be permitted."
http://www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2006/PP-05-05.PDF
So, at thermal equilibruim, as in a LTE, Stewart's Law will apply and the gas atoms will emit as they absorb within the relevant wavelength. The odd thing is, if universality was the case outside of LTE's the GH would not occur because there would be a constant equilibrium. Try not to be a pompous jerk if you reply James; I genuinely find this interesting but your arrogance is off-putting.
NT: Thanks for the civility, but as you are aware, I don't have the capacity or the time to calculate those variables: quantities of heat, recharge rates, etc. And yes, I'll agree that all I've got is an odd correlation and that it doesn't mean causation.
But what I do also have is SST data and graphics that illustrate that a sizable portion of the global oceans, the Indian Ocean, responds to the full rise in NINO3.4 SST anomaly during major ENSO events, but responds to only a portion of the subsequent decrease in NINO3.4 SST anomaly during the La Nina. This reinforces the thought that ENSO creates step changes in global temperature. BTW, I haven't found a SST data set that works in the opposite way, and I've looked. Here are the graphics.
The Indian Ocean response to significant El Ninos:
http://i38.tinypic.com/iejmtk.jpg
And the Indian Ocean response to the subsequent La Ninas:
http://i33.tinypic.com/15ofb41.jpg
And I also have graphs that illustrate the significant upward step changes in numerous SST subsets due to the 1997/98 El Nino.
I'll check this thread every couple of days to see is anyone's come up with an explanation that works. Responding to those throwing rocks is not productive, so I'll ignore them.
Regards
James Haughton: Thanks for the thoughts. If I read your comment correctly, you're saying that there are two primary considerations as to why the running total creates that curve: First, normalization, and, second, the base years of the anomaly data. I've calculated the anomalies with the base years of 1950-1979, using the raw HADSST NINO3.4 data available here, without normalizing it. http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/Pressure/Timeseries/Data/nino34.long.data
HADSST NINO3.4 data (the basis for the Trenberth data) with the base years of 1950-1979 that has NOT been normalized will still produce the same effect. So normalization is not a factor.
You're also inferring that if I were to change the base years, the effect would then center on the new base years. The effect does NOT work if the anomaly is calculated with the Hadley Centre's normal base period of 1961-1990. Feel free to try it.
As opposed to recalculating the NINO3.4 anomalies on your own, I could save you some time. The KNMI (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute) webpage has a number of time-series data sets available. It also allows the user to change the base years, among other things. Here's the KNMI time-series webpage:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectindex.cgi?someone@somewhere
And here's the KNMI HADlSST NINO3.4 link:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/getindices.cgi?UKMOData/hadisst1_nino3.4a+NINO3…
Thanks again for the thoughts.
Regards.
Wake us up when this charlatan earns his Nobel prize in physics. Though he's undoubtably going to have to submit to the peer reviewed literature first, sorry.
But that's essentially all you're doing, throwing rocks at the edifice of mainstream science. You're claiming victory for a hypothesis rejected by those who specialize in climate science and oceanography, people who DO know how to do the computations, modeling, etc that you openly admit you are unable to do yourself.
Luminous Beauty: In response to your December 9, 2008 3:26 PM comment, I am aware that the increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases SHOULD have an impact on SSTs, warming the skin and the mixing layer, and increasing subsurface temperatures as well by locking in more heat. My concern and disbelief results when I look at graphs of time-series data of global SST. Take your pick. For you I plotted global SST anomalies over the terms of three data sets, monthly data, smoothed with 37-month filters. I didn't want you to think I cherry-picked a data set.
Here's the HADSST version:
http://i35.tinypic.com/531t2u.jpg
Here's the ERSST.v3 version:
http://i35.tinypic.com/286wppc.jpg
And here's ERSST.v2 version:
http://i35.tinypic.com/atsz03.jpg
I haven't physically added trends to the graphs because the disparity is so great. Note that the rate of rise in the early 20th century warming period far exceeds that of the last 30 years or so. But the anthropogenic greenhouse gases impact on SST, according to some, should be much more dominant in the last 30 years. I don't see it. The El Nino around 1940 was significant but not as large as the 1997/98 El Nino, so that shouldn't be throwing off the trend of the early warming period.
You know, there are people out there who study this thing for their living.
Why don't you go read up on what they have to say, or pester them for answers, rather than sit here endlessly posting your belief that you've found something that proves half of science to be bullshit?
Bob Tisdale.
To echo dhogaza at #118, there is probably a reason for your disbelief: and that is, that there is nothing credible to believe - in your 'theory'.
The hoary old chestnut, that correlation does not automatically imply causation, is worth repeating. Where is your explanatory mechanism for the movement of heat that results in the observed global warming? Where is your supplementary evidence, based in physics, that justifies your hypothetical mechanism?
Where is your comparison of different possible mechanisms of warming, based in statistical analysis? "When I look at graphs of time-series data" is not a procedure that you will find in the 'materials and methods' of any analytical paper.
I know from my own bitter experience that greenhorns can sometimes reinvent a scientific wheel before they realise that they have done so, but it is rare indeed that they truly invent a better wheel.
You are not of that rare breed.
Bob Tisdale:
According to who?
