Russian analysis confirms 20th century CRU temperatures

The latest story exciting the denialosphere is being put about by novelist James Delingpole and is based on an analysis (translated here) by a right-wing Russian think tank. Delingpole quotes from a news story:

On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.

The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country's territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.

Delingpole adds:

What the Russians are suggesting here, in other words, is that the entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world government policy is a crock.

The problem here is the IEA report does not support the claims made in the news story. I've reproduced the final graph from the report below. The red curve is the temperature trend using the 121 Russian stations that CRU has released data for, while the blue hockey stick is from a larger set of 476 stations. I've put them on top of the CRU temperatures for northern extratropics. The red and blue curves agree very well in the period after 1950, thus confirming the CRU temperatures. Well done, IEA!

i-7151784fb35ffa013f2706b6a1319379-crutem3+russia.png

The red and blue curves do diverge in the 19th century, but the one that provides more support for anthropogenic global warming is the blue hockey stick. The red curve shows warming in the 19th century before there were significant CO2 emissions, so it weakens the case that global warming is man-made. If CRU (not HAdley as claimed in the Russian news story) have "tampered" with the data, it would seem that they must have been trying to make a case against AGW.

The IEA analysis is, in any case, misguided. CRU has not released all the station data they use, so the red curve is not the CRU temperature trend for Russia at all. If you want that, all you have to do is download the gridded data and average all the grid cells in Russia. You have to wonder why the IEA did not do this.

Since Russia is a pretty fair chunk of the land north of 30 degrees north, the CRU graph above is a rough approximation of the what the CRUTEM3 trends for Russia is, and you can see that it looks like the blue curve and not the red one.

Steve McIntyre will no doubt be demanding the IEA's data and code for their study. No doubt.

More like this

"support he claims" should be ""support the claims" I think. Or perhaps I am misreading the whole sentence?

Excellent post. But why the slam on McIntyre? He, like all good scientists, thinks that data and methods should be open and transparent. Do you have any evidence that he does not want this?

If your complaint is that he, personally, wants data/methods from CRU but does not seek data/methods from IEA, then that seems stupid. No one demands data/methods from every scientific study. We all pick and choose. Even you! (I believe that you have sought data/methods from John Lott but not from some other researchers. Right?) And there is nothing wrong with doing so.

So deniers think global warming is a socialist scam, and their trusted source of information is... Russia??

Not to mention that the CRU hack may have been done by ex-KGB officers.

Denial makes strange bedfellows.

It really looks like these guys are counting on their supporters to unquestioningly accept whatever they say. Ever since the fizzled e-mail hack they've been throwing out desperate claims of climate fraud "proof" that fail on the first examination.

Thus the farce of "climate skepticism" becomes comedy...

David Kane,

Why doesn't "he", like "all good scientists", conduct his own primary research and publish more of his findings in peer-reviewed journals in lieu of a blog site?

"Good scientists", for the most part, submit their data in article form to peer-reviewed journals where the relative strengths and weaknesses are assessed by experts in the same field. I am all in support of blog sites, as many (like Tim's) give a good overview of policy-based fields. But at the end of the day, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. That is why science by blog site or by think tank does not cut it in the end. Those who support the broad empirical consensus, like Tim and Deltoid, are doing a good job. But unless the denialists do more of their own primary research and get it published in rigid journals, then much of their output should not, in my view, be taken very seriously.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

That blue line shows a fairly smaller trend doesn't it? That's interesting.

Not that I'm defending McIntyre, but, Jeff, isn't he an amature dong this on his own time? I for one would love to run a research lab with a group of scientists, but I unfortunately do not have a million dollar research budget, and I have to spend my time making a living so my family doesn't have to live in a cardboard box.

But unless the denialists do more of their own primary research and get it published in rigid journals, then much of their output should not, in my view, be taken very seriously.

Yes the main purveyors of the Doubt Product actually run away from publishing or collecting data. And can you imagine, say, Willis publishing his "proof" of Australian temp manipulating? It's ridiculous on its face.

Best,

D

It's like this every time anyone tries to throw doubt on the temperature assimilations - they're more than ready to make all kinds of accusations, but they stop short of backing this up with hard numbers. Funnily enough, whenever you actually test the data properly, it always comes out in favour of the existing assessments.

I wonder why this is? Could it be that the folks at GISS, CRU, etc. really do know how to do their jobs? Just speculating here.

Science is not a kindergarten full of five year olds playing why daddy, but Climate Audit is and Steve McIntyre is the biggest baby of the bunch. What he does is a purposeful tactic to harass the scientists. McIntyre is very high maintenance and that ain't just Eli's POV.

David Kane is subject to exactly the same tactic and he better realize that less he become gander sauce.

"I unfortunately do not have a million dollar research budget".

Neither do I. And I tend to publish a lot more than said person.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Well Ben, I guess that if you too went and studied science at a university, devoted yourself to a field of study for several decades and beavered away for many years conducting research and publishing your findings, you too could earn a living as a scientist.

By Craig Allen (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Well, thank the 'Intelligent Designer' for that, at last, a set of data that we can all trust. Yes, yes, I know, some people will point out that during the time scale in the diagram there were two world wars, a massive civil war, that huge amounts of Russia were occupied territory, that state-run communism was hardly the most effective and efficient form of government and that if you take all that into account, the result is about as reliable as the production figures from a Stalin-era tractor factory!

Carpers - do'ncha' hate 'em!

David Kane asks:

But why the slam on McIntyre? He, like all good scientists, thinks that data and methods should be open and transparent.

McIntyre has proven he's neither good, nor a scientist, otherwise he would turn his "skepticism" toward denialist reports and papers which claim refutations and examine all claims.

He has an agenda, which is to cast doubt on, and discredit climate science and climate scientists, not illuminate the truth.

There's not a single post on his site which critically examines any claim that supposedly challenges AGW. That, should speak volumes for any thinking person.

By wildlifer (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Hmmm...the report says...

Given the negative divergence of the temperature series until the mid 1950 years (up to 0,56 ° C) and a positive divergence of the temperature series in the mid-1990 years (up to 0,08 ° C) overstating the extent of warming of the staff HadCRUT, for the territory of Russia from 1870 to 1990-ies can be estimated as minimum of 0.64 degrees C.

This estimate is at the same time very conservative, because calculations of temperature on the territory of Russia have been used all means at the base Hydromet data without conducting any meaningful their selection, as well as without them with the necessary correction, for example, the effect of urban heat effect.

Agree or disagree with the report for scientific reasons all you want, but to claim "Russian analysis confirms 20th century CRU temperatures" is damn near Orwellian.

By Rich Horton (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

To claim that 1870-1899 is part of the 20th century is damned near even more Orwellian.

Watts needs to send his troops out to siberia photographing stations. They can leave the day after christmas, I hear it's nice there this time of year ...

WAG Post 2, Do you think Putin has a problem with Zionists? There have been many Jewish deaths in Russia and the world, is he getting even or upsetting plans? Just an observation. Your thoughts please?...

great work Tim. this stuff needs fast debunking. in 24 hours, they will run the next non-story again.

they are pushing out rubbish after rubbish at the moment. the e-mails. the code. now the "raw data" meme, with new zealand, darwin station, alaska temperature and now russia.

basically all those claims fell apart, the very moment that somebody took a closer look. but they don t care. they wont publish corrections, and they simply move to the next false story, knowing that their denialist followers will keep spreading this rubbish over the net.

it is a really disgusting mode of operation. every one of these stories exposes a lot, aout "sceptical" "science". it doesn t exist.

If your complaint is that he, personally, wants data/methods from CRU but does not seek data/methods from IEA, then that seems stupid. No one demands data/methods from every scientific study. We all pick and choose. Even you! (I believe that you have sought data/methods from John Lott but not from some other researchers. Right?) And there is nothing wrong with doing so.

David, as always, your argument is flat out wrong.

"free the data" has become the battle shout of denialists and "sceptics". Steve has made a massive fuss, about tree data that he actually already had, for a couple of days. he has flooded CRU with about 50 FOI requests in 5 days.

nay tiny bit of data missing (like raw CRU data for a couple of countries) and every single slightly unclear mechanism is seen as PROOF a fraud.

this is something completely different, than normal people, asking for normal data in a normal way.

it is exactly the same, as "family values" conservative politicians, getting caught in sex affairs. it makes a difference!

Tom @21, I'm not sure I understand you post, or what Kerry has to do with the IEA data. Just to be clear. I was accusing the IEA of lying. Not CRU. The independent satellite data (surface and troposphere) images clearly show that most of Russia has warmed.

This is just more trash and pseudo science from people with agendas, and it is sad that Delingpole is gobbling it up.

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Sod @19: "he has flooded CRU with about 50 FOI requests in 5 days"

Is this SteveM?!

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Well Ben, I guess that if you too went and studied science at a university, devoted yourself to a field of study for several decades and beavered away for many years conducting research and publishing your findings, you too could earn a living as a scientist.

Been there, done that, not in climate science but in aerospace engineering. As such I don't get millions of tax dollars to study climate science. If I could get a couple million dollars to produce a really sharp C++ and Matlab based open source project with code that doesn't look like it was written by a bucket full of squirrels, like the CRU code, I would.

And while the CRU code *might* crunch the numbers correctly, nobody can tell for sure, no one ever accused those guys of writing competent or intelligible code.

Ben @24. Are you suggesting Jones gets paid (in pocket) millions of dollars? For goodness sakes, you would think an aerospace engineer would know better to distinguish what CRU as a whole gets, and what Jones gets paid annually. Jones does not get paid "millions of dollars", you know that and yet insist on disseminating misinformation. This kind of outright deception smacks of desperation. Tell me, how much money did your parent aerospace company get paid over several decades?

You do know that there are three other independently analyses global SAT datasets out there right (NASA GISS, JMA, NCDC)? And that id before one even considers the radiosonde and MSU data. Funny thing Ben, they all agree that the planet is warming. Look at the satellite images that I posted above @20. Actually take the time and look at them.

The IEA is just more junk to try and muddy the waters even further.

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Been there, done that, not in climate science but in aerospace engineering. As such I don't get millions of tax dollars to study climate science

Nor, of course, do climate scientists, in any personal sense. You know that.

And while the CRU code might crunch the numbers correctly, nobody can tell for sure, no one ever accused those guys of writing competent or intelligible code.

I've been a software engineer for over 35 years. Code doesn't need to be intelligible to be competent, if by competent you mean "work correctly".

Obviously readability is a virtue but I'm tired of the denialsphere conflating it with correctness. Perfectly readable code can be buggy as hell. I'm sure that Windows 95, written in C, following well-defined coding standards, was much more readable than the kernels I worked on in the early 70s that were written in assembly, but hell, our stuff flat-out worked. Operating system crash? Not unless their were sparks flying from the power supplies.

I think I understand what you are saying but I was accusing CRU of lying. Kerry is just one of the lite's... Hill' has given $100,000,000,000.00; to get things going? She is lying. She is one of the lite's. George Soros, wants to give cash for Green, to the third world; for IMF gold if the dictators can't pay. He is lying & a big lite. Who do you trust?

MapleLeaf, sorry- Ref. post #27, to post #22.

BTW, the IEA is a Russian version of CATO or CEI. In fact, the founder of IEA is a fellow at CATO.

All in all, this "takedown" of the CRU record, like all such takedowns, is an epic fail.

By Rattus Norvegicus (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Hang on Tom, now you are sounding like a conspiracy theorist. Did you look at the image that I posted? Do you not understand the significance of the source of the Russian "analysis"? You are willing to believe an obscure right-wing group with an agenda over more than 115 years of science? Right.....

Christ the search for the silver bullet continues, all in the hopes that you will be absolved for doing NOTHING. Good on ya mate.

PS: And please do not start throwing random numbers around. Those numbers are paltry compared to the profits of the energy and FF industry, not to mention the costs the USA and others spend on fighting wars.

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Ben:
>Been there, done that, not in climate science but in aerospace engineering. As such I don't get millions of tax dollars to study climate science.

erm yes well. You get billions of tax dollars for defence contracts.

Starling to Rabbit Run... Hop, Skip & Jump.)

Tom and Ben. You are trying to derail this thread. Try and stay on topic. I'd be interested in your thoughts about the IEA report. What makes you so certain that this is a trustworthy and legitimate analysis? What do you think their point is in releasing this 'analysis'?

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

MapleLeaf, I downloaded the FOIA files when they first came available. I spent days going through the documents,emails and data files, code and comments etc. From what I saw, I understood there was blatent fraud. Pettyness was throughout the emails, as well as their use of funds to travel the world. I don't trust anything they say now... You can't make me. I have done my homework. It is not about the science anymore. It is treason on a world wide scale. This I know, is just the tip of the iceberg but everywhere you look you find Soros, Gore etc., etc., etc. It makes me sick to see how many, for so long have worked towards this goal at COP15. I want to see it fail. People around the world arrested and tried then sentenced for their crimes. I know when someone tries to kill me... The world is being threatend with slavery by those with money. You will only be able to scoff at this if you are blind. You all have assisted in Their plan. Let us all get to the bottom of the NWO plans and participants. We need to know this first. Would you agree? According to Jewish law, anyone who signs any contract while he or his family is under threat; is void. We don't have to "preform" with what has been signed. That applies to treaties, contracts, agreements, all voided.

Tom, I am not engaging you unless you speak to the Russian IEA file. You are not using me as a springboard for your propaganda. Go troll somewhere else.

G'day

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Tom @ December 17, 2009 1:51 PM[kill]â

Ignorance and willfull blindness are rarely compelling arguments. The weird pathology gives the rant some color, though...there IS that...

Is it just me or are the nutters thrashing about that much harder, as each day goes by with no evidence of fraud, manipulation, hiding, or punching having been found out in reality? No crawlers on Faux/Murdoch, no red light on Drudge, no Rush spittle drying on a copy of a report...

Ah, well.

HTH.

Best,

D

MapleLeaf, God forbid; Propaganda. Tah

Have you all(AGW folks),read the FOIA files? I mean, spent a bunch of hours...? You don't see what I see?... A simple direct question to you. Kerry wants the skeptics to prove the negitive in his speech; no problem with you all?

Case in point, ask a denialist to speak to the issue at hand and present some facts, and they are suddenly speechless. Same old same old.

Dano, McIntyre is trying especially hard though....his blog has morphed from a faux "audit" blog to something akin to WUWT.

Has someone explained to Delingpole to check the credibility of his sources? Sounds like he has been chatting with the denialist folks at Air Vent. Here Delingpole, a lead for you, absolute crap, but hey, it will be excellent material to further confuse the public.

Monbiot is right, we are losing....oh hail, pseudo science and rhetoric.

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Tom writes @ 35:

I don't trust anything they say now...

Tell the truth Tom, you didn't trust anything they said even before you read the emails and searched through them to find out-of-context snippets to confirm your a priori conclusion.

By wildlifer (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

wildlifer, I admit I had my doubts about the subject over the years but I too felt that the weather patterns were different. Things like the light of the sun, bird behaviour and changes in plants kept me open. When I read the FOIA files I did shut my mind to their work. To me it was like having a video of their offices and routines. Very personal stuff. They knew they were doing wrong. As an honest witness I can not say with certinty how wrong but I will not give away rights for a half truth. I think you would admit that there is much more that has yet to be revealed. As I went through the futerra PR doc., it speaks of the long term nature of this project. Not if, when. Predetermind. Lots of money invested by Stakeholders. Who? I really want to know.

From what I saw, I understood there was blatent fraud.

Kindly support your slanderous accusation or shut the hell up.

MartinM,Go find the email that says to send less than ten thousand dollars per day to avoid the banks and their records. They also mention that the person who moved the money took a small taste. But no worry's... Cheers

Does that sound kosher to you?

"Go find the email that says to send less than ten thousand dollars per day to avoid the banks and their records."

Yes, Tom, Please, do. And let us know. Hyperlinks are easy to do.

Tom, this is the only time I will respond to anything you say that is off-topic for this thread, but:

I downloaded the FOIA files when they first came available. I spent days going through the documents,emails and data files, code and comments etc. From what I saw, I understood there was blatent fraud. ... It is treason on a world wide scale. This I know, is just the tip of the iceberg but everywhere you look you find Soros, Gore etc., etc., etc.

Funny you should mention that, as I've been looking through the mails for Gore and Soros. In brief, you fail.

This is one of the most transparent examples of denialist self-delusion I've ever seen, since anyone can freely replicate what I've done.

MartinM, Thank you for your effort. It is not the email I read. It was shorter. From memory... I will shut up on this subject. I don't need to read more FOIA files. I have read enough already. I know what I read. It is my hope the whole world gets a chance to read these files as well. They speak for themselves.

The only problem with this blog is that some frequent participants treat comments from, say, David Kane or Ben the same way they treat, say, Tom's.

Brian D, When I first posted in November I pasted a futerra PR piece that led to the Board and the Pres. said she sat on the board of Tomorrows Company, which had/has a picture of Al Gore on its home page... The Kerry piece that I read this morning came from a site that supported AGW and the sponsors were Soros, Gore, Rockefeller all kind of foundations and trusts on the left. You are saying I am wrong about this?

So is anyone going to talk about the Russian data? Or are we going to keep talking about conspiracy theories put forth by trolls?

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Tom, if you really "know what you read," then you would know that you weren't reading FOIA files. You were reading data stolen by hackers.

I guess it wasn't obvious that I meant "a couple million dollars to run a lab," not just "in my pocket" but then some of you just like to think the worst of me.

Repling in no particular order to the criticisms above:

1. Lack of crashing in and of itself != competent code, this is necessary but not sufficient. How can anyone look at code written that badly and have any idea if it works? I write tons of numerical code every day and I have to be very careful about design and testing to ensure that it works correctly.

2. I've don't get any money from public sources... I haven't managed to tap into that gravy train yet. You gotta have some sort of connections for that.

Giving praise and glory to God. Good day, Gentlemen

Another point of curiosity... Shoudnt the uncertanty regions of the graph above don't encompass either of the red or blue data sets. Isn't that a problem?

Not really. There's more than just Russia in the CRU series that Tim posted.

Tom @ 54 "Giving praise and glory to God. Good day, Gentlemen" WTF? And hey, women post here too you know!

Is this guy serious? Next he'll be quoting the bible in his defense.

This is OT, but you have to read what deepclimate has just posted about the infamous Wegman report!

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Tom writes:

>*I spent days going through the documents,emails and data files, code and comments etc. From what I saw, I understood there was blatent fraud.*

>*I don't need to read more FOIA files. I have read enough already. I know what I read. It is my hope the whole world gets a chance to read these files as well. They speak for themselves.*

So Tom is saying 'trust me' I remember there was fraud, I just can't find it now.

Tom, when you find your evidence for fraud, please do present it. As you will be the first person I would have found that has been able to back such claims.

So far experience shows everyone else making bold claims of fraud has been shown to be making such [claims without supportable evidence](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/more_on_the_stolen_emails.php#c…).

Ben in 53 says: "Lack of crashing in and of itself != competent code, this is necessary but not sufficient. How can anyone look at code written that badly and have any idea if it works? I write tons of numerical code every day and I have to be very careful about design and testing to ensure that it works correctly."

How can you tell if the code works? Ben, you answered your own question in your very next sentence. To ensure that code works correctly, you don't look at it. You test it.

They speak for themselves.

Actually, apparently you speak for them.

@ Maple Leaf, 57:

"This is OT, but you have to read what deepclimate has just posted about the infamous Wegman report!"

Wow. Wegman is shown to have plagiarized widely. He looks to have had an unnamed denialist co-author, now revealed as Rapp, who cited in his recent textbook as support for his ideas, the stuff he wrote anonymously in the Wegman report two years earlier.

Just.. wow.

Tom, don't pay attention to them... Only open-minded people like us will be able to decode the hidden messages you refer to. In fact, having spent hours perusing the emails, I have conclusively decoded precise instructions for rebuilding the ancient golden temple of the Elites. So please, ignore the endarkened commenters on this blog, and continue to trust the voices in our head.

By Fyodor Trol (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Lack of crashing in and of itself != competent code, this is necessary but not sufficient. How can anyone look at code written that badly and have any idea if it works?

Obviously, it's difficult. However, the clear climate code people have managed to do so with GISTEMP, while rewriting it in for structure and readability. They've confirmed that GISTEMP does appear to implement the algorithms described in the various published papers the project's spawned.

They've found a small number of bugs that don't impact the GISTEMP product. Most hearteningly, rather than bitch like you do, they put in this effort and have communicated the bugs they've found to the person who maintains GISTEMP. And that person has verified the bugs and has accepted their patches into NASA's version.

Now the clear climate code team aren't denialists, see. They're doing useful work with the code that's been released. AFAIK they are the ONLY people doing useful work with it. Denialists like yourself have restricted their efforts to bitching about the code, rather than digging in to improve it by finding and fixing bugs, or rewriting code to be more readable. All that screaming by denialists to "free the code!" and, when given the code, all they do is bitch about it.

I'm not very good at reading code, could someone translate into English?

The only problem with this blog is that some frequent participants treat comments from, say, David Kane or Ben the same way they treat, say, Tom's.

