Temperatures and Projections

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William Connolley is somewhat bemused by Christopher Monckton's review of the IPCC's Summary for Policy Makers. Because the IPCC changed the way sea level rises were reported, critics seem to inevitably misunderstand them and claim that the IPCC has substantially reduced its projections. Monckton…
Gavin Schmidt has caught Christopher Monckton in yet another fabrication. Monckton published graphs that purport to show that temperatures and CO2 concentrations haven't followed IPCC projections, but the IPCC projections Monckton plots are fictional. Schmidt graphs the actual projections, and…
Mike Steketee bucks the groupthink at The Australian with an article on why it is necessary to adapt to the coming global warming. Christopher Monckton responds with a Gish gallop of 24 points where he alleges Steketee got it wrong. Steketee's response is devasting: again and again and again he…
Christopher Monckton was so annoying when interviewed by Adam Spencer that Spencer hung up on him before finishing the interview later on. The Australian was so impressed by Monckton's performance that they posted a partial transcript. Moth at New Anthropocene corrects many of Monckton's…

I'll tell you MFS (#14) if Timbo will let me.

By Billy Bob Hall (not verified) on 09 Sep 2010 #permalink

When the climate science community is skeptical about catastrophic global warming in PRIVATE, why not everyone?

Here is what they say in private:

1) âBe awkward if we went through a early 1940s type swing!â
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=927&filename=1225026120…

2) âI think we have been too readily explaining the slow changes over past decade as a result of variabilityâthat explanation is wearing thin.â
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=947&filename=1231166089…

3) âThe scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has but it is only 7 years of data and it isnât statistically significant.â [This statement was made 5-years ago and the global warming rate still is zero]
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=544&filename=1120593115…

4) âThe fact is that we canât account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we canât.â
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1048&filename=1255352257…

5) âI know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards âapparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy dataâ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple.â
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=138&filename=938031546.t…

6) âIPCC is not any more an assessment of published science (which is its proclaimed goal) but production of resultsâ
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=186&filename=968705882.t…

If the climate science community itself is allowed to be skeptical about man made global warming in private, why can not everyone in PUBLIC?

Jakerman (#45)

Based on the previous patterns, the monthly global mean temperature anomaly generally decreases from September to December as shown in the following graph.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2008.6/to:2008.99

As a result, you cannot include values for 2010 until December, which shows my graph (post #45) is correct, but yours is not.

Jakerman

You wrote

If global warming continues at its current 50 year average (without factoring nonlinear feedbacks) the anomaly will be +1.6 degrees C by 2100, a warming of +2 degrees C above pre industrial levels.

Your statement is correct (0.0138*90 +0.4=1.6).

However, Jakerman, is the following statement correct?

If global warming continues at its current 130 year average (without factoring nonlinear feedbacks) the anomaly will increase by +0.55 deg C (0.0061*90) by 2100.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/last:1560/plot/hadcrut3vgl…

Why was the global warming rate of 0.16 deg C per decade from 1970 to 2000, after 60 years of human emission of CO2, is nearly identical to that of 0.15 deg C per decade from 1910 to 1940? Does this show the effect of CO2 in global mean temperature is NIL?

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1940/compress…

Why was the global warming rate decelerated from 0.25 deg C per decade for the period from 1990 to 2000 to only 0.03 deg C per decade for the period from 2000 to 2010? Does this also show the effect of CO2 in global mean temperature is NIL?

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1990/to:2000/plot/had…

Why was that the global warming rate for the 60-years period from 1910 to 1970 of 0.058 deg C per decade is nearly identical to the global warming rate for the 60-years period from 1940 to 2000 of 0.064 deg C per decade? Does not this proof that there was almost no acceleration in the recent global warming rate?

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1970/trend/pl…

1) Global warming rate for the 90-years period from 1910 to 2000=>0.064 deg C per decade
2) Global warming rate for the 60-years period from 1940 to 2000=>0.064 deg C per decade
3) Global warming rate for the 60-years period from 1910 to 1970=>0.058 deg C per decade

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1970/trend/pl…

Why are these global warming rates nearly identical?

30-years of global warming at the rate of 0.15 deg C per decade from 1910 to 1940

30-years of no global warming from 1940 to 1970

30-years of global warming at the rate of 0.16 deg C per decade (at the same rate as that 60-years before) from 1970 to 2000

[Data from the CRU](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1940/trend/pl…)

What is all this fuss about catastrophic man made global warming?

You wrote,

Yet, despite all those "turning points", 2000 is much warmer than 1880.