One of my friend's has just pointed out to me that the link I gave at #49 is not the one that I'd intended to reference.
The graphic that I thought Marohasy could have more appropriately used in the context of her 'point' was the third panel in the third graph on this page, and not the sunspot one I linked to above.
That'll teach me to check which link location I've copied and pasted.
I wonder if Cohenite has his "diapole movement" before or after breakfast. Is "diapole movement" a synonym for "verbal diarrhea"?
Cohenite, your use of big words, especially when you neither know what they mean nor are able to correctly spell them, just makes you look like a complete imbecile. However, anyone who has wasted their time actually reading the tripe you write already knows this.
Who are you trying to impress with your supposed "knowledge" about physics? You are convincing nobody here.
Bernard, that new linky has an excellent forcings chart, much better than the one I used above. Thank you.
Best,
D
Cohenite, if I can't be an arrogant jerk when dissing a pseudonymous proponent of pseudoscience on the internet, when can I be? huh?
My tone was meant to convey the general frustration experienced by myself and others with your style of argument.
You usually pop up to proclaim, in overly long, running on sentences and a mishmash of buzzwords, that a list of poorly-referenced (Chicago style: (Zhang 2004) is meant to be accompanied by a bibliography) and badly-linked (if you can't hack the html, use tinyurl.com) scientific papers is in agreement with whatever your point de jour is. When someone checks out your references (as I did at 27, 35 and 60) they invariably turn out not to support your position at all, or to be pseudoscience (e.g. Robitaille, Beck, Jawarowski(sp?), Gerlich and friend, MacIntyre).
When confronted you obfuscate the point (e.g. 61) or make a temporary backdown before returning with a new spray of references or a different talking point, never admitting you were wrong the first time. But why should we take your subsequent utterances seriously? If you had any kind of strong case, you would have put it first. If you were actually interested in discussion or rational argument, you would answer the arguments put to you instead of running away from them.
As Chris pointed out, your misuse and abuse of technical terminology not only makes you difficult to understand but leads to the suspicion that you don't understand what you're saying either. It's a style of argument I've come to associate with Tim Curtin, and senility in general. A suspicion that is somewhat confirmed by your apparent inability to understand CO2 displacement, even when it's explained in extremely simple analogies, (ie Tim at 38).
You could stand to learn something from Bob Tisdale, who is at least clear, grammatical, and presents his argument without obfuscation.
PS If anyone want an example of a real arrogant jerk (and high-tesla crank magnet), I suggest checking out How I was expelled from the University of New South Wales (an example of the suppression of science) by Stephen Crothers. I mention him because he is the editor of the alleged journal in which Robitaille circulated his paper.
Dano.
What I like about various combined-forcings graphs, such as the one that is linked to my link above, is that they clearly illustrate both the impact of the natural forcings, and of the superimposed and identifiably anthropogenic GHG forcing. They explain the science neatly, and much more honestly than is done by deceptive efforts such as dizzy Jen's, and leave little room for discredited denialisms such as "it's just da sun wot dun it" - unless of course they resort to the failure-of-computer-models meme.
To be absolutely clear though it's nice to be able to point to both the solar forcing and the combined forcings, and I am still poking around to find a graphic that depicts all of these on the one chart. This way it would be harder for Denialists to claim that they had inadvertently missed a part of the explanation.
Why Marohasy sees fit to dissemble in telling the whole story, and yet still pretend that she is practising valid science, is beyond me.
Yes, we all know that she is singing from the corporate songbook, but why on earth claim that it's written in the language of science?!
Ah - of course...
Bag, the bit about Einstein coefficients is only true in the impact limit. Be a good fellow and figure out what that means.
Yes eli, very exciting; however I'm deexcited with the whole thing, especially since I've been trying to figure out whether Tim's cars are Edsels or Prius's; here is a useful guide; I wonder which one jimmy Hansen drives?
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1658545_1657686,…
I rather imagine you'd be in the 1st one.
Cohenite.
If opposing counsel tightened the thumbscrews in court, would you break down in a display of petulant irrelevance such as the one that you displayed at #127?
Gawd mate, trying to pin you down on any of a whole trail of points that you've been called on is worse than trying to catch smoke in a net.
You really haven't got the hang of this sciency thingy yet, have you?
BJ; eli will get the relevance of exciting/deexcited and I thought the cars were amusing; I keep forgetting the soh standards here are different; and mate, you may have the sciency thingy down pat, but you know bugger-all about the petulance of opposing counsels.
At least we know that's all we'll get out of cohenite.
Chris; why don't you take out your considerable reservoir of spleen on your good friend Lomborg.
And a merry xmas to all!
Cohenite.
I will simply repeat my comment above: trying to pin you down on any of the whole trail of points that you've been called on is worse than trying to catch smoke in a net. Or a bit like trying to drop the little silver balls simultaneously into the holes of those kids' wiggly toy-thingies.
Oh, and "you know bugger-all about the petulance of opposing counsels" is somewhat of a confabulation of two disparate aspects of my previous post. To be expected I suppose.
Thanks for the festive wishes though. And merry present-fest in return - and yes, I mean that sincerely!
cohenite:
Boo hoo hoo to you too Mr hypocrite.