Indeed! [killfile] saves lots of eye ouch.

Best,

D

Hell el gordo, you don't appear to even do that well with English.

By wildlifer (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Denialists like yourself...

Who said I was a denialist? I'm more of an inconvincilist.

Also doing this from an iPhone is leading to some funny looking sentence structure
:)

Damn you, wildlifer, beat me to it!

I was busy reading Deep Climate's latest post.

The rest of y'all (minus fatty and tom) should do the same...

er, that should probably be "unconvincilist"

Re: MapleLeaf, Lee, Dhogaza:

That is a bombshell.

Surely I can't be the only one noticing the irony of having a report that prominently used a "social network analysis" to imply secret author collaboration being ghostwritten.

Brian D,

>*Surely I can't be the only one noticing the irony of having a report that prominently used a "social network analysis" to imply secret author collaboration being ghostwritten.*

That is a powerful point!

And here is a link for others:

35 Tom,

Are you Tokie, who used to post at JREF?

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

40 MapleLeaf,

One of the denydiot signatures is the inability to stay on, or even start with, the topic.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Rapp said the 'naysayers have maintained blogs and circulated reports, but generally have not penetrated the scientific literature that is dominated by alarmist publications.'

That is undeniably true.

44 Tom,

Just cite the file.

Just so you know, anyone can search the emails, but I want _you_ to support a claim for once.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

That is undeniably true.

And he goes on to say that they don't have the prerequisite skills and knowledge ...

Also undeniably true.

65 el gordo,

See, this is the problem. What good is it if people have access to code and can't read it, or (more likely) misrepresent it?

But anyway, which bit would you like translated?

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

TrueSceptic, Let's stop fooling around. I asked earlier about proving a negitive... Here is Kerry...Frankly, those who look for any excuse to continue challenging the science have a fundamental responsibility which they have never fulfilled: Prove us wrong or stand down. Prove that the pollution we put in the atmosphere is not having the harmful effect we know it is. Tell us where the gases go and what they do. Pony up one single, cogent, legitimate, scholarly analysis. Prove that the ocean isnât actually rising; prove that the ice caps arenât melting, that deserts arenât expanding. And prove that human beings have nothing to do with any of it. And by the way -- good luck!

64 Bruce,

Yes, it's good stuff. You might also be unaware of [Open Temp](http://www.opentemp.org/main/) by John Van Vliet, who has posted as JohnV in various blogs.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

TrueSceptic, So... prove me wrong about the email and the cost of moving less than $10,000 per day to russia. Sounds fair. And; good luck.

79 Tom,

I asked a very simple question. Where is an answer that looks remotely relevant?

WTF does Kerry have to do with the OP?

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

81 Tom,

Show us the email/whatever. A simple request.

BTW are you Tokie?

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Another new project -- ostensibly along the same lines as Clear Climate Code -- is [Data Against Demagogues](http://data-n-demagogues.blogspot.com/). The guy who started it -- Ken Burnside -- comes across as being pretty reasonable. He didn't do himself any favors, though, when he brought Eric Raymond on board... and Raymond immediately inserted his foot into his mouth by saying ["Ironically, Ken's inclinations are more skeptical than otherwise. I think he's bending over backward to be fair, and perhaps shouldn't."](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1445#comment-242861)

When a member of your teams says, right off the bat, "We shouldn't be fair," it's not too hard to see how things are going to turn out. I'll go on record now as saying that they will bail on this project. The real question is: why will they abandon it? Will it be because they can't figure out what to do with the code? Or will the team split apart because Burnside doesn't share Raymond's agenda? Or will they quietly call it quits when they realize that the code actually works just fine?

Place your bets.

Oh, I wouldn't say it's on the same lines as clear climate code at all. Ken Burnside doesn't seem particularly reasonable:

The second point, it's the contention of most of us that CRU has significantly damaged its credibility. If similar behavior had occurred in the financial sector, people would be facing criminal charges. In scientific circles, they've put a dent on their reputation...

Lee and MapleLeaf:

I just went over to DC and read Wegman's Ghostwriter Revealed. I am speechless. I had little respect for this report after reading it at the time. Now I have none at all.

By Rattus Norvegicus (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

I only want the funny parts of the code translated.

Ahh...sorry for the cherry-pick but there's a blizzard in Copenhagen. The weather gods are not amused - big al failed to show.

@87

What?! Snow in Europe...in winter...

wow.

Tom @ 35 said:

Let us all get to the bottom of the NWO plans and participants. We need to know this first. Would you agree?

On first reading this, one would have to think that Tom was a conspiracy theorist, a follower of Alex Jones, or maybe even Viscount Monckton, but then he follows up with "According to Jewish law..." This tells me what I need to know about Tom. He is a religious nut, probably a creationist.

Then @ 44 he drops in some religious-speak with the word "kosher," to perhaps reaffirm his commitment to the Jewish cause.

Then @ 54 he says inanely, "Giving praise and glory to God. Good day, Gentlemen." This tells us that his entire worldview is a religious one, and that his religious beliefs lie at the root of his "skepticism."

In short, he is an idiot troll who is incapable of rational thought, and he should not be engaged except to be mocked mercilessly.

Thanks for the heads-up on the Wegman Report, MapleLeaf. Just read it myself. I need to reread it later as I'm feeling a bit..?...don't know what...but definitely need a reread.

And hat-tip to TrueSkeptic for linking to OpenTemp. I hadn't seen that one before, nor Clear Climate Code (thanks dhogaza).

And big thanks to Tim for posting this Russian bit so fast. I caught a passing reference to it from a denier perspective this afternoon, but Tim's on it already.

By Daniel J. Andrews (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Burnside seems like a not unreasonable person. He seems to be wrong about just about everything, not maliciously wrong, just mistaken.

I also think his rather quixotic quest to run CCSM 3.0 on a 2.66Ghz Core Duo is going to crash upon the rocks of reality. I don't know why Raymond told him that a climate model couldn't make use of multiple cores. This is a patently absurd statement since the simultaneous computation of gridded values is what climate models are all about, this is a trivially parallelizable (sp?) problem. Well, I never had much respect for Raymond anyway, this just validates my low opinion of him.

I suggested that they try playing with EdGCM, which is meant as a pedagogical tool, rather than the toy for big boys who already know what they are doing.

By Rattus Norvegicus (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

I think you'll find that poorly-written applications make poor use of multiple cores, causing threads to become orphaned, clogging up the CPU which gradually ramps up to 100% utilisation and stops doing anything useful.

I don't know if this is common in applications developed in academia, but I think chances are it is - application developers love recycling old chunks of code, thus perpetuating stuff which can't handle multi-threading. When you've got an application like this, the only solution is to disable multithreading.

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Vince,

I think you are probably wrong. This model has been run on massively parallel machines for years. I would think that problems like this are probably pretty well wrung out.

The fact is that the type of bug you cite could only be due to a thread which does not exit, but rather loops continuously, an obvious coding error. Threads which hang on i/o or waiting to be picked up by a wait() call take up space in the process table or the MP executive, but they do not take up CPU resources since they are not scheduled. A loop which does not exit would be a bug which gets picked up in the lab and would never make it to the wild (to obvious), which in this case is running the IPCC reference runs. Believe it or not, the IPCC schedules now dominate GCM development.

By Rattus Norvegicus (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Rattus - I wasn't making any comment about *this* application.
I have encountered (more than once) cowboy applications which hogged all CPU resources until multithreading was disabled.
I thought it was worth noting that it is within the realm of possibility that Raymond's advice on a particular modelling application *could* very well be based on fact.
Make sure he is talking about the same application that you are - and not a different version recoded (by cowboys) for running on a Microsoft machine.

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

TOM: "I may be a troll but I work hard.".

???

You make vague claims about something you've read in some stolen emails, but when pressed to name and/or quote the email in question, you say you just "remember" it.

If this is your idea of "I work hard", then nobody here is in the least bit suprised that were unable to complete high-school level science leading you therefore to become yet another gullible victim of climate change denialism kooks and conspiracy theorists.

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Tom.

Your thinking is completely uncoupled from any acquisition of real knowledge or understanding, just as cellular electron transport is uncoupled from useful energetic work when poisoned with HNC.

The best thing for you to do is to apply a nice cold bag of frozen peas to your forehead, and have a long lie-down.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Regarding Clear Climate Code, they're looking for helping hands - so if you've got Fortran and Python experience please consider helping them out.

Nick Stokes has used a similar graph to the one posted at the top of this thread;

http://www.realclimate.org/images/russian.jpeg

But the issue is, how many of the Russian sites have been excluded from the post 1975 period; and does that exclusion produce the good blue correlation with the CRU data in the red?

I also think his rather quixotic quest to run CCSM 3.0 on a 2.66Ghz Core Duo is going to crash upon the rocks of reality. I don't know why Raymond told him that a climate model couldn't make use of multiple cores. This is a patently absurd statement since the simultaneous computation of gridded values is what climate models are all about, this is a trivially parallelizable (sp?) problem. Well, I never had much respect for Raymond anyway, this just validates my low opinion of him.

Well, they don't understand why the model's been tested out on the Portland Group's FORTRAN compiler (and for better or worse, some of the founders of that company worked for me, and my compiler company, back in the 1980s).

The Portland Group's FORTRAN compiler technology focuses on high-performance vectorization optimization that - oh gosh, allows code to use multiple processors - which is one reason why they've survived the onslaught of open source compiler technology (after my company fell prey to it :) (meanwhile, have no fear, I'm making my living in the open source world, but I do admire the Portland Group's dedication to selling proprietary compiler technology in application areas that no open source compiler thus far competes in. Though this will, eventually, come to pass).

I think you'll find that poorly-written applications make poor use of multiple cores, causing threads to become orphaned, clogging up the CPU which gradually ramps up to 100% utilisation and stops doing anything useful.

This, obviously, is why modern GCMs are running on million dollar server farms, because, when it comes down to it, they're only able to use one CPU.

Sort of like Google with their huge datacenters ... the reality, is that a search can only run on one processor, so the whole basis of their business is based on fraud.

Just like climate science is based on fraud.

THINK! THINK! THINK!

Now as far as the particular model these people are using ... I don't know. Is it a production one? Educational? I have no idea.

But certainly the models used by GISS, the Hadley Centre, etc can be highly parallelized ...

Hadley this or last year just spent a huge sum on a huge multiprocessor supercomputer ... and people believe the models can't take advantage?

God.

Eric Raymond's a fool.

Vince,

Read this. Ken, who is a freelance science reporter, is obviously communicating information provided to him by Raymond. While this information is correct, it is completely wrong in this context since the application is by it's very nature parallel.

Besides the app is written to run on AIX, so they are going to have to use Linux as the base OS for this port.

At any rate, I'd like to see him have some success, which is why I suggested that he try EdGCM. It may be 15 years behind the times, but it will run on just about any Windows or Mac PC, comes with preconfigured experiments to run and has a large number of user contributed experiments if you don't want to design your own. CCSM is the full strength version and still takes a supercomputer to run. I just don't want to see the inevitable failure to get it to run properly to be trumpeted by Raymond and Burnside as some strike against climate models.

By Rattus Norvegicus (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

Nick Stokes has used a similar graph to the one posted at the top of this thread;

that graph is from the paper itself.

But the issue is, how many of the Russian sites have been excluded from the post 1975 period; and does that exclusion produce the good blue correlation with the CRU data in the red?

why would that be a question?

the internet story on this seems to be: russia proves that CRU invented all warming in russia, by cherrypicking stations.

the truth is, that their analysis is in very good agreement with the CRU one. case closed.

moving the goal posts over for a "treerings are no proxies" finish move?

your links have ZERO connection to the article discussed here....

Well, if you say so sod; Briffa is a gentleman though don't you think; and both studies are in the Northern hemisphere, pretty close to Russia where this study took place;

http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/11144/

The thing is, Iceland was warmer than today in the 1930's, so was Greenland; and the Arctic and the US; Canada is ambiguous; the Briffa/ Burger exchange deals with the rest of the Northern hemisphere; in the SH; Africa and South America are guessed at by GISS and IPCC; Australia is interesting; the nationalised temperature trend shows a typical AGW trend over the 20thC but 75% of the individual locations used for the nationalised trend don't. Plimer was pretty bad on this point about the current decade not being the hottest the other night; he didn't have to be; the facts were on his side.

My understanding is that all the stations they used had the UHI effect. Which of course would distort the data appropriately.

Jeff Harvey | December 17, 2009 10:46 AM:

"I unfortunately do not have a million dollar research budget".

Neither do I. And I tend to publish a lot more than said person.

But you do get to fly around in official IPCC black helicopters in your on-going quest to see the world dominated by commie-facist enviro-nazis, don't you?

As overnight temperatures fall below zero across the UK, the odds on a white Xmas in London have shortened. Although, it's still possible to get 150/1 for ice skating on the Thames.

*As overnight temperatures fall below zero across the UK, the odds on a white Xmas in London have shortened. Although, it's still possible to get 150/1 for ice skating on the Thames*

El chubbo, what is your point? Or are you content to keep trolling on Deltoid forever and ever?

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 17 Dec 2009 #permalink

@89

What?! Snow in Europe...in winter...

wow.

And wouldn't you know it... Over here in the Antipodes it is hot in the middle of summer! Hoodathunkit?

(Indeed, it is breaking high temp records, but that is another matter.)

The UK winter of 2008/2009 was the coldest winter for a decade. The cold weather was in contrast to the run of very mild winter temperatures recorded over recent years.

If this winter is also snowy, with below average temperatures, I expect someone will blame it on global warming.

el gordo,

You are speaking out of you-know-where. This entire obsession with short term or local (stochastic) processes is a diversion. One cold winter season in one small location of the biosphere is in no way evidence one way or the other of AGW. However, the long term trends of changes in many parts of the planet's surface confirm it.

Those who habitally take weather and apply it as "proof" that warming is not occurring are - surprise, surprise - more often than not the anti-science denialists. Accumulated evidence of extreme weather events are as predicted as the climate changes beyond forcings that occur naturally.

I have said this before and I will say it again: humans have disrupted biogeochemical cycles that occur over vast spatial and temporal scales and our species certainly has altered other large-scale biotic and abiotic processes, yet a small band of ideologues (and their army of generally vacuous followers) somehow suggest that humans cannot influence climate.

Get real.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 18 Dec 2009 #permalink

Hi, Mr. Harvey, After catching up on posts about all the hard science your folks are doing... just a quick question. If this whole climategate thingy shows that it is unuseable data; should the people of the world be able to get their money back from you guys? People around the world have broken their backs for you and your data for at least the last 17 years, according to Sen. John Kerry. May we have your thoughts please? I already know that we are the unimportant and irritating unwashed masses and you all are the useful "egg-heads" mentioned in the futerra PR piece(point 8), New Rules Of The Game... We need your imput on this issue, please help us? Thank you.

Tom,

First of all, I am an ecologist. But in your simple lexicon, I get the feeling that you do not think that any kind of science should be funded - perhaps unless it is science that enhances the killing ability of our military industrial complexes. On that score, I wonder how many times you have written to your representatives in government demanding that the trillions of dollars that have been squandered on illegal wars and on expanding corporate reach abroad be paid back in full. Perhaps you have written letters also demanding that the government bailouts of the corporate sector that were handed out last year be rescinded. Well, have you?

As far as climategate goes, it is hardly surprising that the denialists would make a Himalyan-sized mountain out of a molehill. I am sure that if we were to go through the private discussions in many in the think tanks and those desperately doing everything they can to undermine the scientific consensus over AGW, then we would find a veritable sea of distortion and disinformation. As I have said before, the problem, as I see it with much of the denial community, is that they loathe climate science because they are promoting a pre-determined world view in support of a brazenly political agenda; one that eviscerates the role of government in the economy in pursuit of private profit, and one in which the vast disparity in wealth and power across the globe is maintained.

Many of the same people involved in denying AGW are those arguing that the loss of biodiversity is trivial, and that other environmental problems are exaggerrated or even non-existant. They believe that whatever problems may occur, that technology will save the day, whilst ignoring the reluctance of powerful corporate elites in the north to share technologies with the south and the fact that most vital ecosystem services that sustain humanity have no technological substitutes, anyway.

In other words, these people are contrarians in every sense of the word, not just with respect to climate change but with respect to any aspect of the environment where the effects of human activities are thought to be deleterious to the health and functioning of natural systems. This, in my view, is not because we are seeing a truly enlightened debate between two sides pursuing the truth as it were, but because one side wants to maintain the status quo, irrespective as to the scientific truth and to the long term consequences of that truth.

I have encountered and debated enough contrarians in my scientific career to have a pretty good idea of what motives drive the arguments of many of them. And it is not science.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 18 Dec 2009 #permalink

Furthermore Tom,

The web site you linked to on 116 lists the web sites of right wing idealogues Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh on its blogroll.

This is exactly as I said above. The AGW debate has science on one side and those desperate to promote a far right, anti-scientific libertarian agenda on the other. What is particularly embarrassing for the likes of you, David Duff and others is that you do not even camouflage your political biases but wear them on your sleeve. At the same time you parade a tsunami of gibberish here and elsewhere and package it as if you are seriously interested in debating actual empirical science. The problem is that most contributors here can see right through it.

The fact that you persist is what I find most interesting. What do you hope to achieve? You cannot win the scientific debate, and you never will. That was over 10 years ago, and with each day more evidence accrues further undermining what little remains of your thesis.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 18 Dec 2009 #permalink

If this winter is also snowy, with below average temperatures, I expect someone will blame it on global warming.

You're confusing us with people who don't know the difference between climate and weather (i.e. denialists), el gordo. They're always trumpeting cold spells in some part of the world as evidence the world isn't warming. The fact that this difference has been explained to them many many times and they still don't understand it probably means they aren't very bright, or they're blinded by an ideology. Either way, they're not worth engaging any longer.

For any people who do want to learn about the difference between climate and weather, start with [Peter Sinclair's video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0JsdSDa_bM&feature=related). Also Google weather vs climate...most items found should be straight-forward explanations.

By Daniel J. Andrews (not verified) on 18 Dec 2009 #permalink

Lack of crashing in and of itself != competent code, this is necessary but not sufficient. How can anyone look at code written that badly and have any idea if it works?

Perhaps it doesn't. When you dig through somebody's files, you are liable to find all kinds of junk: first drafts of approaches that didn't work and were abandoned, one-off code hacked together quickly to test an idea, and subsequently rewritten from scratch, etc., etc.

Given the timing of the release, it seems likely that the goal of the thieves was to sabotage the Copenhagen talks, so release of junk code serves their interests better than release of final production code.

cohenite #107
"The thing is, Iceland was warmer than today in the 1930's, so was Greenland; and the Arctic and the US; Canada is ambiguous;"
OK, then please explain this: http://en.vedur.is/climatology/clim/nr/1213
In any other sense than possibly "record temperatures", the statement about Iceland is, at best imprecise. Iceland is also not a good example for temperature comparisons, because of its huge decadal variations.
The 1756-2008 series for Stockholm, Sweden, http://www.smhi.se/klimatdata/meteorologi/temperatur/1.2847 may be better. Recent readings have been adjusted down because of urban heat effect.

Jeff Harvey, How many ways do I have to say this? I don't care about the science anymore. You AGW folks have changed hard data to model and then dumped the hard data. I think we are going to find out the base stuff is lost. They have created a new history; PJ, MM, et al... That is why I ask you "If the world finds out that the data is useless; should we, the people of the world get our money back from you these folks". I hope for your sake I am wrong but I think we will soon know the truth about the matter. Please get real with me. The unwashed, unimportant, irritating, people of the Earth, want to know. Thank you.

If this winter is also snowy, with below average temperatures, I expect someone will blame it on global warming.

But what if they are, in part, right? If the changes imply that not only the localization, but also the dispersion, skewing etc parameters of the actual distributions change, cold and snowfall records could, at least in some regions, be another aspect of the climate change associated with global warming. I would not be astonished if we already have examples of that.

El chubbo, what is your point? Or are you content to keep trolling on Deltoid forever and ever?

He likes being a moron. So yes, he is content.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 18 Dec 2009 #permalink

You AGW folks have changed hard data to model and then dumped the hard data. I think we are going to find out the base stuff is lost. They have created a new history; PJ, MM, et al...

Sure Tom, and guess what? Now that Mannian hockeystick is even cropping up in a temperature series from 1756-present from Stockholm, Sweden!
http://www.smhi.se/klimatdata/meteorologi/temperatur/1.2847
Those guys are really everywhere. Who's gonna stop them?

Tom @122
I was trying to give you the benefit of doubt.

You're an ideologue who has selected his preferred dogma and no amount of logic, facts or truth will break through it. Just like a creationist, anti-vaxer or Holocaust, HIV/AIDS, moon-landing denier.

Some corrections to your erroneous allegations:

Models are not based on station histories.
Copies of data were deleted, the original raw data resides with the custodians of that data, not the scientists, but the national weather service of the relevant nation.

By wildlifer (not verified) on 18 Dec 2009 #permalink

wildlifer, As I understand the world; the main ideologues are Facist, Communist, Zionist, Capitalist and now you AGW folks. I am a Christian & freeman, citizen of the Earth. A rational man. What are you?