Year=>[Global Mean Temperature Anomaly (deg C)](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:2010/compress…)

1880=>-0.2

1910=>-0.2-0.4=-0.6

1940=>-0.6+0.7=0.1

1970=>0.1-0.4=-0.3

2000=>-0.3+0.7=0.4

Assuming this pattern (-0.4 for the 30 years global cooling and +0.7 for the 30 years global warming) continues to apply, we have

2030=>0.4-0.4=0

2060=>0+0.7=0.7

2090=>0.7-0.4=0.3

Conclusion:
Little change in mean global temperature change in the 21st century!

> Is Todd the latest outbreak of Girma?

An alternative hypothesis is that Todd isn't that bright, and is merely cutting-and-pasting...

> You're also failing again with well-decried complaints against the IPCC from denialists that "correlation is not causation".

Awwwwwwwwwwww, no fair applying other arguments used by denialists (even if they are correct principles) to other denialist arguments! Everyone knows that if two denialist arguments contradict each other, that just makes the IPCC wronger still!

;-)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 14 Sep 2010 #permalink

MFS (#81)

According to the data, there is an overall linear warming rate of about 0.5 deg C per century as shown below, not the scary from 2.4 to 6.4 deg C of the IPCC.

Local Mixima:

Year=>[Global Mean Temperature (deg C)]( http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:2010/compress…)

1880=>-0.2

1940=>0.1

2000=>0.4

2060=>0.7

Local Minima:

Year=>Global Mean Temperature (deg C)

1910=>-0.6

1970=>-0.3

2030=>0

2090=>0.3

As a result, IPCCâs EXAGERATION FACTOR varies from 4.8 to 12.8. They do indeed exaggerate!

MFS (#83)

Unless you can produce a reference to the IPCC reports showing that they forecast a temperature changeâ¦

[IPCC:]( http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections…)

For the next two decades, a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emission scenarios. Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1°C per decade would be expected. {10.3, 10.7}

The observed recent global warming rate per decade is not 0.2deg C. The observed recent global warming rate per decade is not 0.1deg C. [The observed recent global warming rate per decade is ZERO.]( http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2010/plot/had…)

[IPCC:]( http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections…)

Best estimates and likely ranges for global average surface air warming for six SRES emissions marker scenarios are given in this assessment and are shown in Table SPM.3. For example, the best estimate for the low scenario (B1) is 1.8°C (likely range is 1.1°C to 2.9°C), and the best estimate for the high scenario (A1FI) is 4.0°C (likely range is 2.4°C to 6.4°C).

MFS (#83)

You're a nutter.

If you are really sure that your belief in catastrophic man made global warming is based on observable facts, why do you behave like that?

Lotharsson (#90)

When you do that over the last 30 years the rate per decade is decidely non-zero And what do you know? The trend rate on that plot is about 0.17 degrees C per decade, NOT zero.

And if we plot only the last 20 years (even without checking whether trend can be reliably distinguished from noise over this period), the rate is still about 0.17 degrees C per decade.

The warming trend is clearly NOT zero degrees per decade.

Thou shall use as the start and end points of trend calculations the [global mean temperature turning point years]( http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:2010/compress…): 1880, 1910, 1940, 1970, 2000, 2030 etc

The previous 30-years warming of 0.16 deg C per decade ended near 2000. Calculate the new trend starting from 2000, which gives you a slight global warming rate of 0.03 deg C per decade.

No! No! No! NO! NO!! NO!!! NO!!!! NO!!!!! NO!!!!!! NO!!!!!! NO!!!!!!

The so-called existence of this 'Christopher Monckton' is nothing but a liberal meme planted into the public consciousness by KGB operatives, with the intent of deflecting the IPCC's own errors onto a bogeyman, so that they can pretend to be victimized.

Does anyone really have 100% proof that this 'Christopher Monckton' actually exists? You may think you've met him in person, but how do you know that the person you met really is Monckton? And even if you know that he is Monckton, how can you be sure that this Monckton is the same Monckton that everyone is referring to, and not a different person who happens to have the same name?

If this 'Christopher Monckton' doesn't exist, then surely the science errors that are attributed to him can't be his fault at all!

Indeed, the truth is clear: All the so-called errors attributed to the so-called 'Christopher Monckton' are nothing but false impressions planted by the IPCC, the Phantom Soviet Empire, and the Taliban Al-Qaeda Al-Saddam Al-Hussein! Illegitimi non carborundum!

Anyones else having problems getting any presentation to load/play?

I get big white square.

Thanks for this, Tim!

jakerman: for some reason I'm reminded of RealPlayer "Whiteboard" lectures by physicists. Opened two windows. One window was the lecture (video footage) the other was the whiteboard as they went along and wrote on it. dunno if they still have them it was about 5 years ago or more.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 09 Sep 2010 #permalink

jakerman: The Flash presenter here is Adobe "Captivate" and I know even with a fast broadband it took quite a while to load, if that helps.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 09 Sep 2010 #permalink

Thanks Marion, I get both a long load time then a blank square. Same with Chrome, FireFox, and a crossed square with IE.