Tom:

the main ideologues are Facist, Communist, Zionist, Capitalist and now you AGW folks. I am a .. rational man.

You would say that, wouldn't you?

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 18 Dec 2009 #permalink

Chris O'Neill, Yes I will. Why shouldn't I testify to it. Let's see; Facists=Hitler,Il Duce. Communist=Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. Zionists=Sharon, Kissinger, etc. Capitalist=Soros, Gore, Rockefeller et al. AGW=PJ,MM, Gore again... I am still trying to get a handle on this as I type. The Messiah has yet to break his promises, read your Bible. Who do you think I am going to trust? I am a rational man. I have enough history with the -ist's, I don't trust them at all. Do you?

Define 'rational man.'

OK, here is a wild idea. Has anyone calculated global SAT anomalies using reanalysis data (NCEP/NCAR, NCEP-DOE AMIP-II, ERA-40)?

No "cherry picking" there, highly constrained forecasts (and no more than 6-hrs), global coverage. Not saying that the reanalyses do not have issues.

One could even select all grid points over Russia and see how they compare with GISS, RCU, NCDC, JMA.

PS: Jeez, Tom and others a managed to hi jack the thread after all.

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 18 Dec 2009 #permalink

Tom,
Why would I want to read a mythology book filled with all kinds of errors? If you want to educate yourself on your beloved nonsensical bible start here:
http://www.evilbible.com/
And then go read the book "Jesus Misquoted" to find out how much made up nonsense slipped in as manual copying was done.
Far from being rational you are merely stupid.
Please Time Lambert let Tom rant in his own thread but not here!

By Mark Schaffer (not verified) on 18 Dec 2009 #permalink

Tom Harris?

Adding to the thread hijack, I know, but...
Tom, There's a few more 'isms' I've go problems with, too. Christianism, Islamism, etc...

Anyone who tries to treat faith-based belief systems as if they are rational (hello, Tom) is failing at both faith and rationalism.

mb, To me a rational man does his best to make decisions based on valid information, his needs and the available options open to him at that time. See, think, act. Not group think with a moderator to lead the discussion. Then at a given point in time, the decision will be arrived at by consensus. How do you lead,mb?

"Tom" @129 (for example), are you Tom Harris from the idiotic and delusional astroturf climate science coalition in Canada who would not know good science if it him them in the face?

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 18 Dec 2009 #permalink

Look fella's, you all read your books. I will read my book. We all want to give our faith to something or someone. I understand. I just try to get the Word out when I can. Love to all, Tom

Please answer the question posed @ 133 and 136 Tom. I'll take silence as a yes, that is, that you are Tom Harris.

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 18 Dec 2009 #permalink

MapleLeaf, No I am not that Tom I am Viper 6, Tom. POE, Tom

Tom @139. Viper, isn't that an evil serpent :) ?

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 18 Dec 2009 #permalink

I am a rational man.

1. How would you know, if you weren't?

2. If you have to tell people, likely it's not true. See: "I am an honest man."

Speak your mind Tom Viper and those that matter won't mind. While those that do mind, don't really matter.

Being of a minority opinion (against the dogma of consensus) is no easy road. It is worth keeping in mind that the IPCC models are a stochastic process, in the same way as the stock market. Very few economists saw the financial meltdown coming and so it is with cc.

Global cooling has begun, but everyone is looking the other way.

We receive the following litany from Tom @35:

>* *there was blatent fraud*

>* *I don't trust anything they say now*

>* *It is not about the science anymore. It is treason on a world wide scale.*

>* * This I know, is just the tip of the iceberg but everywhere you look you find Soros, Gore etc., etc., etc.*

>* *I want to see it fail. People around the world arrested and tried then sentenced for their crimes. I know when someone tries to kill me... The world is being threatend with slavery by those with money. You will only be able to scoff at this if you are blind. You all have assisted in Their plan. Let us all get to the bottom of the NWO plans and participants. We need to know this first. Would you agree?*

How dose Tom support these charges?

>* *Pettyness was throughout the emails, as well as their use of funds to travel the world.... You can't make me. I have done my homework.*

And Tomâs circumstantial evidence?

>* *It makes me sick to see how many, for so long have worked towards this goal at COP15.*

Naturally, some of us asked Tom for more evidence. What was Tom reply?

>* *[â¦] Go find the email that says to send less than ten thousand dollars per day to avoid the banks and their records. They also mention that the person who moved the money took a small taste.*

Martin M @45 went searching, and couldnât find it, and asked Tom for clarification. Tomâs reply:

>* *MartinM, Thank you for your effort. It is not the email I read. It was shorter. From memory... I will shut up on this subject. I don't need to read more FOIA files. I have read enough already. I know what I read. It is my hope the whole world gets a chance to read these files as well. They speak for themselves.*

Then Tom @ 50 gives us this:

> *[â¦] I pasted a futerra PR piece that led to the Board and the Pres. said she sat on the board of Tomorrows Company, which had/has a picture of Al Gore on its home page... The Kerry piece that I read this morning came from a site that supported AGW and the sponsors were Soros, Gore, Rockefeller all kind of foundations and trusts on the left. You are saying I am wrong about this?*

So Tomâs list of evidence extents to:

>* *Pettyness was throughout the emails, as well as their use of funds to travel the world.... You can't make me. I have done my homework.*

>* *how many, for so long have worked towards this goal at COP15.*

>* *It is not the email I read. It was shorter. From memory [â¦]. I don't need to read more FOIA files. I have read enough already. I know what I read. It is my hope the whole world gets a chance to read these files as well. They speak for themselves.*

>* *[a futerra PR piece]( http://www.futerra.co.uk/downloads/NewRules:NewGame.pdf) that led to the Board and the Pres. said she sat on the board of Tomorrows Company, which had/has a picture of Al Gore on its home page*

>* *The Kerry piece that I read this morning came from a site that supported AGW and the sponsors were Soros, Gore, Rockefeller all kind of foundations and trusts on the left.*

Tom has ignored further request for those damming emails he describes, yet he has continued claiming fraud and conspiracy.

Some background on Tom: Tom joined us with the Drudge swam were he was [very attached to]( http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/new_zealand_climate_science_co…) that futerra PR publication.

Tom thinks itâs damming evidence, but like the emails, Tom finds it hard to support his claims that this is anything but PR guide to communicate the science of AGW.

Tom, it is not Christian to behave like a cretin and just say âlove to allâ on the end of it. That is what is called âChrist washâ, and its quite sickening to watch.

BTW you've left the most profitable and most self-intereted players out of your conspiracy? But its quite easy to be sloppy when evidence doesn't matter.

Janet, is that you?

D J Andrews

I understand the difference between weather and climate perfectly well, but I'm convinced a hat trick of unusually cold winters in the UK will destroy the AGW theory. As far as the voting public are concerned, at least.

I understand the difference between weather and climate perfectly well, but I'm convinced a hat trick of unusually cold winters in the UK will destroy the AGW theory. As far as the voting public are concerned, at least.

Bingo. El Gordo once again shows he doesn't care about the science, it's all politics, all the way down.

Gullible as they come:

I understand the difference between weather and climate perfectly well, but I'm convinced a hat trick of unusually cold winters in the UK will destroy the AGW theory.

i.e. three winters worth of weather, which is nowhere near enough to establish climate, somehow destroys a theory of climate yet the gullible one thinks he understands the difference between weather and climate.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 18 Dec 2009 #permalink
I am a .. rational man.

You would say that, wouldn't you?

Tom:

Yes I will.

You will say that regardless of whether it's true or not. Until I know you from a bar of soap I would be a fool to assume it's true.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 18 Dec 2009 #permalink

Popular perceptions about the weather will effect voting habits and political decisions will determine the outcome of the cc debate.

What is needed (from my side) is one of those rare weather events where the February mean temperature is below zero across the UK. It has only happened about eight times since 1659, where a winter month has passed without a thaw.

Keep your eyes open for a persistent high pressure anchored over Scandinavia.

So, you think yourself to be a "[rational man](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th… )", do you Tom?

In addition to Mark Schaffer's [link](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th… ) perhaps you might ponder a while the links on [this page](http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/), and tell me how you reconcile all of the inconsistencies, errors, mistranslations, and sundry other roadblocks to rational thought, that are contained therein.

To me a rational man does his best to make decisions based on valid information...

On the matter of human-caused global warming, you might also like to answer the questions that I posed [here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/firedoglake_book_salon_on_jame…). You need only provide one or two high-quality references to peer-reviewed studies, and about a paragraph of summary, to answer each question. Note that each question addresses independent and empirical evidence for AGW - evidence that constitutes "valid information" by your own criterion.

Failure to properly address the questions will only indicate the type of profound cognitive dissonance that characterises an irrational person...

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 18 Dec 2009 #permalink

dhogaza, there is a difference between thread-based and distributed-memory parallelism. It is quite possible, and unfortunately quite common, for a scientific code to support the latter well but not the former.

You're such a bully BJ; I've answered your questions at JM's and posed, in the spirit of quid pro quo some questions for you:

Why any of these disproofs of AGW arenât legitimate:

1 Miskolczi and MEP
2 No change in the measure of optical depth for the last 60 years
3 A decrease in outgoing longwave radiation in contradiction of every AGW model as found by Lindzen and Choi
4 A decline in specific humidity as found by Paltridge Arking and Pook, and a decline in relative humidity as found by Minschwaner
5 That clouds are a negative feedback as found by Ramanthan et al, Spencer and Braswell, The Climate Process Team on Low-Latitude Cloud Feedbacks on Climate Sensitivity (cloud CPT) which includes three climate modeling centers, NCAR, GFDL, and NASAâs Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO), together with 8 funded external core PIs led by Chris Bretherton of the University of Washington (UW).

@cohenite:
1. Miskolczi? Wrong on many accounts, starting with abuse of Kirchoff's laws
2. Comes from Miskolczi, should be treated with extreme skepticism
3. Lindzen&Choi, debunked already by Roy Spencer(!)
4. The first one is in contradiction with other measurements, the second is outright laughable. Laughable you refer to it as some kind of proof against AGW. Minschwaner has modeled(!) based on the current climate models, and found that absolute humidity would increase, but relative humidity decrease!
5. Gee, another reference to modeling studies, and a local one (hint: "low-latitude cloud feedbacks").

I haven't ham slices on the eyes: looking at the chart, the difference between blue line and red line is clear pre-1960, and the tampered data is clear. Up to 40% of difference and a boost to up of raise temperature: like as IEA says, if I undestand.
I haven't doubt that the Prof. Lambert release his code as open source programm under GNU/GPL licence. No doubt, but I can't find nowhere... Anyone could help me?

Thanks from Italy.

Simone,

You say "the tampered data is clear". What do you mean? Do you mean they improperly selected the data? Or do you mean they selected the data and you don't understand or are not competent to judge if it is proper?

Secondly, assuming by your phrase 'tampered data' you think its improper data selection; if CRU were trying to cook the books why would they want to reduce the proporition of warming in the period after 1900? How would that help their case, if they were crooked?

the one that provides more support for anthropogenic global warming is the blue hockey stick.

Interesting perspective. Unfortunately, some pretty senior people seem to look at it from a different perspective.

Why is it that the head of IPCC appears to disagree with you, using end-to-end straight-line trendlines to illustrate his argument? For him, the red curve would show more warming :)

My point: a large difference between the two is...a large difference. People don't like being messed with.

(And I'm sick of innumerate interpretation of data on all sides. Talk about confirmation bias. When will someone create honest confidence intervals? Curious what a statistician would say about those CI's and "best estimate" curves. I assume Tim didn't create them.)

jackerman, you even talk like Akerman.

Tim, if Janet is an 'unperson' may I be Winston Smith? I await your earliest reply.

Jakerman,
the chart it's clear: I no doubt in AGW, I no doubt in a role of human in the climatic change. The problem is: how? How much? If the anomalies are 1,25° instead 1,75°, the problem are big as a builnding: not enough for me that in the past 50 years the blue line and red line are the same or very similar. The difference of 0,5° appears in pre-1960 as a man-made alteration of temperature anomalies for punping rising the climate change. The problem is, specifically, not if a climate raise +/- 12,5%, that no change substantially the AGW, but in methodology, in a scientific process. There's the problem, it's a great problem of credibility and trasparency. IMHO.
I'm not competent to judge if it's proper data, because I'm not a climatologist: but I have eyes, I see the chart, I use the logic, I'm competent to judge the scientific process (because I'm a PhD at University) and method. The release the code is an imperative, because if the accuse focus on the code use by IEA, the minimum requirements are release the code use for destroy the IEA's paper in open source and GNU/GPL license. Obviously, IMHO. And then, I endorse the idea of someone verifying these results: but surely the climate science âcommunityâ is not so threadbare that no one other than McIntyre is capable of the analysis of IEA's code.
Best Regards ;)

Speak your mind Tom Viper and those that matter won't mind. While those that do mind, don't really matter.

Sound familiar? Consider "If you are not with me, you are against me." It's religious language, and el gordo is giving support to a fellow fundamentalist. It seems to me that for some, denialism is the new faith.

150 el gordo,

The last month in the CET record with an average below zero °C was Feb 1986. If this were to happen again during the next 2-3 months it would still be weather, not climate. If it happens repeatedly over many winters then it might indicate a change in the upward trend but we would have also to look at the whole year. In any case, we would still be talking about one small country, a tiny %age of the NH.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 19 Dec 2009 #permalink

161 silkworm,

Science denialism or ASS (Anti-Science Syndrome) has been a religion, almost entirely of the libertarian and extreme right and especially in the USA, ever since environmental legislation was first enacted. Anti-AGW is just the latest and most extreme case.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 19 Dec 2009 #permalink

86 Rattus,

I see that Deep Climate has closed that thread for comments. I wonder if this is because of threats of legal action from Rapp or because it's getting bombarded by deniers?

What is it with Rapp? If there's a simple explanation, why on Earth doesn't he give it?

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 19 Dec 2009 #permalink

I see that Deep Climate has closed that thread for comments. I wonder if this is because of threats of legal action from Rapp or because it's getting bombarded by deniers?

More research, perhaps?

What is it with Rapp?

Other than being an arrogant ass who obviously believes he's smarter than anyone studying climate science, and therefore his parroting of tired long-debunked denialist talking points magically makes them true?

If there's a simple explanation, why on Earth doesn't he give it?

Maybe because "I copied chunks of the wegman report almost verbatim without attribution" doesn't sound that good?

Rapp seems to be digging his hole a whole lot deeper with his responses. If he didn't supply material to Wegman, as he seems to claim, then he plagiarized him, which may be even worse for him, although it saves the "reputation" of the Wegman report.

However, I must say that Wegman's behavior since the report does not say much for his being an impartial analyst. Signing on to multiple denier petitions and open letters doesn't say much for the way he approached the task given him by Barton (or maybe Barton got just what he wanted?).

I am also pretty sure that he did talk with MM about their criticisms, it would be strange not to. It is also equally clear that he did not talk with Mann about his responses to MM's criticisms which pretty much showed that while they might have a valid point, in the end the mistakes didn't make any difference.

I never did understand all the brouhaha about a 7 year old paper which used an analysis method which had been superseded by a better one. One of the main criticisms in the scientific community of Mann's original method seems to have been that it lacked low frequency variability. His newer methods seem to better preserve this aspect of the proxy record and a clear MCA and LIA are shown in his reconstructions.

Oh well, Copenhagen blew up -- pretty much as I expected -- and inaction will be the order of the day for the next several years. Just long enough for it to become painfully obvious that we are in a world of hurt, I am afraid.

By Rattus Norvegicus (not verified) on 19 Dec 2009 #permalink

Rattus, good post. I concur, it seems that Wegman was 'cherry-picked' to ensure that they would get the result that they wanted. WTF?

It seems that the denialists have their own network and "team". If Wegman consulted MM, then he should have also (if he were being fair and unbiased/impartial) consulted with Mann. Maybe he did, but chose not to disclose what was said in those discussions.

Rapp seems to be in somewhat of a predicament right now, but that did not stop him from threatening legal action yesterday over at DC. The evidence is pretty damning that something serious is amiss. Either Wegman (or someone on Wegman's team) plagiarized Rapp, or Rapp plagiarized Wegman. It is also possible that Rapp fed Wegman information though one of the co-authors on the report with whom he had ties. Anyhow, hopefully DC or a good journalists can get to the bottom of it. Some awkward and troubling questions need to be asked of Wegman and Rapp, maybe it will all unravel from there.

Yes, COP15 was a dud, not much of a surprise, but it was not the complete failure the denialists had been hoping for.

They had better start doing simulations for more than double CO2 to include in AR5.

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 19 Dec 2009 #permalink

Mr Pete writes:

>*Why is it that the head of IPCC appears to disagree with you, using end-to-end straight-line trendlines to illustrate his argument? For him, the red curve would show more warming :)*

Why, perhaps because you don't understand the [argument he emphasizes](http://i48.tinypic.com/2ex3kns.jpg). The illustration shows how the mid-term warming trend has increased in the later 20th century. CRU station selection has reduced the proportion of warming in the period of highest GHG grwoth. The point made in the IPCC chart would have been even stronger if the the data from the blue line were used.

Simone, ditto above. And you seem to be saying you are competent to read a graph but cannot judge weather CRU data selection is supportable and valid. Is that correct?

And every time I hear someone ask for the data, I wonder if its already available, as most of it already is, eg. how were these two graphs produced without the data?

Oh well, Copenhagen blew up -- pretty much as I expected -- and inaction will be the order of the day for the next several years. Just long enough for it to become painfully obvious that we are in a world of hurt, I am afraid.

Obama got China and India to the table, though with no firm commitments. Now that the (very weak) health care reform bill's going to squeak by the Senate, he's set up to get some climate bill through the Senate early next year. He needed China and India to take a step forward and by doing so, his hand's greatly strengthened in the Senate.

One analyst makes a very good point ... the focus has shifted from the developed world vs. the developing nations to the biggest 1st world polluter (US) and the biggest ones in the developing world (China, India, Brazil - not sure where South Africa falls on the spectrum) vs. everyone else. Of course the EU is already doing a lot. If no binding UN treaty can be put together, then over the next year getting the biggest polluters on board is a big step forward. Getting China and India on board is much more important that getting (say) Kenya on board.

This really is better than the absolute zero I was expecting, and don't underestimate the importance in US domestic politics of Obama having been able to get an agreement, no matter how tenuous, between the US, China and India. Conservatives have been screaming "we won't do anything until China and India do" and while that won't stop, Obama has a good chance of picking up a couple more republican votes in the Senate.

I bet Lindsey Graham is happy with this, for instance.

Rattus, good post. I concur, it seems that Wegman was 'cherry-picked' to ensure that they would get the result that they wanted. WTF?

Well, yes, they came to bury Mann, not to praise him. That's why they chose Wegman, they knew a NAS evaluation would be objective and therefore supportive of Mann's results.

McI is at Mann again today.
Interesting how CA had nothing to say about Palin's diatribe, but they are now going over every word (and its many interpretations) of Mann's WaPo editorial. For God sakes! Seriously, did Mann kill McI's first bron or something?! No, so what the hell is Steve's problem with Mann? Why Mann has not sued Steve yet is a complete mystery to me.

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 19 Dec 2009 #permalink

TrueSceptic

The north-easterly Arctic blast will effect all of eastern Europe. We can split hairs over climate and weather, but the populace don't know the difference and will vote on the weather.

166 Rattus,

I always saw Wegman as a put-up job. Barton and McIntyre knew that the "official" investigation into the MBH v. MM issue wouldn't get the result they wanted so they commissioned a rival assessment that the deniosphere could cite forever more.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 19 Dec 2009 #permalink

172 el gordo,

I take it that you have no idea of the weather in Europe and how the British Isles usually has different weather than the Continent. Every so often we get the same thing but in general we follow the temperate maritime template and they, of course, don't.

You seem to be claiming that ignorance will win over truth. You might be right, but why would anyone want that?

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 19 Dec 2009 #permalink

Just touching base. My son who is a Rastafarian believer showed me the movie "Zeitgeist". It gave me more information about the current state of world affairs. The information to a large extent was new to me. It does fit well with what I know to be true. People of the Earth; do your duty and see this documentry of world bankers and their plans... At least some of them. I am still thinking about what I saw and heard, it was a lot to take in on one viewing. Enjoy.

"You seem to be claiming that ignorance will win over truth. You might be right, but why would anyone want that?"

TS, you just hit the nail on the head. That right there is what the denialists prey on.

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 19 Dec 2009 #permalink

Tom, I've seen Zeitgeist, did you think they accurately presented Christianity?

Do you think that swells of Bankers would seek to maximise profits regardless of the opportunities presented them?

How do you make sense of leading climate scientist like James Hansen who want a transparent carbon tax to avoid carbon trading rorts?

Does it punch a whole in your conspiracy if many people who have studies the science still don't want carbon trading, are are seeking more transparent carbon reduction processes?

Tom, listen to the voice of [some of the most vulnerable](http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/7/voices_from_africa_drought_crop_s…).

By J Akerman (not verified) on 19 Dec 2009 #permalink

Political reality is not a pretty sight. The Denialati will be screaming 'no big new tax' and yet the Greens are still confident of improving their numbers at the next election.

The Greens want climate change to be the big debating issue, but they don't appreciate the other side are being educated about the true nature of cc and will fight tooth and nail to prove their point.

In the meantime, the Coalition's advertising agency will have a challenge convincing the rank and file (in 30 seconds) that AGW is a crock.

El gullibo:

the other side are being educated about the true nature of cc

Wank on.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 20 Dec 2009 #permalink

My son who is a Rastafarian believer showed me the movie "Zeitgeist".

I've read that sentence three times and it hasn't stopped being funny.

J Ackerman, I think that the leaders of many churches are not Christian. They have no faith in God and have not accepted Christ as their savior. Faith+nothing=pesronal salvation... It points out a lot of historical fact relitive to "Church History" but that just shows us men failing their flock. Christian people of the world are vulnerable and we know it. Darfur comes to mind. To John and his laugh,it makes me smile too. My son is a believer in Christ. He studies his Bible daily. He thinks and behaves as a christian and his source is the KJV. It is not where you are at, it is who you are in. If you are a believer in Christ, you will be able to meet him some day. If you have a problem with "herb":), read Genesis. All we need to do people,is read the book and follow the instructions. It will speak for itself.
Rock on

Rock on

I think I got the words right earlier.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 20 Dec 2009 #permalink

c:

M

Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service

hoh, hoh, hoh.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 20 Dec 2009 #permalink

Chris O'Neill, Right on.

This morning as I reflected on the movie Zeitgeist, the banks etc... and now the AGW thing & COP15. The words from the movie hit me; "Divide and Conquer". Is this all just some pretext for a new crisis? God help us, if it is.

"New analysis released today has shown the global temperature rise calculated by the Met Officeâs HadCRUT record is at the lower end of likely warming. "

because

"in data-sparse regions such as Russia, Africa and Canada, warming over land is more extreme than in regions sampled by HadCRUT."

HadCRUT ignores a lot of fast-warming areas (not just the Arctic).

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 20 Dec 2009 #permalink

Chris, yes, the denialists had better be careful what they wish for. If they seek to "destroy" the CRU they will lose the most conservative global SAT data set by a long shot (although JMA is also very modest).

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 20 Dec 2009 #permalink

>Tom writes:

>*"Divide and Conquer". Is this all just some pretext for a new crisis?*

No its just the same fraudulent maximising of short term profits, requiring delay action to move to internalise more costs and more stable, safer, a fairer system of accounting. Divide and conquer has always been part of that strategy.

Tom , Thinking about the gaping holes in your conspiracy theory begs the question, what media do you consume? That Drudge swam you came in with were ill informed raving loonies. Who is getting them so worked up and feeding them such disinformation?

What does it take for you to questions your sources? Did you skip a beat when you were shown how poor your evidence was, on which you accused the CRU of fraud? Did it make you pause for thought when you dismissed the whole temperature record based on little more than a counter propaganda campaign?

Tom, why would thousands of scientist collude to rig temperature data? Why would politicians collude to do the same, then fail to introduce their conspiracy of more tax? Politicians want to get elected, to do that they now need massive contributions from lobbyist with highly concentrated wealth. They also need to keep corporate owned media onside.

The conspiracy you focus on is a distraction put out by interest who want you livered and screaming fraud with flimsy evidence.

The anomalous temperatures are supported by multiple lines of evidence, glaciers, sea ice, ecosystem responses. Are the scientist studying these responses in on the conspiracy too? Are we talking ten or hundreds of thousands conspiring?

Or is [this the more likely](http://www.desmogblog.com/climate-cover-up) conspiracy? And conspriacy modeled on the [success of another](http://www.defendingscience.org/Doubt_is_Their_Product.cfm), with many of the [same perpetrators](http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/where-theres-smoke-the-climat…)!

Enlightened self-interest should not be misconstrued as some kind of collective conspiracy.
A scientist who hopped on the AGW gravy train shouldn't be censured, anymore than a journalist in an understaffed newsroom.

Politicians will be held to account in a polarized electorate and we can thank Rudd for starting this culture war.

el gullibo:

we can thank Rudd for starting this culture war

The Howard government was the first government to propose an ETS. Looks like the gullible and ignorant blame Rudd for everything.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 20 Dec 2009 #permalink

Howard found himself in a corner and caved in, but Rudd has taken the whole thing to ridiculous heights.

Eschenbach has a [new Darwin piece](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/20/darwin-zero-before-and-after/) up.

in the comments, we finally learn why he prefers the "RAW" data. he doesn t understand adjustments at all.

for example he shows zero understanding of the time of observation problem:

No, the âdayâ is midnite to midnite, so you will only get one high or low per day. The low is typically shortly after dawn, and the high somewhere in the late afternoon.

I was happily reading this post until I encountered "hockey stick". whoops-a-daisy. Don't you doomers ever learn ?

The hockey stick was discredited years ago, yet you keep repeating the mantra.

Sorry,
I just realised I've made a mistake. I thought I was corresponding with a scientist, hence my terse criticism.
In science, when recording results, its normal to provide error bars on the charts you produce from the data. These are not present, and no 'station uncertainty' doesn't cover it. I'm talking about instrumental precision, but you may not have heard of that in computer science.

Keith:

In science, when recording results, its normal to provide error bars on the charts you produce from the data. These are not present, and no 'station uncertainty' doesn't cover it.

I'm not sure if this is a joke or what, but the blue and red lines in the graph above are straight from the denialist document (Fig. 8). Follow the link and see for yourself. The only thing that Tim added was the CRU data for that region, which does contain error bars. So this is a double FAIL on your part.

I'm not sure if this is a joke or what, but the blue and red lines in the graph above are straight from the denialist document (Fig. 8). Follow the link and see for yourself. The only thing that Tim added was the CRU data for that region, which does contain error bars. So this is a double FAIL on your part.

perfect reply.

but don t expect any insight from Keith. he also thinks that the hockeystick has been discredited years ago....

Mabus cleanup in aisle 188...

[Keith](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…).

You are full of shit.

There is no way that you would have sailed along blithely until you encountered 'hockey stick', if you believe that hockey sticks were "discredited years ago".

And I can tell you now that there are probably more professional scientists on this blog than you have ever met - or even read - in your life.

Idiots like you remind me of the ongoing dialogue that Sam Kass has with nimrods who think that "The Big Bang Theory" invented [rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock](http://www.samkass.com/theories/RPSSL.html).

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 20 Dec 2009 #permalink

el gullibo:

Howard found himself in a corner and caved in,

So Rudd was in control of the Howard government? Thanks for the fairy tale.

but Rudd has taken the whole thing to ridiculous heights.

There you go blaming Rudd again. The ETS that Rudd tried to get passed was much the same as Howard's ETS.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 21 Dec 2009 #permalink

Hi there Janet, Conspiracies. I think it was about 1980, when I got the Sunday paper and inside the Parade section there was a story on the only mass book burning organized in the U.S. It was the book "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion". The only place I could find a copy was at Gonzaga Univ., in the Referance section. I checked out the small book printed by Henry Ford, around the time of WW I. I must say it was a mind expanding read. I had no idea someone could write such a complex outline for world control so clearly and concisely. You will not forget these words and you see the powers behind the curtin today, moving the world just as this book lays things out for the reader. The book gives the rumored background of who recovered the book...? To me though it is the methods to be used and the principles that drove their plan. After the last thirty years of watching the NWO unfold around the world, this book has proven itself to me, as being the real deal. You check it out please and get back to us with your view. As to what I have read and where I get my current information; I laid that out for you the first time you asked me, back in November. You smart folks don't have the; Updated-Approved-Reading, list up yet so I still have to do this on my own. I hope that is OK with you scientists. People do your duty and check it out... Thank you, MGT

Tom, #206 leaves me wondering whether you are a Poe or a Nazi.

By Rattus Norvegicus (not verified) on 21 Dec 2009 #permalink

In the world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. She asked the question. I gave an honest answer. Have you read this book? Or is it on the unapproved list until this day? It is on the web. Who is sticking their head in the sand? You tell us; the people, will you please? And lets drop the name calling, you don't know anything about me or my life experiance. If you were a Jew, NWO would read to you as OWN. Smart jokes...? Help us please.

Tom,

You missed the burning of Beatles' records when John Lennon let the cat out of the bag by by saying, "We're more popular than Jesus...". The Secret Plans for World Domination are in the lyrics of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand", but you have to play it backwards.

If you value your sanity, I suggest you don't look too closely at the reverse of the US dollar bill. Also.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 21 Dec 2009 #permalink

luminous beauty, Yes I did miss it, I was in the RVN. I called the Treasury Dept. in the 90's and asked them the history of the design of the $1 bill. The woman in the information department said that the whole issue was vague at best as to the whole construct...? Wow, you are a psychiatrist too! The world is full of smart folks. So you have read this book too? What did you think of it? Thank you.

Tom, I take that back. You are either a Nazi or a fool.

"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is a well known forgery which first surfaced in Russia during the early 20th C. Hitler spoke approvingly of it in Mein Kampf. You can read all about it here. Now shut up and leave us alone.

By Rattus Norvegicus (not verified) on 21 Dec 2009 #permalink

Wow, BJ, your resident eccentrics are much more...interesting than the ones we get at Jen's but then you used to be one of them.

Tom writes:
[â¦] Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion". [â¦] I must say it was a mind expanding read. I had no idea someone could write such a complex outline for world control so clearly and concisely. You will not forget these words and **you see the powers behind the curtin today**, moving the world just as this book lays things out for the reader. The book gives the **rumored** background of who recovered the book...? To me though it is the methods to be used and the principles that drove their plan. After the last thirty years of watching the NWO unfold around the world, this book has proven itself to me, as being the real deal. You check it out please and get

Tom is quite atp that someone with a long record of relying on poor sources believe the bunk about the *Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion*.
The most [cursory backgrounding]( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion) would show you that it was a put up job. * âmuch of the material was directly plagiarized from earlier works ofpolitical satire unrelated to Jewsâ*. It was just another in a long line of anit-jew propaganda.

But when you depend on the sources you do Tom, you get to belive in century old hateful lies.
The reason you see elements of truth in the Protocols of Zion is because political satire has elements of truth. And remember the POZ were plagerised from *âpolitical satire unrelated to Jewsâ*
It more FUD, distract from the real problems and divide and conquer. While youâve been conned about the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, you ignore the massive concentration of power that is blatantly evident.

Hello Professor Lambert,
Are you aware of the writings of Tom regarding the despicable forgery he is pushing? This has nothing to do with the topic here and should lead him to having his own thread where he can mumble incoherently to himself.
Tom,
Please get mental counseling help before you harm yourself or others.
Thank you,
Mark Schaffer

By Mark Schaffer (not verified) on 21 Dec 2009 #permalink

I've deleted a bunch of Anti-Semitic rants from Tom and some of the responses. He is now on moderation.

By Tim Lambert (not verified) on 21 Dec 2009 #permalink

So the 'hocky-stick' is real logon people ?
I thought I was in discussion with people who were informed. Not much I can do about your lack of information. But you might wonder why IPCC no longer publishes this artefact of blatant falsehood. Of course then you would be thinking for yourself. Give it a try.

Keith writes:

>*So the 'hocky-stick' is real logon people ? I thought I was in discussion with people who were informed. Not much I can do about your lack of information. But you might wonder why IPCC no longer publishes this artefact of blatant falsehood. Of course then you would be thinking for yourself. Give it a try.*

Keith, that would be the fallacy of assertion without evidence. [This is the evidence](http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/ar4-wg1/jpg/fig-6-10.jpg) you didn't bother to checkout. And in case you are wondering MBH99 is Mann's 1999 hockey stick, improved on and largely validated with 8 years of further corroborating findings.

It has been asked several times, given McIntyres acquaintance with he subject, and his contrary views, why won't McIntyre publish a temperature reconstruction to show how it should be done. Sniping from the side lines is easy, publishing best in field science is hard work. I think McIntyre knows what his chart would look like if he got the science right. It would look something similar to the other dozen hockey sticks.

jakerman; you should look closely at Fig 6.10(c).

Cohenite.

Wow, BJ, your resident eccentrics are much more...interesting than the ones we get at Jen's but then you used to be one of them.

1) They are not "my" resident eccentrics, and your claim that "[I] used to be one of them" is a grubby bit of confabulating innuendo. Your implicit association of myself, or of any others at Deltoid, with the filth that Tom has sprayed is a nasty tactic - though perhaps not a surprising one, coming from a former divorce laywer.

2) The "eccentrics" at ExJen's are just as interestingly rabid as Tom - I present for the court's consideration one Graeme Bird as an example: there are many others.

3) The "eccentrics" that infest Deltoid are not indigenous residents - they are ferals blowing in from Drudge, WTFUWT, CA, ExJen's, and other delightfully alternative sites.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 21 Dec 2009 #permalink

I would note Jakerman that the charts you presented are for a far longer time period than Lambert presented.

I'm not sure about the "8 years of corroborating findings", but what about the 8 years of temperature observation ? But of course, the data must be wrong. None of the actual observations actually fit the models do they ?

Bernard J, Is that an immigration policy I detect ? Do you support internet tribalism ?

Oh, I do apologise BJ; I had forgotten you were beyond reproach. What's "laywer"?

Keith:

I would note Jakerman that the charts you presented are for a far longer time period than Lambert presented.

And your point is?

I'm not sure about the "8 years of corroborating findings",

S/he was talking about temperature reconstructions using methods independent of MBH98/99 done since MBH99.

but what about the 8 years of temperature observation ? But of course, the data must be wrong. None of the actual observations actually fit the models do they ?

The models generate instances of weather controlled by climate parameters. As we all should know, climate does not tell us when individual weather events occur.

You can get lost now troll.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 21 Dec 2009 #permalink

And no error bars alas.

the "point", Chris, of the time period, is that using the shorter time frame enables the chart to look more alarming that it would otherwise, utilising as it does, a localised minimum in the 1800's. Not even the IPCC's chart looks as alarming.

"S/he was talking about temperature reconstructions using methods independent of MBH98/99 done since MBH99." Well after that mouthful, I'm still not sure.

Actually, I'm not a troll. Just another warmer testing your faith. Sadly, I have to report your poor showing to IPCC central now. Ciao

What's "laywer"?

A pedant who, for want of any credible argument that might actually sustain his pseudoscientific nonsense, turns instead to reproaching trivial typographic errors.

By inference, 'laywerism' is the expedient distraction of a discussion from relevant points, when one's arguments are hopelessly indefencible.

Laywer away, cohenite.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 21 Dec 2009 #permalink

Keith:

the "point", Chris, of the time period, is that using the shorter time frame enables the chart to look more alarming that it would otherwise, utilising as it does, a localised minimum in the 1800's. Not even the IPCC's chart looks as alarming.

Just amazing really. Mann gets hounded by science denialists because his hockeystick goes back a long time into the past and here we get another one complaining about a hockeystick because it DOESN'T go back a long time in the past! You can't win.

In any case, jakerman was responding to your bullshit troll about the IPCC no longer publishing hockeysticks which has nothing directly to do with Tim Lambert's point.

"S/he was talking about temperature reconstructions using methods independent of MBH98/99 done since MBH99." Well after that mouthful, I'm still not sure.

Sorry to exceed your very short attention span. I wouldn't be too confident you'll ever be sure.

Actually, I'm not a troll.

Sure, if you say so.

Just another warmer testing your faith. Sadly, I have to report your poor showing to IPCC central now. Ciao

I hope this means you've finally taken my advice to get lost, troll.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 21 Dec 2009 #permalink

Keith writes:

>*I would note Jakerman that the charts you presented are for a far longer time period than Lambert presented.*

Correct, as you were making [demonstrably wrong](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) statements.

I'm not sure about the "8 years of corroborating findings"

Well its in the charts Keith.

>*[...] but what about the 8 years of temperature observation?*

The climate models show 11 year smoothed curves temperature, so we'll need to wait and see how the [record breaking](http://climateprogress.org/2009/12/08/world-meteorological-organization…) high temperature of the 2000s fit into the scheme of things.

>*But of course, the data must be wrong.*

Only if you are debating yourself!

>*None of the actual observations actually fit the models do they?*

The models don't predict year on year weather, [they predict climate trends](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/plot/gistemp/mean:132/plot/gis…).

Cohenite writes": *The Hockeystick Mann seems to have upset the citizenry*

should read, "The Hockeystick Mann seems to have upset the *far right and corporate* citizenry *who don't give a damn about the huge volumes of empirical evidence in support of AGW*"

That's more like it.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 21 Dec 2009 #permalink

Cohenite,

Your linked comment left out the important point that the Top Of Atmosphere (TOA) [energy imbalance in increasing](http://www.skepticalscience.com/Understanding-Trenberths-travesty.html) (now at 0.9 W/m^2) and the imbalance is growing.

And as Trenberth states:

>*The current radiative imbalance at the TOA has increased
from a very small imbalance only 40 years ago when
carbon dioxide increases and radiative forcing were less
than half of those today. The excess in heat does several
things. [Icluding] It warms the planet, **increasing temperatures that in turn increase the radiation back to space**[...]*

And later:

>*the total net anthropogenic radiative forcing once
aerosol cooling is factored in is estimated to be
1.6 W/m 2 [...] The imbalance at the top-of-the-atmosphere
(TOA) would increase to be [ 3.6 W/m 2] once water vapor and ice-albedo feedbacks are included.
However, the observed surface warming of 0.75 C if
added to the radiative equilibrium temperature of the
planet would result in a compensating increase in longwave
radiation of 2.8 W m 2 [...] The net imbalance is
estimated to be [0.9 W/m 2] [...]*

jakerman, there is no shortage of papers finding a decrease in OLR indicative of a climate sensitivity consistent with AGW; The Harries 2001 paper is probably the most influential; however, subsequent papers by Harries qualify the initial findings;

âA recent comparison between data taken by two different satellite instruments, the Interferometric Monitor of Greenhouse Gases (IMG) that flew in 1997 and the Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer (IRIS) that flew in 1970, showed evidence of a change in the clear-sky greenhouse radiative forcing due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations between those years.â

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&issn=1520-0442…

The phrase âevidence of a change in the clear-sky greenhouse radiative forcingâ is a much weaker claim than the previous âexperimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earthâs greenhouse effectâ. After all, Harries et al did not perform an experiment in the usually understood sense, nor did they directly measure the Earthâs greenhouse effect, which relates to radiation across the whole infrared spectrum, from the surface to top of atmosphere.

By 2004, in Griggs and Harries (2004), Harries had considerably watered-down his message and said this:

âThe results suggest that while the sampling pattern of the IRIS instrument is sufficiently well distributed and dense to generate monthly regional mean brightness temperatures that are within 1.5 K of the true all-sky values, the IMG sampling is too sparse and yields results that differ from the true case by up to 6.0 K. Under cloud-free conditions the agreement with the true field for both instruments improves to within a few tenths of a kelvin. Comparisons with the observed IMGâIRIS difference spectra show that these uncertainties due to sampling presently limit the conclusions that can be drawn about climatically significant feedback processes.â

http://www.ggy.bris.ac.uk/staff/personal/JennyGriggs/paper_3.pdf

In addition, in this latter paper comparing three satellites spectra, an increase in methane was found even between observations when methane was not increasing. They also highlight an inaccuracy in the MODTRAN spectroscopic model.

This suggests the only really significant result of Harries et al. 2001 at all, the deepened methane line, could have been an artifact.

210 Tom,

Clearly your obsessions are not limited to a supposed conspiracy in climate science. I suggest that you join [JREF](http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=12), where just about anything gets discussed. Whatever you might think already, you can bet that someone will already have said something weirder!

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 22 Dec 2009 #permalink

Hmm... looks like "cohnite" is a laywer after all.

Didn't someone show him to be as stupid as A Bag Of Hammers a few months ago?

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 22 Dec 2009 #permalink

cohenite:

A decrease in outgoing longwave radiation in contradiction of every AGW model as found by Lindzen and Choi

So what did you actually intend to write instead of the above considering that outgoing longwave radiation is supposed to decrease with increasing greenhouse effect?

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 22 Dec 2009 #permalink

Which FUD site is spreading the Iris bullsh-- to the Message Force Multipliers? I've seen this refuted paper brought up increasingly of late.

OH, I know: all the denialist arguments are recycled over and over. But why bring up this particular paper? Is Lindzen writing op-eds in Murdoch papers again??

Best,

D

How laywerly of you Mr O'Neill to pick up that little error; of course Lindzen and Choi found an INCREASE in OLR in contradiction to what the AGW play-stations had predicted; but I'll take my leave now that the charming TrueSceptic and Dano have arrived.

Cohenite is a rather ignorant and malicious quoter. If you actually read Brindley and Harries it is clear that the paper does not back off at all from the original claims. Referring to their original 1998 paper:

This work showed that,over large regions of the earth, the clear-sky emission spectrum showed detailed changes, which agreed well with theoretical expectations based on the known changes of greenhouse gases such as CO2 , CH4 , O3 , and chlorofluorocarbons 11 and 12. In this way it has been experimentally confirmed for the first time that the greenhouse forcing of the earth has, indeed, been changed through the growth of greenhouse gases.

However the 2003 paper concerns itself with whether more information can be extracted, in particular (from the abstract, C has chopped rather important sentences from the front of the section he quotes in italic)

A possibly even more intriguing question is whether the data can be used to extract unambiguous information about the radiative feedback processes that accompany such a change of forcing, especially cloud feedback. This paper is an investigation of this question, with particular reference to the uncertainties introduced into the differences between IMG and IRIS spectra due to their different patterns of temporal and spatial sampling. This has been approached by modeling the sampling problem, using high-resolution proxy scenes of top-of-the-atmosphere 11 micron brightness temperature, TB11 , taken from International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) data, sampled according to the characteristics of IRIS and IMG, respectively. The results suggest that while the sampling pattern of the IRIS instrument is sufficiently well
distributed and dense to generate monthly regional mean brightness temperatures that are within 1.5 K of the
true all-sky values, the IMG sampling is too sparse and yields results that differ from the true case by up to
6.0 K. Under cloud-free conditions the agreement with the true field for both instruments improves to within a
few tenths of a kelvin. Comparisons with the obser ved IMGâIRIS difference spectra show that these uncertainties
due to sampling presently limit the conclusions that can be drawn about climatically significant feedback pro-
cesses.

ALWAYS RTFR when C quotes something at you.

Eli, and Trenberth is still bitching about this 7 years later.

By Rattus Norvegicus (not verified) on 22 Dec 2009 #permalink

TS wrote:

Hmm... looks like "cohnite" is a laywer after all.
Didn't someone show him to be as stupid as A Bag Of Hammers a few months ago?

Yes. BJ set Cohers a small stats problem for him to prove that he had any idea what he was blathering on about.

First cohers pleaded mercy on the fact that his wife wasn't home to help him figure it out, then shortly after he was observed over at Jen's ex-Blog of Crazy begging for help (incredible but true) to solve said problem.

Bag of hammers found that the other hammers were no better informed.

cohenite:

How laywerly

takes one to know one

of you Mr O'Neill to pick up that little error; of course Lindzen and Choi found an INCREASE in OLR in contradiction to what the AGW play-stations had predicted;

So when you said:

subsequent papers by Harries qualify the initial findings

you no longer wanted to argue that there was an INCREASE in OLR, you merely wanted to argue that the evidence for a DECREASE in OLR was not as strong as previously observed.

I'm sorry but it can be a little difficult to work out which line of bullshit you are peddling at any particular moment.

but I'll take my leave now that the charming TrueSceptic and Dano have arrived.

Rather more easy to realize you're a hypocrite, however.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 22 Dec 2009 #permalink

There is a decrease in OLR towards the poles because of the cold conditions, but there is also widespread areas of low OLR values in Amazonia and Indonesia because of thunderstorm anvils and cirrus cloud.

So why do they call them 'cold clouds'? And what has all this to do with global warming?

Think of me as Ms Average who only discovered the term OLR this morning.

[Michael](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…).

First cohers pleaded mercy on the fact that his wife wasn't home to help him figure it out, then shortly after he was observed over at Jen's ex-Blog of Crazy begging for help (incredible but true) to solve said problem.

Cohenite [tried the same thing](http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/?p=6540&cp=38#comment-156817) with the [questions I've been asking of various Denialati](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/firedoglake_book_salon_on_jame…
) who have infested Deltoid over the last few weeks. Read the post and the several that follow for giggles - I especially like the [JunkScience 'evidence'](http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Stratosphere1278-1204.gif) that he presented to refute stratospheric cooling.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 22 Dec 2009 #permalink

The last posting by el gordo proves my point entirely from another thread. He/she does not apparently read the primary literature but cites anti-enviroinmental denialist web logs for discussion.

This is why el gordo's world view is as narrow as it is. He/she also scans the web sites of legitiamte bodies like Woods Hole only in search of snippets suggesting that there are anomalies in the data. Yawn. What a joke.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 Dec 2009 #permalink

el gordo,

Thanks for keeping me up to date with the [swill of BS](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) coming from dinialsts.

It's interested to document how much fact free speculative garbage they circulate in self reinforcing echo chambers.

Remember how many crazies are now convinced of "fraud" based on "hide the decline" speculation and erroneous pronouncements of guilt. With such a swell of uncorrecting, self-reinforcing garbage, millions among the denialist will belive the "hide the decline' meme until they die.

Is that truth seeking, or pure propaganda and brain washing?

el gordo, that's is the guff and bunk you are promoting when you mindless repeat 'I bet they wrote it for this release.'

But thanks for the case study in what you think is valid.

>*he will 'bet a mince pie*

Wow, A mince pie! In otherwords he's got no evidence, he' not really prepared to back himself at all, but its a cheap way to make insinuations and smear the work of an entire organisation!

What a creep! El gordo, you were posting this to show how low the denialist are stooping, weren't you?

The Denialati don't stoop, some of us may be a little bent-over but that's because we have the weight of the world on our shoulders.

Come the next election, when the banners read 'global warming global hoax', your side will be caught in flagrante delicto.

Merry Christmas and a Happy new year to all :)

By denialatimugger (not verified) on 23 Dec 2009 #permalink

el gordo writes:

>*The Denialati don't stoop...*

So he says without care for the contradictory evidence he just posted above.

>*some of us may be a little bent-over but that's because we have the weight of the world on our shoulders.*

That would be the weight of your ill founded insinuations, smears and slander, combined with the bending moment induced by the gap between your claims and the overwhelming weight of evidence.

>*Come the next election, when the banners read 'global warming global hoax', your side will be caught in flagrante delicto.*

So glad you care so much for the evidence rather than the blatant propaganda and its flow on effects.

I repeat, your son would be ashamed if he knew of your behaviour here.

And a Merry Xmas to you, Janet.

>*And a Merry Xmas to you, Janet*

You do know who's lives you are toying with with your opinionated ignorance?

el gullible:

If we concentrate on the science

What a hypocritical jerk.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 23 Dec 2009 #permalink

Well, that settles that.

That's one monstrous gravy train.

In this post-modern world we must be realistic, global cooling will have a profound impact on agriculture and migration.

El gordo writes:

>*That's one monstrous gravy train.*

And you are surfing the Exxon and Plimer [gravy wave](http://anarchist606.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-much-is-global-warming-den…) el gordo! While others suffer.

You should learn from them and really cash is big time! Write a contrarian book they are selling like hot cakes. You don't even need to get basics facts right to get massive attention, its has been shown you don't need rigorous science for denialist top sellers, just tell rich engorged people what they want to here.

El gordo continue:

>*In this post-modern world we must be realistic, global cooling will have a profound impact on agriculture and migration.*

All you are missing is evidence. All the contradicts you is the overwhelming weight of evidence.

Your opinionated ignorance has consequences. But it seem a game to you.

el gullible:

Well, that settles that.

Don't worry, no-one with any sense cares about the crap from icecap.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 24 Dec 2009 #permalink

Well, that settles that.

Let's see ... El Gordo can't decipher the instructions just above the comment box (the two sentences following "Comments:", fatty), and takes his inability to do so as evidence of a left-wing conspiracy.

He doesn't know what his own handle means ...

And he expects us to believe he can read and understand a scientific argument?

'Your opinionated ignorance has consequences.' Hmmm...the jury is still out on that one. Life is a game to me and a very interesting one at that.

We can expect more La Nina over the next couple of decades (because of a cool PDO) and as a consequence there will be large floods across south-east Australia. Is it irresponsible to say that?

Nils Bohr once commented that prediction is very difficult, especially about the future. He got a few laughs out of that, but it's definitely true.

As BOM can't get things right on a seasonal basis, then we all have a chance to make fools of ourselves. I see more summer cold surges. That's when a extratropical low off Brisbane meets a large anticyclone imbedded below the Bight.

el gordo writes:
"'Your opinionated ignorance has consequences.' Hmmm...the jury is still out on that one. Life is a game to me and a very interesting one at that."

The russians just happen to have the perfect game for you...I believe it's called roulette. There's a surprise every turn, you should give it a try - what do you have to lose?

coldmugger

Exciting read. Poor old CO2 has been abused long enough, it's just an innocent trace gas.

poly mugger

The unravelling is lovely to watch.

coldmugger:

This is PEER Reviewed

Peer what?

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 24 Dec 2009 #permalink

Merry Xmas to the mugger family. Sorry about my rude mate.

Coldmugger, I've had a look at that paper. It lacks any evidence for the opinion placed in the final section regarding the effects of CO2 and CFC's on the climate. That CO2 is a greenhouse gas was known long before we began releasing CFC's, and oddly enough we can work out the warming potential of CFC's due to the same physics as we can work out the effects of CO2, which of course have also been experimentally verified. Entertainingly enough the speculation on AGW is contained within a later section separate from the meat of the paper, which is evidence for and discussion of the role of ice particles in helping destroy ozone due to CFC's on the surface, or so I gathered. AGW hardly gets a mention at all in the abstract at all, which as you would expect from a denialists favourite paper, is mostly about something else instead. Tell you what, you tell us what you find so amazingly correct about the paper compared to the IPCC and we'll dismantle your points as you bring them up.

Here's the abstract:
The cosmic-ray driven electron-induced reaction of halogenated molecules adsorbed on ice surfaces has been proposed as a new mechanism for the formation of the polar ozone hole. Here, experimental findings of dissociative electron transfer reactions of halogenated molecules on ice surfaces in electron-stimulated desorption, electron trapping and femtosecond time-resolved laser spectroscopic measurements are reviewed. It is followed by a review of the evidence from recent satellite observations of this new mechanism for the Antarctic ozone hole, and all other possible physical mechanisms are discussed. Moreover, new observations of the 11 year cyclic variations of both polar ozone loss and stratospheric cooling and the seasonal variations of CFCs and CH4 in the polar stratosphere are presented, and quantitative predictions of the Antarctic ozone hole in the future are given. Finally, new observation of the effects of CFCs and cosmic-ray driven ozone depletion on global climate change is also presented and discussed.

To everyone else - thats 2 days since I first saw that paper used by a denialist. Their networks are quite effective.

>*The odd thing is that the IPCC dismisses CR activity as a climate factor because it runs counter to the Hockeystick premise*

Cohenite, Care to cite the passages in the IPCC reports to support this claim? Last time I looked the IPCC rejected cosmic rays due the lack of evidence supporting the speculative theory. And because of the overwhelming evidence of another Ockham's Razor culprit.

Heaps of evidence for one, hardly any for the other, not a controversial decision by the IPCC to go with the weight of evidence.

And cohenite, did you miss [the questions](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) I put to you regarding Lindzen's paper?

[jerryg](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…), It's even uglier than that. El gordo is up for Russian Roulette with 9 bullets in a 10 round chamber, and he wants to pull the trigger while the barrel is pointed at other people, the most vulnerable and least responsible for the problems we are causing.

He choose to play games of opinionated ignorance when others are facing the biggest risk. It is particularly ugly behaviour.

Cohnite writes:

>I addressed the Lindzen/Colose issue and the Spencer/lindzen issue at JM's on 23/12 at 5.23pm.

Since you can locate it, can you link to it here? As this is one of the places you have been uncritically spruking Lindzen's findings.

Further more, are you planning to cite the sections of the IPCC reports to back [your previous claims](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…)?

The CA link provides relevant IPCC sources up to TAR; AR4 compares the TAR findings about solar forcing and CR influence at S.2.7.1.3; AR4 acknowledges CRs but finds little justification for claimimg they have a significant forcing.

cohenite writes:

>*The CA link provides relevant IPCC sources up to TAR*

I read through McIntyre's post and found no menition of Cosmic Rays; let alone evidence that supports [your earlier claim](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) that: *"the IPCC dismisses CR activity as a climate factor because it runs counter to the Hockeystick premise"*. Can you direct me to the specific passages you are basing your claim on?

As [I have said](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…), "*Last time I looked the IPCC rejected cosmic rays due the lack of evidence supporting the speculative theory*".

On the other previous issue of Lindzen's paper, can you post your response to [my earlier question](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) here? Or at the very least link to your response?

cohenite,

Why, to questions posed here (eg. Berard's statistical challenge), are you replying on JM's blog, but even stranger not posting the responses here?

If I were cynical I'd wonder if you were trying to launder your answers.

And if I were cynical I wouldn't be here; yes jackerman the CA post deals with solar irradiance and MBH; the AR4 link I gave deals with solar irradiance and cosmic rays; I thought the connection was fairly obvious but I'm sorry if I didn't spell it out.

Now Sim you ask why I don't reply here to questions posed here; well, the answer is mixed; sometimes I couldn't be bothered because I think peurile pointscoring is involved; other times nothing new is being said, just the usual pedantic certainty; other times the answer may just fit better with a thread elsewhere; and anyway what business is it of yours?

cohnite writes:

>*the CA post deals with solar irradiance and MBH;*

And does not substantiate [your claim that](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) *"the IPCC dismisses CR activity as a climate factor because it runs counter to the Hockeystick premise"*

Cohenite continues:
>*the AR4 link I gave deals with solar irradiance and cosmic rays;*

You cited a chapter section (no link provided), and as I have said twice before *"Last time I looked the IPCC rejected cosmic rays due the lack of evidence supporting the speculative theory"*.

So rather than offering Plimeresque bluster, why not either quote the passage you are relying on to substantiate your claim, or retract your claim for the sake of clarity. Doing either of these would be consistent with truth seeking practice.

From the second part of your response, I to assume that you will continue to decline the invitation to cut and paste your response to [my earlier question](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) here, or even link to it?

You're right jackerman, I'll rephrase:

In my opinion "the IPCC dismisses CR activity as a climate factor because it runs counter to the Hockeystick premise";

Now since you cannot find the reply about Lindzen; your first point about Lindzen was that he used false data about OLR; this was the topic of a Colose thread; the gist was Lindzen did not consider that Wong et al had adjusted OLR data; Lindzen replied to this here;

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/30/lindzen-on-negative-climate-feedb…

Your second point was the Roy Spencer critique of the Lindzen and Choi paper; my comment about that was this:

"frankly I find Royâs comment contradictory; even though Roy did include the obvious caveats about different data sources and methodology between his analysis and the Lindzen effort he still concludes this;

âWhile the authors found decreases in radiation loss with short-term temperature increases, I find that the CMIP models exhibit an INCREASE in radiative loss with short term warmingâ

The authors are Lindzen and Choi. This is the paper [GRL version];

http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf

cohenite writes:

>"Sim you ask why I don't reply here to questions posed here; well, the answer is mixed;"

I specifically asked why you post your answers elsewhere but not here, where here is the place you are asked the questions.

And by ignoring this part of my question each of your *"mixed"* answers read as inappropriate.

>*sometimes I couldn't be bothered because I think peurile pointscoring is involved;*

Yet you could be bothered responding to the question on JM's blog?

>*other times nothing new is being said, just the usual pedantic certainty;*

Yet you could be bothered responding to the question on JM's blog?

>*other times the answer may just fit better with a thread elsewhere*

A response to a question here is more appropriate on a different blog? Maybe a response here could be copied to another blog or vice versa, but why avoid even pasting your response here?

gaggedmuggle:

thats not the way to win a debate

So where, pray tell, have you debated the subject of this thread, "Russian analysis confirms 20th century CRU temperatures"? Anything else is trolling.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 25 Dec 2009 #permalink

Cohenite #276- I have access due to currently being back at uni and said uni having blanket journal access. Many authors would be happy to send copies of their paper to people who ask for them, its easy enough to track this chaop down.

Most of the threads wander off the track, so that's no reason to pull muggle. He was not offensive, except for those with their heads buried in quicksand.

Re:278
I see a lot of that from the denialists. It's not OK to gamble with their money (on AGW being problematic), but they have no problem gambling with the lives of others. I'm hoping it's a very small minority, otherwise I don't see much hope for us as a species.

jerryg

From my perspective as a global cooling alarmist I think you are mistaken about where the threat is coming from.

jerryg:

they have no problem gambling with the lives of others. I'm hoping it's a very small minority, otherwise I don't see much hope for us as a species.

Judging by the "Liberal" party in Australia, there may be about 25% of the population that have no problem gambling with the lives of others. Unfortunately, that 25% can have a disproportionate influence.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 27 Dec 2009 #permalink

Nice spin.

"The red and blue curves do diverge in the 19th century, but the one that provides more support for anthropogenic global warming is the blue hockey stick."

More like, neither shows significant support for anthropogenic global warming.

That's only on the issue of temperature increases.

How does the shift effect using recorded temperatures in order to calibrate proxy correlations? Must have some effect.

How does the issue itself effect our confidence in climatologists. I'd say to the negative.

"The red curve shows warming in the 19th century before there were significant CO2 emissions, so it weakens the case that global warming is man-made."

Both curves show warming in the 19th century before there were significant CO2 emissions, so both weaken the case that global warming is man-made.

By Brian Macker (not verified) on 28 Dec 2009 #permalink

"So deniers think global warming is a socialist scam, and their trusted source of information is... Russia??"

No, "deniers" think global warming is mostly natural variation and that warmists are the true deniers of climate variability.

They also think that policy proposals to redistribute wealth from one individual or group to another are socialist in nature (see Copenhagen).

That socialists delight in using the real changes in temperature (mostly natural climate change) in order to justify putting money mostly in the pockets of politicians and industry insiders, then yes it is a scam.

Al Gore and IPCC chairman Dr. Rajendra Pachauri will be making lots of money off of their scam. I understand that both are and are planning to use the money to increase their personal carbon footprints.

By Brian Macker (not verified) on 28 Dec 2009 #permalink

"Both curves show warming in the 19th century before there were significant CO2"
Did you mean to say "Neither" or are you blind or do you not know what the "19th century"
means?

The blue is decreasing in the 19th century and the red is a wash.
You on the other hand are an idiot.

Brian Macker:

Both curves show warming in the 19th century

If you think the blue curve shows warming in the 19th century you need your eyes tested.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 28 Dec 2009 #permalink

I've been off-line for over a week due to a fried computer, but fortunately I have a lender for a few days.

Anyways, if Brian Macker is still floating about, I'd like to have him explain exactly what he meant about "[b]oth curves show[ing] warming in the 19th century" because, as elspi and Chris O'Neill have both commented, it ain't appearing on my radar. I'm especially interested in when it is that Brian Macker believes that CO2 emissions began to increase, and how this relates to his perception of when warming began in the the last century or so.

You make some rather slanderous statements about people, Macker, so it behoves you to actually stump up some real evidence to support your trolling. My guess though is that you are a drive-by sniper, and unlikely to actually pull over and have a discussion based in science and fact.

Just as it always is with Denialists. Eliciting a considered response from any of them has [proved futile](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) for weeks now...

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 01 Jan 2010 #permalink

Is it true that CRU is still using FORTRAN?

Must be a bunch of amateurs.

By Heidi D. Cline (not verified) on 01 Jan 2010 #permalink

Is it true that CRU is still using FORTRAN? Must be a bunch of amateurs.

Yes, they are, as do those writing most scientific and engineering models.

Here's a hint: don't fly.

A = {Hugh Janus}

B = {D-K deficient, denier, septic, denidiot, denialosaur, ...}

C = {Heidi D. Cline, ...}

A â B

C â B

â B â A

303 truth,

There is global cooling until 2030?

Can borrow your time machine? I'd like to win a few lotteries (I'm not greedy: a few will do).

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 02 Jan 2010 #permalink

BJ, why don't you take a new year's vow to be less pompous and condescending; detrending has its uses as this paper demonstrates;

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1986583/

Note the conclusion:

"Finally, it is noted that the global temperature anomalies with respect to the sum of the overall EMD trend and the multidecadal variability appear to be quite stationary in the whole data span, indicating that the higher frequency part of the record in recent years is not more variable than that in the 1800s. The extreme temperature records in the 1990s stand out mainly because the general global warming trend over the whole data length coincides with the warming phase of the 65-year cycle."

Sounds like what McLean, de Freitas and Carter were on about; which David Stockwell extrapolated from;

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0908/0908.1828v1.pdf

Oh grrr!

I got the $%&*! last line wrong.

Should have been ⇒ C ∈ A (or C = A).

Moral (one anyway): use preview.

Cohenite: Removing the trend so you can analyze cylical variations independant of the trend is legitimate and sane - that is what was done in the paper you cite. They say that climate variation has not increased. That is useful to know!

Removing the trend so that you can claim there is no tred is ... uhh ... crazy.

By Michael Ralston (not verified) on 02 Jan 2010 #permalink

Detreding has its uses, but Dr O's method is the poorest method to fit a trend that has accelerated over the period.

>*In [Fig. 3](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1986583/figure/F3/), a comparison among the different fittings also is illustrated. The linear trend is no doubt the poorest one, the intrinsically determined overall adaptive trend is a major improvement over the linear fitting, and the multidecadal trend catches essentially the meaningful variability and change associated with the annual GSTA, showing even greater improvement.*

If you use a linear trend greater variability is seen over decades (with a major divergence in the last 2 decades). Only by using an accelerating trend in an overall adaptive trend can the variablity be maitained relatively consistent. That is on point were McLean, de Freitas and Carter nor Stockwell differed from Zhaohua et al.

No, the EMD analysis of Wu et al does not distinguish an oscillation or stationary factor and an asymmetrical component of the stationary factor from the non-stationary trend over the data period [the adaptive trend]. A linear trend is even worse in that it does not distinguish the variation from the trend let alone any asymmetry in variation.

Cohnite writes:

>*No, the EMD analysis of Wu et al does not distinguish an oscillation or stationary factor and an asymmetrical component of the stationary factor from the non-stationary trend over the data period [the adaptive trend].*

Now would you like to respond to my statement rather than your strawman?

The variance is stable because they found an [appropriate trend](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1986583/figure/F3/) (adaptive trend, with accelerating warming over the period). That's the appropriate trend (adaptive trend with accelerating warming over 150 years) that neither McLean, de Freitas and Carter nor Stockwell are on about.

>*Asymmetry in stationary factors is not a strawman*

ENSO effect on temperature are either part of the consistant variance or captured in the adaptive temperature trend, with along with muti-decadal trends.

Thus in the context of you saying:

>*"No, the EMD analysis of Wu et al does not distinguish an oscillation or stationary factor and an asymmetrical component of the stationary factor...*

..this is a strawman if you are trying to use it as evidence against the accelerating warming over the period.

[This analysis](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1986583/) is smack down for "W" theory (employed by a bunch of denialist hacks) and it shows the relative size of muti-decadal oscillation compared to the underlying [adaptive trend](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1986583/figure/F3/).

This paper is also a smack-down for those projecting 40 years of temperature plato, like you Anthony. (40 years is from memory without checking your draft paper).

The linear trend is 0.5K per century; the adaptive trend shows a current trend of ~0.8K per century; the paper has one proviso to that; that trend was exceeded by the multidecadal trend in the 1860s, 1930s and 1980s, all +ve PDO periods; my proviso is that the adaptive trend, as calculated by Wu et al DOES NOT distinguish between a trend component based on accumulative stationary asymmetry and a non-stationary trend; this problem of the difficulty of distinguishing between a stationary asymmetry trend factor and a non-stationary trend is discussed in the Stockwell paper linked to earlier.

What is the optimal temperature of the planet?

By WhatIsTheOptim… (not verified) on 03 Jan 2010 #permalink

What is the optimal temperature of the planet

How long is a piece of string?

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 03 Jan 2010 #permalink

The paper [distinguishes between](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1986583/figure/F2/) the overall warming trend (C6) and the multi-decadal ocillation (C5).

cohnite writes:
>*the paper has one proviso to that; that trend was exceeded by the multidecadal trend in the 1860s, 1930s and 1980s*

Hardly a "proviso". That total warming is fastest when both are working in the [same direction](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1986583/figure/F3/) (when C5 is positive) is logical. But with only two down dips it is not clear that this is a regular cycle. It is hypothesized that the 1910s dip was contributed to by volcanic aerosols, and the 1950s from industrial aerosols. The contribution of ocean cycles in the C5 oscillation is not yet well established.

>*The time scale [of C5] certainly is not a constant, but it varies from 50 to 80 years and has a mean value slightly higher than 65 years [...] Judging from the statistical significance test, we decided not to pursue the trend to any finer scale, because the IMF with a time scale <65 years may not significantly differ from white noise*

I'll be more convinced by the reliability of the C5 contribution (amplitude of 0.2 deg C cycle length 60 years) if temperature is held flat over the next decade (trend currently in the order of 0.8 C/century or 1.5 C/centry if the C5 component is an artifact of noise and anomalous aerosols).

How do you explain the Medieval Warming Period?

By WhatIsTheOptim… (not verified) on 03 Jan 2010 #permalink

How do you explain the Medieval Warming Period?

How long is a piece of string?

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 03 Jan 2010 #permalink

>*What is the optimal temperature of the planet?*

What climate did human's exploit to establish 6.7 billion in population? In what climate did agriculture develop? In what climate did we build most of of our cities and infrastructure on the coast?

In terms of humans, for current infrastructure, and current population this climate is optimal. But large reptiles would likely prosper if we handed them back another Greenhouse planet.

>*How do you explain the Medieval Warming Period?*

A [warm period](http://www.skepticalscience.com/Was-there-a-Medieval-Warm-Period.html) in various regions (not always synchronous) any where from 900 to 1250 AD. Believed to be the result of an unusually long period with low volcanic activity resulting in lower planetary albedo.

Why can't warm-mongers answer simple questions?

By WhatIsTheOptim… (not verified) on 03 Jan 2010 #permalink

I thought it was because of those European SUVs that were so popular in the Middle Ages.

By WhatIsTheOptim… (not verified) on 03 Jan 2010 #permalink

>*Why can't warm-mongers answer simple questions?*

They get jaded and cynical of trolling.

>*I thought it was because of those European SUVs that were so popular in the Middle Ages.*

No you've be immersed in too much denialist clap trap. In the mean time scientist have be studying the data.

Well, BJ is tying himself in knots as usual; areosols, either from volcanic sources or from industry, are problematic in explaining the dips in temperature which ended in 1910 and 1976; the volcanic areosol OD shows higher than average OD after 1910 and after 1980 when warming was occuring;

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-2-18.html

Human emissions continued at high levels after 1976 when warming began;

http://www.pnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_reports/PNNL-14…

However, PDO phase shift is a better fit;

http://www.climate-skeptic.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/09/18/pdo.gif

In the Wu et al paper at C5 [Fig 2] it is plain that the 65 year cycle is not even between its troughs and peaks; I don't know why the concept of asymmetry in the natural cycle is so hard to accept.

>*areosols, either from volcanic sources or from industry, are problematic in explaining the dips in temperature which ended in 1910 and 1976; the volcanic areosol OD shows higher than average OD after 1910 and after 1980 when warming was occuring*

looking at [the temperature](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1986583/figure/F3/), the temperature dip bottoming at approx 1910 is entirely consistent with the stratospheric OD peak of 1905 from the [volcanic contribution](http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-2-18.html).

Warming continued though the 70s-90s eruptions because of the higher forcing from 1) increasing GHGs and 2) halting the growth of [tropospheric aerosols](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/trop.aer/).

Hopefully fixed,
Compare [this chart](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:180/…), with [your chart](http://www.climate-skeptic.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/09/18/pdo.gif). The purple line is the mean for UAH, the green the mean for HadCRUT.

Then consider that HadCRUT and UAH are measuring different things. And then explain what is going on!

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:180/…

>*since 1998 all temperature indices except GISS have shown flat or declining temperature while CO2 is increasing*

1) GISS measure Arctic Warming, others do not. 2) it takes [longer than 12 years](http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/how-long/) of data to separate the noise from the signal. CO2 forcing is small over short time periods, but unlike cyclic forcing, CO2 forcing accumulates and dominates the noise, variability, and cycles over 20-30 year periods.

>*where is the 0.8K or 1.5K per century trend?*

See either [figure 7](http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html), or [this chart](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:180/…).

cohenite | January 4, 2010 2:11 AM:

Your link doesn't work; since 1998 all temperature indices except GISS have shown flat or declining temperature while CO2 is increasing;

Funny how if I start your graph 1 year earlier, none trend down. And if I start the graph 1 year later, they all trend up. For further fun, try starting in 1996 or 1995.
Now here's a challenge for the reader: You're allowed to start the graph with any year between 1900 and 2000 (inclusive). Can you find any starting year other than 1998 which results in any one of the 5 trends being downward? You've got an entire century worth of starting points to cherry pick from. Should be pretty easy, right?

Why can't warm-mongers answer simple questions?

Your questions have been answered hundreds of times on dozens of blogs. You pretend otherwise because you are dishonest.

332; lubos has an interesting take on 1995;

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/26/no-statistically-significant-warm…

1998 is not cherry-picking; a phase shift in PDO contemperanous with major oceanographic events occurred then. Anyway I'm not saying temperature didn't go up during the 20thC just disagreeing with what caused it.

As to GISS and UAH and indeed the ground vs satellites generally; they show similarity on a smoothed basis without adjustment for their different base periods;

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/mean:12/plot/gis…

But reduced to a linear trend that base period difference produces this;

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1998/offset:-347/scale:0…

The point llewelly misses is not only the trend outlier of GISS but the difference between the temperatures of GISS at the beginning and end of the trend period; in the other years, which are cherry-picked because they are not supported by relevant climate phenomena, that gap is also similar.

>*The point llewelly misses is not only the trend outlier of GISS but the difference between the temperatures of GISS at the beginning and end of the trend period; in the other years, which are cherry-picked because they are not supported by relevant climate phenomena, that gap is also similar.*

The point cohnite missed is that GISS measure Arctic warming, the others do not.

1998 is a juicy fat cherry pick cohnite, you can put 1998 in your outlier box as an incredible extreme, way above the trend warming. There is no phase shift its an artefact of an economics statistic (you havn't justified its use in this context). Your climate shift fancy is also smacked down by the [analysis](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1986583/) you linked to.

And what is going on with that [pap temperature fabrication](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) you linked to. You still havn't justified it your explained how they created it, nor why they use it.

The point llewelly misses is not only the trend outlier of GISS but the difference between the temperatures of GISS at the beginning and end of the trend period; in the other years, which are cherry-picked because they are not supported by relevant climate phenomena, that gap is also similar.

My other starting years are not cherry-picked; they show the same upward trend shown by every other starting year that can be selected from that century, except 1998. Your year is cherry-picked because it is the only year which can be made to appear to show what you wish to show.

Sim; you can do your PDO history at wft; Stewart Franks is an expert on IPO, the southern pacific equivalent of the PDO; here is his take;

http://www.clw.csiro.au/conferences/GICC/franks.pdf

The idea that GISS is the more reliable temperature indice because it measures the Arctic and the satellites don't is based on what?

>*The idea that GISS is the more reliable temperature indice because it measures the Arctic and the satellites don't is based on what?*

Its based on GISS not excluding the region of [most rapid warming](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/cdrar/do_LTmapE.py) on the planet, while Hadley do leave this out. And [so do MSU](http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html) (70S to 82.5N).

A [recent study](http://www.skepticalscience.com/1998-is-not-the-hottest-year-on-record…) by the ECMWF "*found recent warming has been higher than that shown by HadCRUT. This is because HadCRUT is sampling regions that have exhibited less change*".

A fairly detailed comparison between GISS and UAH is here

http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/06/part-2-of-comparison-of-gistemp-…

The base period of GISS accounts for the difference in the temperature range at particular times between the 2 indices, and indeed between GISS and all other indices; as I said that range is responsible for the difference in trend post 1998 with GISS being an outlier against the other indices. The idea that GISS covers the polar regions better is problematic; the interpolation that occurs from sparse and widely seperated surface locations is what got Steig et al into difficulties at the South pole. IMO the PCA methodology based on interpolation combined with the distinct base period of GISS makes it unreliable and unsuitable as the definitive temperature indice.

Also problematic is the idea that the current Arctic warming is exceptional;

http://www.lanl.gov/source/orgs/ees/ees14/pdfs/09Chlylek.pdf

>*the interpolation that occurs from sparse and widely seperated surface locations is what got Steig et al into difficulties at the South pole.*

1)NASAs sampling and protocol just received [confirmation from the ECMWF study](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…).

2) Failing to include the most rapidly warming region biases the temperature records.

>*Also problematic is the idea that the current Arctic warming is exceptional*

That may or may not be, but on this question (of global temperature anomalies) it is a straw-man cohnite. The Arctic is where GISS above all others records has best coverage. And the Arctic is region of greatest warming, As Chylek found:

>*Arctic warming is proceeding at a faster pace at the latitudes north of 70!N compared to the 64â70!N belt. [...] The ratio of the high to low Arctic temperature trends is 1.4â1.5 for all three time periods*.

Hence GISS is best positioned to capture this observed anomaly.

The base period of GISS accounts for the difference in the temperature range at particular times between the 2 indices, and indeed between GISS and all other indices

Choice of base period doesn't effect trend analysis.

You can show this using elementary school arithmetic.

Cohenite, he who hath slayed climae science, can't even add and subtract numbers ...

Incoherenite [said](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…):

The base period of GISS accounts for the difference in the temperature range at particular times between the 2 indices, and indeed between GISS and all other indices; as I said that range is responsible for the difference in trend post 1998 with GISS being an outlier against the other indices.

If I may, could you clear up a few of the ambiguities in your statement?

1) By "base period", I assume that you are trivially referring to the period used to derive the reference temperatures with which to subsequently obtain anomaly values?

2) By "temperature range at particular times" I assume that you are referring to the numerical differences in the anomalies for GISS vs UAH for any particular date?

3) By "trend post 1998", do you mean the linear trends in the respective anomaly datasets?

4) If the answers to 1), 2) and 3) are all "yes", then how is it that "that range is responsible for the difference in trend post 1998"? Different baseline values will only shift the positions of the linear trends in terms of the constant values (Y-axis intercepts) - there would be no "difference" in the trend (= x-term coefficient/slope) post 1998 no matter the baseline selected.

That is, of course, unless you are referring to a 'trend' that is a derivative of more than one of the datasets to which you refer, but then you are opening many more analytical cans of worms than you have to date.

Oh, and for the record, it was not I who raised the issue of aerosols, so I am puzzled about the [knots](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) that you believe I am tying myself in.

If anyone in this discussion has a history of autoknotogenesis, it is yourself...

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 04 Jan 2010 #permalink

How do you explain the Medieval Warming Period?

Why are there still monkeys?

DR sesquipedalianism and angry man are avoiding the issue; the major indices are in accord as the smoothed history shows;

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/mean:12/plot/gis…

And the trends over that period since 1979 are fairly coherent;

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1979/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/f…

But as I argue, and I haven't heard a convincing rebuttal, the key date is ~1998 and the trends from there [now 12 years] are this;

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/f…

But as I argue, and I haven't heard a convincing rebuttal, the key date is ~1998

You haven't argued that, so much as baldly asserted it. The rebuttal is that you're cheating by picking the one start date that produces the results you want. If you haven't heard that, you haven't been paying attention.

What will they do when 1998 is surpassed?.......proabably the same all over again.

Cohnite writes:

>*I haven't heard a convincing rebuttal, the key date is ~1998 and the trends from there [now 12 years] are this;*

Conveniently ignoring the point that [it takes longer than 12 year if data](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) to separate the signal from the noise.

1998 was an outlier, well above the warming trend. 0.4K above the TLT trend. With warming of 0.15K/decade you would expect a decade or two before the warming trend catches up to such an outlier.

1998 is '*the key date* for people who what to compare outliers with the warming trend. It's *the key date* for people who don't understand statistics or don't want to understand them.

Janet (348):
"1998 is 'the key date for people who what to compare outliers with the warming trend. It's the key date for people who don't understand statistics or don't want to understand them"

And if I wanted someone who does understand how to apply stats properly, I'd go see Tamino. Coincidentally, one of Tamino's latest posts (on exogenous factors) gives GISS data adjusted for volcanic activity & ENSO. The last graph for adjusted annual averages is particularly interesting, as Tamino notes: "The interesting thing is that, using the adjusted data, the warmest year on record is 2009!" And as Slioch comments, "Not only that, but every year from 2001 to 2009 is warmer than 1998".

By Steve Chamberlain (not verified) on 04 Jan 2010 #permalink

There is support for the concept of a climate 'break';

https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/kswanson/www/publications/2008GL037022_all…

Swanson and Tsonis argue for a break at 2001-2002 instead of 1998 which I stress for the umpteenth time was supported by verified, major oceanographic and atmospheric changes, that is, it is not a cherry pick as argued here;

http://landshape.org/enm/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/09071650v2.pdf

For those of you who can be bothered Seidel and Lanzante [2004, JGR] and Lindzen and Giannitsis [2002 GRL] also advocate 'breaks'; all of the above confirm the 1976 break in climate but there is varying opinion about the date of the subsequent break ranging from 1997-8 to 2001-2. But I guess if you cannot accept that climate can 'break' then focusing on a date such as 1998 will always register 'cherry-pick'.

What will they do when 1998 is surpassed?.......proabably the same all over again.

Been there, done that, GISTEMP 2005 beat 1998.

Of course, they just say "oh but GISTEMP is unreliable, gotta use HadCRUT", and then they say, "CRU has cooked all the data, can't use that, then they go, "oh, Roy Spencer is a creationist, and the UAH satellite temps show the lowest trend of all, we'll use that!"

Swanson and Tsonis argue for a break at 2001-2002 instead of 1998 which I stress for the umpteenth time was supported by verified, major oceanographic and atmospheric changes

Yes, Swanson argues that warming is somewhat episodic, and that this "break", if real, will be followed by another "break" AFTER WHICH WARMING WILL ACCELERATE BEYOND PROJECTIONS.

Swanson and Tsonis's paper is BUILT AROUND THE ACCEPTED TREND LINE. They simply argue that the variability around that trend line takes a different form than mainstream climate scientists would argue.

NOTHING in their paper argues against global warming, or against the commonly accepted 3C (+/-) climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2.

In Swanson's own words:

What do our results have to do with Global Warming, i.e., the century-scale response to greenhouse gas emissions? VERY LITTLE, contrary to claims that others have made on our behalf.

He's speaking of you, cohenite, contrary to claims that people like YOU make that THEY DO NOT CONCLUDE.

Yes, Swanson is speaking to me; and Tsonis is speaking to you angry man:

âImagine that you have four synchronized swimmers and they are not holding hands and they do their program and everything is fine; now, if they begin to hold hands and hold hands tightly, most likely a slight error will destroy the synchronization. Well, we applied the same analogy to climate,â researcher Dr. Anastasios Tsonis said.

âIn climate, when this happens, the climate state changes. You go from a cooling regime to a warming regime or a warming regime to a cooling regime. This way we were able to explain all the fluctuations in the global temperature trend in the past century,â Tsonis said. âThe research team has found the warming trend of the past 30 years has stopped and in fact global temperatures have leveled off since 2001.â

âBut if we donât understand what is natural, I donât think we can say much about what the humans are doing. So our interest is to understand â first the natural variability of climate â and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural,â Tsonis said.

No link cohnite? Is Tsonis not published in credible journals on this topic?

Sim,

cohenites qoutes come from excerpts from the usual places.
And given their well-known propensity for creative quote-mining, it's advisable to take the stated inferences with a tonne of salt.

Here are S&T's conclusions on the matter in relation to AGW,

Finally, it is vital to note that there is no comfort to be gained by having a climate with a significant degree of internal variability, even if it results in a near-term cessation of global warming. It is straightforward to argue that a climate with significant internal variability is a climate that is very sensitive to applied anthropogenic radiative anomalies (c.f. Roe [2009]). If the role of internal variability in the climate system is as large as this analysis would seem to suggest, warming over the 21st century may well be larger than that predicted by the current generation of models, given the propensity of those models to underestimate climate internal variability

Well BJ, he does have considerable form with that.

Your questions have been answered hundreds of times

When?

on dozens of blogs.

Where?

You pretend otherwise because you are dishonest.

I haven't asked these questions on "dozens" of blogs, unless you are using a creative definition of the term "dozen". Oh, wait, you are a Warmista True BelieverTM. Never mind.

Speaking of pretending, why do warm-mongers like to pretend that increases in CO2 levels are followed by increases in temperature when everyone knows it's the other way around?

By WhatIsTheOptim… (not verified) on 04 Jan 2010 #permalink

You ask the wrong questions BJ; and the rest of the smug patrol is here so I'll be brief; this seems to be the point of contention;

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/trend/plot/giste…

The slopes and therefore the trends, over that period, are essentially the same; the different base periods determines the different starting points; the Y axis represents the base period anomalies. 2 questions for you BJ:
1 Does a movement from +0.1C to +0.2C on the GISS slope put as much energy into the system as a movement from-0.15C to -0.05C on the RSS slope?

2 All the literature says there was break at '76; why is the green slope at Fig 1(a) here not a true representation of temperature trend;

http://landshape.org/enm/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/09071650v2.pdf

I've always thought a certain lack of irony was prevalent here and Michael's wholehearted endorsement of this certainly proves that impression;

"If the role of internal variability in the climate system is as large as this analysis would seem to suggest, warming over the 21st century may well be larger than that predicted by the current generation of models, given the propensity of those models to underestimate climate internal variability"

Speaking of pretending, why do warm-mongers like to pretend that increases in CO2 levels are followed by increases in temperature when everyone knows it's the other way around?

Everyone except scientists, and everyone knows that scientists are wrong about everything, right?

That's why you can type on the internet using your solid-state computer. Because scientists are wrong.

"all the literature" cohers??

This really seems to just about you linking to your little paper as often as possible.

[Incoherenite](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…).

The slopes and therefore the trends, over that period, are essentially the same; the different base periods determines [sic] the different starting points; the Y axis represents the base period anomalies.

Is this guff supposed to represent your answers to [my questions](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…)? Waffle and [laywerism](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…), more like.

Try again.

Does a movement from +0.1C to +0.2C on the GISS slope put as much energy into the system as a movement from-0.15C to -0.05C on the RSS slope?

That depends on at least three things:

1) that a particular value for temperature, as given by each of the respective reporting systems, represents equivalent values for heat content, as described by each of the reporting systems

2) that an increase in temperature in each of the reporting systems describes a linear relationship with increasing heat content

3) that start/end temperatures in one system can be validly compared with start/end temperatures of different values in another system.

Of course, the answer to your question, whatever the validity of my points, is irrelevant as the discussion, prior to your posting of your question, was about whether the mean global temperature has increased, and about what the significance of the 1998 value is. The fact is that increasing temperatures in any reporting system indicate warming, whether or not they are reporting identical values for increase in heat content.

Your question is a deliberate and a blatant red herring.

It is also indicative of your unfamiliarity with the basic science. Someone acquainted with the parameters involved would not refer to "movement... on the GISS [or RSS] slope", they would simply mention the start and end temperatures - the trendlines (slopes) are irrelevant in considering changes from any one temperature to another, in the context that you raised. Informed folk probably wouldn't refer to "movement" either, nor would they speak of that 'movement' "put[ting] energy into the system".

Of course, one should probably expect nothing more than such a naïve expression of science if it's coming from a divorce lawyer, especially if said lawyer [has political interests in the subject](http://www.climatesceptics.com.au/). Conversely, one can almost certainly expect prevarication, obfuscation, and jingoistic mutilation of scientific concepts where it suits a lawyer's (or a laywer's) purpose.

As Michael has [already noted](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…), your second question is a nonsense because "all the literature" certainly does not say that there was a 'break' at 1976 - particularly in the context that you are implying that such a 'break' occurred. You linking to the pdf is simply an attempt to promote your own foray into pseudoscientific pretence, which, if I am recalling the correct document, was [picked apart last year](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/07/ahh_mclean_youve_done_it_again…).

Nevertheless, I did try to read it myself in order to address the specifics, but as my own computer is being repaired I am on an old, borrowed computer with no pdf reader, a dinosaur version of Explorer (yikes), and a USB1 port trying to handle a wireless modem, all I managed to do was to lose the more detailed version of this reply that I'd originally typed. I have no inclination to waste any more time on this, and I'll leave it to others, who might have more stomach to wrestle with your nonsense, to pull the wings of that fly if they feel it warrants the effort.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 06 Jan 2010 #permalink

Speaking of pretending, why do warm-mongers like to pretend that increases in CO2 levels are followed by increases in temperature when everyone knows it's the other way around?

How do you explain PYGMIES + DWARFS?

Hopeless BJ; just what I expected from a bloviating snob; the topic was whether the respective indices and their different base periods were nonetheless in accord and showing the same trend; as I pointed out they are indeed showing the same trend but that is irrelevant if obstensibly equivalent movements on the respective trends have different energy/heat/whatever is the current AGW buzzword, values. The point I'm making is well summed up by this paper but to get it one would need some mental flexibility and an open mind, both sadly lacking in you;

http://www.climatesci.org/publications/pdf/R-321.pdf

I'm sure you would not have thought of this but a spurious objection to this paper's application of Stefan-Boltzmann's law on the grounds of commutivity has been rebutted by Lucia.

Cohenite proclaims:

the topic was whether the respective indices and their different base periods were nonetheless in accord and showing the same trend.

Erm, the topic was originally about the fact that the Russian data confirm the 'hockey stick', and the increase in rate of warming over the last several decades. When [you joined](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) the discussion you tried to imply that there had been selectivity of the Russian data, and that such selectivity would change the shape of the temperature curve.

Your [next contribution](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) was, as [sod immediately noted](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…), irrelevant to the discussion; and the [one after that](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) seemed to imply that localised deviations from a global trend somehow repudiate said global trend.

Your [next post](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) of any length sought affirmations of legitimacy for discredited 'disprovings' of AGW. After a few trivial posts, including a [nit-picking one](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) where you permitted me to add to the English lexicon, and a stop-over at [right-wing-nuttery](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/17/AR20091…), you [rabbit on about outgoing longwave radiation](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) (comments that [Eli had tpo put into correct context](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…)), although you [promised to leave](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) after "the charming TrueSceptic and Dano... arrived".

As a Christmas present you threw in the red herring of [cosmic rays](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…), followed by an excursion to [Climate Audit [sic]](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) to mention "comparison between the IPCC report's handling of MBH and solar forcing".

Come the New Year and you managed to [drag the McLean, de Freitas and Carter nonsense into the mix](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…). After that followed a bit more [technobabble about asymmetries in trends and variance](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…). Thence we come to [the post](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) where you mis-ascribe the raising of the matter of volcanic and other aerosols to me, and then we arrive at a post from you where the issue of post-1998 temperatures and emissions is covered. It was after this that (on 4 January) you finally [raised the issue of trend comparisons](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…).

In all of this you have been called out many times to justify, prove, or otherwise provide evidence to substantiate claims that you have made, or you have simply had the floor wiped with your face. And you have (true to form) assiduously avoided answering most questions put to you - and where you actually did deign to answer, it was in the aforementioned technobabble prose of a [laywer](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) who manages to take up lots of space but not actually convey anything sensible.

The original instigation of this snark exchange started with your [waffle](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…):

The base period of GISS accounts for the difference in the temperature range at particular times between the 2 indices, and indeed between GISS and all other indices; as I said that range is responsible for the difference in trend post 1998 with GISS being an outlier against the other indices

to which [I asked three questions](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) in an attempt to have you clearly elucidate your meaning about anomaly 'baseline' reference points versus the slopes of lines of best fit through data points.

Thereafter followed more waffle from you, and further raising of temperature trend 'breaks' that have no basis or support in parsimony, but in all of this there was no coherent answer to my questions... Which were apparently the "wrong" questions (at least [according to you](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…)), and I was then presented with a question from you about temperature-reporting methodologies and about energy being "put" into the "system". Trouble is, this question was so unqualified as to be essentially meaningless, and when [I pointed this out](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) you respond with:

topic was whether the respective indices and their different base periods were nonetheless in accord and showing the same trend.

So "the topic" of this thread is rather more broad that you would have us believe, and the topics to which I have referred are topics that you yourself have raised during the thread's evolution. Forgive me if I appear harsh, but if you were as proficient in presenting a case in a divorce court as you are in presenting your case in discussions of human-impacted climate science, it is no wonder that you are a former divorce lawyer.

As to your comment about the pdf that you linked to in your last post, you seem to have missed, either through carelessness or through deliberate disregard, my [statement](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) that I am currently using an old 'lender' computer and cannot access pdf files. It seems that the one with mental flexibility issues here is not me, but rather your own good - or otherwise - self.

It's a shame though that I am not able to access it, because I am interested in seeing what walk in the park you took with respect to it, and especially how its subject matter relates to the meandering path that you have already described in your stagger through this thread. Perhaps someone else will take up this cudgel on my behalf.

Whether or not this happens, I suspect that I can rest assured that there will be no concise, validly-referenced, factually-based and on-topic comment, nor any answering of the many questions already posed, forthcoming from you. Perhaps this low opinion of you does make me a "bloviating snob", but I will simply leave it to the record of the threads on Deltoid to decide which of us is the more "hopeless" in addressing the issues put to him - especially when those issues arise from unsubstantiated statements made by the person in the first place.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 08 Jan 2010 #permalink

@ Bernard J. 366:

I am not a conspicuously religious man, but in response to that I can only say "amen, brother!"

Yeah, that was one comprehensive slap-down.

BJ, you are a marvel; I'm truly flattered to be the subject of such recherche rodomontade; even your pedantry about my alleged straying from the subject is done with such extravagent overkill as to be enjoyable. However, as usual, you allow your hyperbole to lead you from the path; the subject of the thread is a rebuttal of this:

"What the Russians are suggesting here, in other words, is that the entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world government policy is a crock."

My discussion of a comparison of the various indices is a legitimate part of that discussion; but let's not quibble, you're a martinet prone to outbursts of florid prose and condescension; I'm here to learn. The issue restated as unambiguously as I can: the indices show superficially similar trends:

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1979/trend/plot/rss/from:…

The question is; does an equivalent rise in RSS put as much heat into the atmosphere as a rise in GISS? Come on BJ, don't let your adoring fans down!

The question is; does an equivalent rise in RSS put as much heat into the atmosphere as a rise in GISS?

Given that the computer I am currently borrowing has no application other than an old version of Explorer and a few of my nephew's games, and insufficient memory for me to install anything, I am unable to perform a statistical analysis of the datasets about which you have such a bee in your bonnet.

However, given also the [variation in the GISS and the RSS datasets](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1979/every/plot/rss/from:…), and the fact that visually the slopes of the respective lines of best fit appear to be very similar, one might say that from 1979 to date (or at least, to the limits of the plotted data) the apparently equivalent rises in the two indices indicate the same amount of heat being added to the global planetary system. To the current limits of my capacity to deconstruct the data this is a trivially apparent result.

This is not to say that the increases in heat content in the surface station milieu measured by GISS is the same as the heat content in the lower tropospheric milieu. All it means is that the current measurements as expressed by the two indices are coupled to the extent that they both currently reflect a similar overall increase in global temperature.

The caveats that are implicit in my [previous qualifications](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) remain. The fact that the two indices represent different methods of measurement means that they cannot be taken to always indicate the same contents of heat (especially locally), even if at times it appears that they do(/have) indicate(d) the same trends in temperature increase; they certainly might not indicate such beyond the current period of comparison.

It is quite conceivable that there might be a divergence of the slopes of the LoBF in the future: this does not mean that there is a problem with either index indicating the warming of the planet. Further, either index might be used to imply the magnitude of increase in heat content within their respective milieux, or within the planetary system overall, with appropriate calibration.

So, cohenite, thereâs my initial thought on the matter given that I am unable to access the pdf to which you linked, or to perform any sort of numerical analysis of the data.

Now, will you finally make a substantive point about the trajectory of global warming in the last century and a half - or at the least, go back through the threads on Deltoid and provide some straight answers to the many questions that you have left lingering for so long?

... you're a martinet prone to outbursts of florid prose and condescension...

[!](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/happy_new_year_1.php#comment-21…)

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 08 Jan 2010 #permalink

BJ @366:

>*In all of this you have been called out many times to justify, prove, or otherwise provide evidence to substantiate claims that you have made [...] And you have (true to form) assiduously avoided answering most questions put to you - and where you actually did deign to answer, it was in the aforementioned technobabble prose of a laywer who manages to take up lots of space but not actually convey anything sensible.*

To which cohenite conspires to prove BJ correct with [this](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…):

>*BJ, you are a marvel; I'm truly flattered to be the subject of such recherche rodomontade; even your pedantry about my alleged straying from the subject is done with such extravagent overkill as to be enjoyable. [...]
My discussion of a comparison of the various indices is a legitimate part of that discussion; but let's not quibble, you're a martinet prone to outbursts of florid prose and condescension; I'm here to learn[...]*

BJ, the simple point is that energy from a lower temperature base will be less than from a higher temperature base; it is true, as you say, that RSS measures troposphere temperature while GISS measures the surface; the connection is that AGW theory says that the tropical troposphere should warm at a faster rate than the surface because the surface warming will release extra water into the atmosphere; clearly the troposphere isn't warming quicker so the next question is, what is happening to the extra energy being put out from the surface into the atmosphere; some obviously is causing some extra, slight warming but it is less than it should be according to AGW; the Stefan-Boltzman differential between the 2 indices tells us that; that leaves 3 options; firstly, the radiation window must be bigger than the K&T schematic suggests which would tend to confirm Miskolczi; and/or there must be more radiation generally leaving from the TOA, which would tend to confirm Lindzen; and/or thirdly, the extra SH must be located at atmospheric levels inconsistent with what is required for troposphere warming which would tend to confirm Paltridge.

... you're a martinet prone to outbursts of florid prose and condescension; I'm here to learn.

Here to learn?? Sorry grasshopper - does not compute.

Incoherenite.

Pause, and take a deep breath...

... the connection is that AGW theory says that the tropical troposphere should warm at a faster rate than the surface because the surface warming will release extra water into the atmosphere...

Erm, you seem to have mucked up your understanding of physics yet again. Permit me to correct your statement:

... the connection is that AGW [any] theory [of global warming, whether human-induced or natural], says that the tropical troposphere should warm at a faster rate than the surface because the surface warming will release extra water into the atmosphere...

There, that's better.

Now, go away and think about it for a day or so, and consider why what you have posted is a big load of boy-cow poo.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 08 Jan 2010 #permalink

"boy-cow poo" ?! Pretty ordinary BJ; Fig 9.1, p 675 AR4 makes is plain the IPCC considers AGW to be the dominant factor in any theoretical tropical troposphere heating; the respective indices by virtue of their trend similarity, which you argue for, make it plain there is no THS; so which is it; trend similarity or a THS?

Cohenite.

Ahhh... so it's the tropical tropospheric hotspot now, is it? That's not even "ordinary", I'm afraid...

Firstly, you really need to work on your basic reading and comprehension skills. Figure 9.1 shows the modelled temperature changes from the actual forcings resulting from solar, from volcanoes, from "well-mixed greenhouse gases", from tropospheric and stratospheric ozone changes, from sulphate aerosols, and from all factors combined, over the plotted period. There is no theoretical setting of the various forcings in this figure.

This is important to grasp, because it simply means that the other forcings were operating at lower 'levels' than were greenhouse gases in the period 1890-1999. If, say, solar forcing was such that the same amount of surface temperature increase was observed as has been observed with anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, then the modelled tropical tropospheric hot spot would be very similar.

The same holds for any forcing that produces a surface temperature increase of a particular amount.

The IPCC does not "consider AGW to be the dominant factor in any theoretical tropical troposphere heating", it simply shows, given the conditions experienced during the analysis period, that over the plotted period most forcing away from the the baseline is expected to arise from GHGs. Any other factor could just as easily act to heat the tropical troposphere to the same extent as GHGs, and the physics of the moist-adiabatic lapse rate for most of these forcings would be the same, as would be the surface and trophosphere signatures.

That a hot spot has not been observed in some datasets simply means that the datasets used are inadequate to the task: the fact that the globe has warmed, and the fact of the physics of the moist-adiabatic lapse rate, are rock-solid. Or are you saying that "because there is no hot spot, there has been no warming", or "because there is no hot spot, the currrently-understood physics of moist-adiabatic lapse rates is wrong"? As a bit of an aside, I seem to remember that Arthur Smith and John V wiped the floor with Lucia's dignity over this, when she and her cheer-squad should have called uncle far earlier in her thread on the issue.

And finally, if you have read [Santer ](http://www.realclimate.org/docs/santer_etal_IJoC_08_fact_sheet.pdf) you would know that it just grows worse for your argument, as datasets now are showing trop trop warming.

But of course you should know this already, because it was all discussed [several years ago](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposph…). If it's all just too hard for you to understand, perhaps you might like to read a potted version such as might be found at [#15 here](http://www.ecohuddle.com/wiki/global-warming-myths).

So, what's your next duck and weave going to involve? Do you have a strategic plan with the order of the recycling your Denialist myths, or do you just spin a chocolate wheel to randomly come up with you next canard, and hope that you can dazzle the unsuspecting Joe and Jane Publics long enough to make it appear that you actually have a clue, or a point?

I must say, to anyone who has half a clue about the science, it is obvious that you have the understanding - and the consistency in sticking with a point - of a red setter.

Really, if you are going to make any substantive point, you need to carefully and clearly research it, comprehend it, state it, and reference it.

To date I see no evidence that you are capable of even the most basic capacity to do any of this.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 09 Jan 2010 #permalink

Just a note to all in general, that I will probably be absent for a few days due to my computer issues. I hope that others might take up cudgels against cohenite in my place, if he persists in his scattergun nonsense on this thread.

As the secretary of the Australian Climate Denialist Party, he is one mole who deserves to be shown up for the inadequately-scienced obfuscator that he is.

Whack away.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 09 Jan 2010 #permalink

BJ; so its the Santer paper [with the usual names, Thorne, Wigley, Jones, Schmidt, Sherwood,etc]? That is not even ordinary; I don't see Arthur or John V wiping the floor with Lucia over this;

http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/lets-apply-the-method-in-santer17-…

Still Santer has been published in the Int. J. Climatol.[now why does that name and the authors ring a bell? Anyway, I'm sure a few emails amongst friends doesn't matter.] and Lucia and SM have not but you don't need to be published to realise that Santer et al made a fundamental error; the UAH and RSS data went from 1979 to 1999 only. Why was that? But anyway none of this changes the validity of my query at 373 and 376, or are you saying the trends in GISS and RSS are wrong?

cohenite, what the fuck is your point?

"BJ, the simple point is that energy from a lower temperature base will be less than from a higher temperature base; "
All the temperature series are sampling the same single real world. The change in heat content in the real world is what it is - each series samples temperatures, which stands in for heat content in a very rough way.

However, each temperature series samples different parts of the world using different methods, and they have confidence intervals. I can guarantee you that any slight differences in calculated heat content delta between the temperature series are contained way, way inside the overlap in their confidence intervals. Your point here, whatever it is, is simply incoherent and meaningless.

The Trop Trop datasets suck. There are huge issues with sparse and discontinuous sampling, with sonde calibration drift over time, and on and on. The errors in the derived temperature dta form this series are huge, and yet you guys are willing to accept that analysis as definitive. If you liek this data so much that you argue that it falsifies "AGW theory", then y'all need to shut the fuck up about the various temperature series, which are way, way better supported.

And then when people reduce the Trop-Trop uncertainty and get results you don't like, you argue that the analyses are suspect. Gee.

>*cohenite, what the fuck is your point?*

cohnite's point is to start dropping allusions and innuendo when the science gets in the way of his argument.

Whilst I still have even a spit-and-rubber-bands computer with which to connect to the Interweb...

[John V, Arthur Smith, Marcus, and sundry others kicking Lucia's arse](http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/who-expects-a-tropical-tropospheri…). In my opinion Lucia really let this go on too long for her own good - she came away looking ever more slippery and [laywerish](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) with each comment. What especially fascinated me is that neither she nor her ra-ra club seemed to understand the untenability of her stance.

For giggles catch Mike C's fawning interjections that manage to completely miss every substantive point.

More questions for you Coxenite:

  1. are you saying that you trust the datasets that seem to indicate no tropical tropospheric hot spot, but that you don't trust the various surface station datasets?
  2. are you saying that the planet has not warmed over the last century?
  3. are you saying that warming of the magnitude observed over the last century (presupposing that you acknowledged such warming, above) will only produce a tropical tropospheric hot spot if said warming occurs as a result of greenhouse gas forcing?
  4. are you saying that the absence (in your opinion) of a tropical tropospheric hot spot indicates that there is no GHG forcing?

'Yes' or 'no' answers will suffice.

And just to keep you on the straight and narrow, and to remind you of your drunken butterfly stagger through the hackneyed list of distractions with which you continually change the subject, I will turn you attention back to your ENSO/PDO 'theories' - I note that Tamino has [had something to say](http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/cyclical-not/) about cycles, and that you have been conspicuously quiet about his shooting down of your little pet notion.

Perhaps you should visit Open Mind and set him straight. If not, you could at least justify to us here why you choose not to do so...

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 09 Jan 2010 #permalink

everyone knows that scientists are wrong about everything, right?

No, scientists are always right. Just like when they were shrieking about global cooling and the coming ice age in the 1970s. Just ask them.

By WhatIsTheOptim… (not verified) on 09 Jan 2010 #permalink

No, scientists are always right. Just like when they were shrieking about global cooling and the coming ice age in the 1970s. Just ask them.

Sigh ... idiocy parading in public ... such a shame.

Arthur Smith argues at the Lucia link that the IPCC never formally predicted a THS/fingerprint/signature/pattern/big red [the issue for Arthur is that such terminology was not used by the IPCC] and that such an event, or lack thereof, was:

"not something of great concern to the analysis or models. The prediction of enhanced tropical mid-tropospheric warming is unequivocal,"[comment 7402]

About the Tropo warming I refer you my comment at 373. As to John V's comments; he says:

"However, Figure 9.1 shows the response to *actual* forcing and the RealClimate images were due to a hypothetical 2% increase in solar forcing." [comment 7356]

This comment is both incorrect and astounding. It is incorrect because Fig 9.1 shows the:

"Zonal mean atmospheric temperature change from 1890 to 1999 (°C per century) as simulated by the PCM model from (a) solar forcing, (b) volcanoes, (c) well-mixed greenhouse gases, (d) tropospheric and stratospheric ozone changes, (e) direct sulphate aerosol forcing and (f) the sum of all forcings."

Key words, "as simulated by the PCM model"; that is not "actual forcing". The PCM model clearly shows that warming from well mixed GHGs is a dominant cause of tropical troposphere zonal warming in the AGW lexicon. John V's comment is astounding because it refers to RC's comparison between the forcing effect of a doubling of CO2 and an equivalent solar forcing; this was discussed at RC here;

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposph…

That article says this:

"The basis of the issue is that models produce an enhanced warming in the tropical troposphere when there is warming at the surface. This is true enough. Whether the warming is from greenhouse gases, El Ninoâs, or solar forcing, trends aloft are enhanced. For instance, the GISS model equilibrium runs with 2xCO2 or a 2% increase in solar forcing both show a maximum around 20N to 20S around 300mb (10 km)"

That is astounding because the average variation in solar output during cycle 23 was 0.1%. What RC is saying that solar variation would have to increase 200% to be equal to 2xA[in effect]CO2. Getting back to GISS and RSS; clearly there is no THS [so-called despite Arthur's strawman arguments about terminology] despite there being some warming; this shown by RSS which is trending with GISS; which is right, GISS or RSS? Your red-herring questions;
1 More so.
2 No
3 A difficult one; as I have mentioned Paltridge's work shows that while there has been an increase in total SH, at key locations [for AGW] there have been declines; the work of Spencer and others about negative feedbacks from clouds also make it arguable that increasing GHGs, especially water, may not produce an enhanced greenhouse effect necessary for a THS
4 See 3.

Now, you answer my question BJ.

Incoherenite.

I despair that there is any solution to what is either your recalcitrant ignorance and misunderstanding of basic principles of physics, or is a wilful intent to misrepresent the mainstream understanding of that science.

Nevertheless, once more unto the breach...

About the Tropo warming I refer you my comment at 373.

which was:

AGW theory says that the tropical troposphere should warm at a faster rate than the surface because the surface warming will release extra water into the atmosphere; clearly the troposphere isn't warming quicker so the next question is, what is happening to the extra energy being put out from the surface into the atmosphere; some obviously is causing some extra, slight warming but it is less than it should be according to AGW.

Where to start (yet again)...?

  1. Anthropogenic global warming theory does not "say" that "the tropical troposphere should warm at a faster rate than the surface". The appearance of a tropical tropospheric hot spot is implied by basic moist-adiabatic lapse rate physics pertaining to global warming that might result from a number of different forcings. It is a furphy, and either incompetence or mendaciousness, to attribute it to AGW specifically.
  2. "[C]learly the troposphere isn't warming quicker [sic]" is not a factual statement. As has been repeatedly explained, the tropospheric temperature datasets are fraught with problems, and the best (by objective scientific standards) datasets are actually showing that there is enhanced tropospheric warming.
  3. Your apparently rhetorical question "what is happening to the extra energy being put out from the surface into the atmosphere; some obviously is causing some extra, slight warming but it is less than it should be according to AGW", repeats your misunderstanding/misrepresentation in point 1, that the TTHS is predicted by anthropogenic global warming theory. Some estimations of the expected TTHS magnitude are less than might be expected according to any global warming theory, but in these cases the integrity of the tropospheric measurements and the analytical methods of some workers are much more suspect than is the basic physics of moist-adiabatic lapse rate physics, and it has nothing to do with anthropogenic global warming theory specifically.

Why do you persist in repeating these misrepresentations of the physics? Is it because you are, as I noted at the beginning, recalcitrantly ignorant of basic science, or is it a wilful intent to misrepresent the understanding of the science?

As I noted myself in an earlier post, figure 9.1 states:

Zonal mean atmospheric temperature change from 1890 to 1999 (°C per century) as simulated by the PCM model from (a) solar forcing, (b) volcanoes, (c) well-mixed greenhouse gases, (d) tropospheric and stratospheric ozone changes, (e) direct sulphate aerosol forcing and (f) the sum of all forcings.

to which you respond:

Key words, "as simulated by the PCM model"; that is not "actual forcing".

Put your brain into gear before opening your mouth, matey. It is the tropospheric/stratospheric temperatures that are being simulated, not the forcings. The forcings themselves are those acknowledged for the various parameters listed in the caption. The forcings are inputs: the PCM model is not simulating the forcings!

Read the caption again. Perhaps it will help if you consider it thus:

...temperature change ... as simulated by the PCM model from [the input of these a priori] established forcings...

Think about it, carefully.

John V is correct in referring to actual forcings: they are not what the model is simulating. This really is a trivial point, and yet you profess astonishment over it.

You are also apparently astounded at the comparison of the modelled atmospheric temperature profile for GHG forcing compared with such a profile for a 2% increased solar output forcing:

That is astounding because the average variation in solar output during cycle 23 was 0.1%. What RC is saying that solar variation would have to increase 200% [sic] to be equal to 2xA[in effect]CO2.

Yes, and so what?

All this simply means is that a 2% solar forcing would give a similar atmospheric temperature anomaly profile to a doubling of CO2-equivalent forcing. It says nothing about the putative absence of a TTHS â such a hotspot would occur whatever GHG/El Niño/solar irradiance forcing was operating to produce the ground station warming observed.

It does say that there is a cloud (boom-tish) over much of the non-ground station data â unless of course one is prepared to say that the physics is wrong in the first place. It also says that there is a piss-weak case for ascribing observed global warming to solar irradiance changes, and it indicates just how significant the addition of so much CO2 to the atmosphere would be, in comparison with an increase in solar irradiance.

Oh, and 0.1%->2.0% (increase in solar forcing) is a 2000% increase, not a 200% increase.

Getting back to GISS and RSS; clearly there is no THS [so-called despite Arthur's strawman arguments about terminology] despite there being some warming; this shown by RSS which is trending with GISS; which is right, GISS or RSS?

Cohenite, cohenite, cohenite...

The RSS data are processes from [MSU and AMSU microwave sounders](http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html#rss_msu_data_analysis). The data are separated into [a number of categories](http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html#channels), but the RSS data doesn't usually come presented as tropical temperature; rather, it is simply planetary tropospheric and stratospheric data collected between +/-82.5° latitude.

For you to make the statements about RSS versus GISS that you do, you need to be focussing specifically on the tropical tropospheric results. Any other comparison is spurious, and if you do not understand why then I am not about to give you the extensive statistical basic-training that you would obviously require â and, I strongly suspect (as your wife [apparently does your homework for you](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/05/whoosh.php#comment-1664738)), that you do require.

Now, in response to my questions, you say:

1) are you saying that you trust the datasets that seem to indicate no tropical tropospheric hot spot, but that you don't trust the various surface station datasets?More so.

I assume that you are attempting to say that you "trust the datasets that seem to indicate no tropical tropospheric hot spot, more so".

Riiiggghhhttt...

Given the previously indicated problems with the radiosond data, in how many ways do you think that your response might be completely bizarre?!

2) are you saying that the planet has not warmed over the last century?No.

Good. One for the record.

3) are you saying that warming of the magnitude observed over the last century (presupposing that you acknowledged such warming, above) will only produce a tropical tropospheric hot spot if said warming occurs as a result of greenhouse gas forcing?>A difficult one...

Back to kindergarten with you.

4) are you saying that the absence (in your opinion) of a tropical tropospheric hot spot indicates that there is no GHG forcing?>See 3.

Sheesh... What is it about you and straight answers? Did you have a bad experience with one in your childhood?

And to wrap up â given that I have promptly answered your question, will you now go back over all of the threads where you have previously avoided answering questions, and address the backlog?

Or are you simply going to duck and weave yet again?

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 10 Jan 2010 #permalink

cohenite:

As Gavin said in a response at RC recently the Santer et. al. analysis was stopped in 1999 at the request of a comment received during the review process. The original analysis went to 2006 and was reported in the supplementary material for the article.

You are just wrong when you imply that Santer et. al. was hiding something. They were not but you do need to learn to read a bit more if SI is included.

By https://www.go… (not verified) on 10 Jan 2010 #permalink

@ Bernard J., 387, to cohenite:

"Or are you simply going to duck and weave yet again?"

That's where my money is.

Without question you are a distinguished member of the laywer club BJ; your post devotes a lot of time [point 3] to denigrating the satellites and radiosondes and by inference the Douglass paper; about this John Christy says this:

"The key thing about Douglass et al. is that we specifically designed the experiment as a hypothesis test â meaning we needed model surface trends which matched the observed surface trend so we could compare upper air temperatures in an apples to apples comparison with observations. Many critics (i.e. RC) seem to have failed to grasp this conditional requirement. In other words we asked a very simple question, âIf models had the same tropical SURFACE trend as is observed, then how would the UPPER AIR model trends compare with observations?â As it turned out, models show a very robust, repeatable temperature profile ⦠that is significantly different from observations.

What Iâve found almost humorous is trying to be scientific about all of this. If rapid human induced warming is claimed as a hypothesis (in models) then how can it be stated in such a way as allowing for the possibility of it being falsified? The possibility of falsification is required for any hypothesis. However, as soon as we construct a test, (i.e. comparing upper air tropical temperatures, where the clearest GHG signal occurs, with observations) many cry fowl and object. How do you create a test to check the falsification possibility for assertions (hypotheses) of rapid, GHG-induced warming? If there is no possible falsification test, there is no science. As my colleague Roy Spencer likes to say, âNo one has falsified the hypothesis that the observed temperatures changes are a consequence of natural variability.â (Let me add that I think there should be some warming due to the enhanced radiative forcing â just not catastrophic.)"

About this the question is, if the THS is not a distinct and essential part of AGW how then is AGW falsifiable?

At point 1 you say the THS is implied by "moist adiabatic lapse rate physics"; that may well be but it is explicitly predicted by AGW theory which postulates an enhanced greenhouse [EG] effect based on increased water vapor in the atmosphere [FAQ 3.1, AR4]. This is problematic as Paltridge's paper shows. But it is on the basis of the EG that Fig 9.1 shows that the troposphere must warm faster than the surface [which is conceded at pp 271 and 699 and elsewhere in AR4]; how could it be otherwise if increased evaporation is transferring water and latent heat from the surface to the atmosphere? This is how the moist lapse rate works, isn't it?!

I could really write a book about the inconsistencies in your statement but I'll finish with John V's point about simulated, sorry, actual forcings; you say:

"The forcings themselves are those acknowledged for the various parameters listed in the caption."

Acknowledged by who? Even the IPCC admits that all forcings including well mixed GHGs have varying levels of confidence, and climate sensitivity equilibrium and transient sensitivity are only settled in certain closed minds. So, the values of the forcings for each of the factors in Fig 9.1 are estimated, simulated. Fig 9.1 shows that the estimated forcing for GHGs is greater than the other factors; in the case of solar greater by 2000% [thank you for the correction]. You wonder why I find that astounding; here's what a 25% reduction in insolation variation can produce and you want me to believe 2xCO2= a 2000% increase in insolation variation; as the guy said, you're dreaming:

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/shindell_06/

re my post, @ 389:

I win.

Christy writes:

>*If rapid human induced warming is claimed as a hypothesis (in models) then how can it be stated in such a way as allowing for the possibility of it being falsified? The possibility of falsification is required for any hypothesis.*

AGW is not a hypothesis, its a theory. I'm surprised Christy is so wrong on this fundamental.

Christy Continues:

>*However, as soon as we construct a test, (i.e. comparing upper air tropical temperatures, where the clearest GHG signal occurs, with observations) many cry fowl and object. How do you create a test to check the falsification possibility for assertions (hypotheses) of rapid, GHG-induced warming? If there is no possible falsification test, there is no science.*

The problem is with the construction of the test. How should we incorporate the sometimes [conflicting results](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/tropical-tropopsh…) of [highly problematic](http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/papers-on-tropical-troposph…) test into the theory of the enhanced greenhouse warming?

Isolating the AGW signal from natural variability over the next 30 years will be difficult, but I haven't given up on finding the 'hot spot'.

Sigh ... idiocy parading in public ... such a shame.

You know you've won the argument when all the other side has to offer is ad hominem and insults not worthy of a third-grader.

You know you've won the argument when all the other side has to offer is ad hominem and insults not worthy of a third-grader.

Oh, yes, all we have is ad hom attacks.

We have no observational data, no physics, no theory, nothing.

Just ad hom attacks.

Going back 150 years.

You win!

Thanks to the fellow who managed to count nearly all of the digits on both of his hands, and thereby moved this thread back onto the recent postings list, I see that cohenite had left [a reply](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) several days ago.

If only it had been worth reading...

Commencing as it does with a line of exquisite irony, our intrepid former divorce lawyer cum Climate Denial Part secretary opines that I devoted a lot of time "denigrating the satellites and radiosondes and by inference the Douglass paper".

Ahem... a "lot" of time?!

Reading my last post I see two sentences that point out the shortcomings of radiosond data (satellites were not at any time mentioned):

Some estimations of the expected TTHS magnitude are less than might be expected according to any global warming theory, but in these cases the integrity of the tropospheric measurements
and the analytical methods of some workers are much more suspect than is the basic physics of moist-adiabatic lapse rate physics, and it has nothing to do with anthropogenic global warming theory specifically.

and

... there is a cloud (boom-tish) over much of the non-ground station data â unless of course one is prepared to say that the physics is wrong in the first place.

Note that the second quote is not in "point 3", so I'm generously padding out the evidence for my spending a "lot" of time on this apparent denigration.

Except that it is not "denigration"; it is simply a factual repetition of the opinions of experts in the discipline (follow the links provided cohenite), and it is a mere few sentences of typing.

As to the Douglas et al papers, I gave no explicit opinion; although I am happy to concur with the observations in the commentary of the [Tropical tropospheric trends](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposph…) link to RealCLimate.

Cohenite continues:

What Iâve found almost humorous is trying to be scientific about all of this. If rapid human induced warming is claimed as a hypothesis (in models) then how can it be stated in such a way as allowing for the possibility of it being falsified?

Well, besides the fact that I too find it humorous that you've "tried" to be scientific, I disagree with the rest of your statement.

I note that [jakerman](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) has already attempted to disabuse you of your confusion over an hypothesis versus a theory. Aside from this point, I would add that it is a simple matter to support or to falsify the science of radiation physics, to support or to falsify the increase in global temperature of the last century (after all, much of your efforts and of your Denialist friends is devoted to such an endeavour!), and to support or to falsify the increase in CO2 since the commencement of the Industrial Revolution.

And ultimately time will support or falsify the validity of the science behind anthropogenic global warming. The trouble is, by then it will be too late to say "oh, those climatologists were right after all", because the damage will have been done.

Personally, I reckon that much damage has already been done, after climatic inertia is included, and after taking into account the lack of action that is inevitable for years to come.

Your quote of Christy:

As my colleague Roy Spencer likes to say, "No one has falsified the hypothesis that the observed temperatures changes are a consequence of natural variability."

is a stretch at best, certainly in a short-term context, and indeed [the conservative IPCC consensus](http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf) would seem to disagree.

About this the question is, if the THS is not a distinct and essential part of AGW how then is AGW falsifiable?

Oh gawd, do you understand in how many ways this is a stupid question?!

Have you not been able to comprehend what I and others have been trying to drive into your thick cranium? A hot spot is a characteristic of many types of warming - not just of AGW. It is a predicted consequence of the warming that we see now, whatever the cause, and the fact that some datasets, and dubious ones at that, do not show a hot spot does not mean that AGW cannot "be falsified". It means that the tropospheric data are inadequate, or that basic physics, far removed from global warming, and even from climatology and from meteorology, is wrong.

You have to argue either that the data are adequate (please, be my guest), or that the physics is wrong (again, I beg you to be my guest). You cannot salami-slice a general warming prediction and attribute it only to an anthropogenically-caused warming.

Why is this so hard for you to understand?

At point 1 you say the THS is implied by "moist adiabatic lapse rate physics"; that may well be but it is explicitly predicted by AGW theory which postulates an enhanced greenhouse [EG] effect based on increased water vapor in the atmosphere [FAQ 3.1, AR4]

"[E]xplicity"? I've read the AR4 FAQ, and the closest I see is this:

In addition to the surface data described above, measurements of temperature above the surface have been made with weather balloons, with reasonable coverage over land since 1958, and from satellite data since 1979. All data are adjusted for changes in instruments and observing practices where necessary. Microwave satellite data have been used to create a âsatellite temperature recordâ for thick layers of the atmosphere including the troposphere (from the surface up to about 10 km) and the lower stratosphere (about 10 to 30 km). Despite several new analyses with improved cross-calibration of the 13 instruments on different satellites used since 1979 and compensation for changes in observing time and satellite altitude, some uncertainties remain in trends.

For global observations since the late 1950s, the most recent versions of all available data sets show that the troposphere has warmed at a slightly greater rate than the surface, while the stratosphere has cooled markedly since 1979. This is in accord with physical expectations and most model results, which demonstrate the role of increasing greenhouse gases in tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling; ozone depletion also contributes substantially to stratospheric cooling.

If you can indicate where the IPCC say that a hot spot is "explicitly predicted by AGW theory which postulates an enhanced greenhouse [EG] effect based on increased water vapor in the atmosphere [FAQ 3.1, AR4]", please, once again, be my guest.

I could really write a book about the inconsistencies in your statementâ¦

Yet again⦠be my guest.

"The forcings themselves are those acknowledged for the various parameters listed in the caption."

Acknowledged by who [sic]? Even the IPCC admits that all forcings including well mixed GHGs have varying levels of confidence, and climate sensitivity equilibrium and transient sensitivity are only settled in certain closed minds.

Erm, acknowledged by scientific consensus.

The point being that the forcings are derived from best evidence, whether you believe it or not, and not "as simulated by the PCM model", as you [attempted to promote](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…).

Fig 9.1 shows that the estimated forcing for GHGs is greater than the other factors; in the case of solar greater by 2000% [thank you for the correction]. You wonder why I find that astounding; here's what a 25% reduction in insolation variation can produce and you want me to believe 2xCO2= a 2000% increase in insolation variation; as the guy said, you're dreaming:

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/shindell_06/

Cohenite, your attempted riposte helps you not at all. Aside from the fact that your assumption that x amount of total solar insolation reduction should give the same amount of cooling as x amount of TSI increase should give in warming, you conveniently omitted a very salient observation from the link that you provided:

Based on climate modeling, we have proposed a solution to the apparent paradox of extreme cold with only a marginally dimmer Sun. In our simulations, we find that the reduced brightness of the Sun during the Maunder Minimum causes global average surface temperature changes of only a few tenths of a degree, in line with the small change in solar output. However, regional cooling over Europe and North America is 5-10 times larger due to a shift in atmospheric winds. [Emphases mine]

The following paragraphs only serve to further illuminate your mangling of the science.

Let me ask you a question... Do you understand why your take on the matter is flawed?!

I'll give you a clue â apples and oranges and watermelons...

Lee, at [#391](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…), confirms his prescience at [#389](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…): you duck and weave as if you were a fox in the sights of a gaggle of Monckton's tally ho-ing hunting chums.

Such cunning might work in a divorce court, but it ain't gonna change the facts of science. Facts that you would do well to acquaint yourself with â for a change...

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 14 Jan 2010 #permalink

I see that when he has his arse whipped cohenite retreats to the sanctuary of The Bog, and the to comfort of like-mindless Denialists.

One would think that after the issues with Lindzen and Choi had been pointed out to him, he'd pull his head; but no, he's [still at it](http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/?p=6540&cp=47#comment-163808), claiming:

Lindzen and Choiâs paper showing a drastically reduced climate sensitivity with ocean and atmosphere heating being balanced by increased OLR and negative SWR feedback is, if validated, a death-blow to AGW.

Thing is, the L&C paper has been [roundly criticised](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/lc-grl-comments-o…), but cohenite is apparently ignoring these inconvenient facts.

How many times must he be told that his promotion of particular ideas is simply wrong?

More to the point, when will he go over the opus of discredited claims that he has put forth, and accept that he is selling snake oil, and not a plausible alternative to mainstream science?

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 21 Jan 2010 #permalink

I've just noticed another [pronouncement by cohenite](http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/?p=6540&cp=47#comment-163995):

... the use of adjusted data referenced to a base period to generate anomalies has in my opinion been one of the most controversial and contentious aspects of AGW; personally I do not see why data has to be anomalised at all; the main excuse for doing it is that it allows a global mean standard temperature to be generated...

To me there is no reason why particular location temperature histories based on raw data cannot tell their story unaffected by manipulation; if comparisons between locations and even regions are to be done that can simply be done on an averaged basis without resorting to the fable of a GMST.

[Emphasis mine]

Where does one start with twaddle such as this?!

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 21 Jan 2010 #permalink

>*To me there is no reason why particular location temperature histories based on raw data cannot tell their story unaffected by manipulation*

How would cohnite reconcile this with Watts' UHI project? cohnite is now [repeating el gordisms](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/open_thread_38.php#comment-2214…). My response is:

>*How can one calculate global temperature continously for for more than 100 years without quality control, homogenisation and correction of known bias/errors?*

cohnite's apparent restort to the bazaar argument that we should not measure global temperature is a surely that last refuge of the denialist. Similar to [Wattsup's guest](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/open_thread_38.php#comment-2218…) arguing that global warming makes not difference.

Another week passes, and not a whisper from cohenite.

I can only assume that he is still trying to construct an argument that won't fall at the first hurdle, or that he has given in entirely and has slunk into the ale tent.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 28 Jan 2010 #permalink