Any tips?

BTW, even the jpg's below the presentation are failing to load.

I found IE8.0.7600 didn't wanna know, but Firefox v3.6.8 with a java update played it fine.

I'd recommend switching to a flash .flv and/or .avi formats as more universal platforms. This quality of presentation shouldn't be marginalised by silly formatting choices. It looks no different to Youtube, so capitalise on a format everyone can and does watch with no major problems every day.

jakerman:
It is quite slow to load. I'm using Firefox, and running NoScript. This meant that the presentation didn't load by default, but the rest of the page did; I could then load the presentation. Maybe something to try?

For me (Macbook, Snow Leopard, Safari) it did load and play just fine, but it seemed really big is all.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 09 Sep 2010 #permalink

Thanks team, my clucker I use away from home works, (but not my newer computer at home), could be settings.

I'd second Check's point, good to whack this on youtube (like Greenman did) thus allowing sharing via facebook etc.

BTW, correction I get sound but just a white screen (no images) did you'll get graphics?

My first graphic was the Play button, which I clicked, then the presentation played, and it was fine. The entire presentation was buffered, so naturally it had no jerkiness in playback. Yes, picture and sound both. A great deal of graphs.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 09 Sep 2010 #permalink

Great presentation.

I viewed it using IE8, with a 3MB down connection. Worked just fine, but took about two minutes to download.

By Peter Bellin (not verified) on 09 Sep 2010 #permalink

Pretty devastating exposure of Monckton's dodgy sleight of hand... I wonder what the usual throng of Monckton worshippers make of it...

At least the ridiculous 'world is cooling' meme seems to be dying down a bit.

Well, I'm using Firefox on a Mac and it plays just fine. I'm currently getting 9Mbps downloads, took a few seconds to download.

Both Firefox and Flash player were recently upgraded, although I have watched Captivate presentations before using older versions.

Fantastic presentation. Nothing to add to that.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 09 Sep 2010 #permalink

No, Christopher Monckton doesn't exist. It's Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley , who hasn't voted in any election since He's the only authority in Brenchley and disses the so called 'queen's cabinet of britain' by pink logos.

By Anonymous (not verified) on 09 Sep 2010 #permalink

.

CO2 rising, SST falling !

2009 SST anomaly
http://www.tinyurl.com.au/ryk

2010 SST anomaly
http://www.tinyurl.com.au/o0k

I can't wait to hear bullshite start to flow.......

shorter IPCC....

it's caused by the rapidly not melting Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets....

or

don't worry, Dr Trenberth is still looking.......... infact we are all looking...... hey phil, have you looked under the carpet ?

Todd, Todd, Todd,

Hasn't anyone ever taught you to disregard apparent statements without context. The stuff you have put up is no better than soundbites and were dealt with anyway....... months ago.

If you are being genuine then go away and do some more research but if you are not being genuine for the sake of Stephen Schnieder's life's work, stop wasting people's time.

Sunspot,

Same advice to you.......or.......if you want to do something useful comment on the presentation or count how many times Monckton has threatened to sue and hasn't and discuss if that is a pattern.

Sunspot@19, that was clever. Using two maps with different color codings... Why didn't Monckton think about doing that too?

By Lars Karlsson (not verified) on 10 Sep 2010 #permalink

sunsickness:

I can't wait to hear bullshite start to flow

You can't wait so you produce it yourself.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 10 Sep 2010 #permalink

Todd and spotty, are you both trying to distract from Monckton's dishonesty? Its pretty obvious that you are.

BTW todd, scientist are skeptical, that their job. But unlike denialist they accept the preponderance of evidence.

I'll strive to be as skeptical as the fine scientist that you quote mined.

BTW your quote mining is a mark of prejudice, the opposite of skepticism.

Alden, I just got it to work and it was worth the effort. A great expose!

jakerman:

> Todd and spotty, are you both trying to distract from Monckton's dishonesty? Its pretty obvious that you are.

jakerman, I see you have been deceived by the liberal propaganda claiming that Monckton exists. Todd and sunspot realize the Truth™, which is that Christopher Monckton isn't real -- which is why they're not talking about him at all!

There's no Christopher Monckton -- there's only the Phantom Soviet Empire!

* * *

Anonymous:

> No, Christopher Monckton doesn't exist. It's Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley , who hasn't voted in any election since He's the only authority in Brenchley and disses the so called 'queen's cabinet of britain' by pink logos.

All nothing but a bunch of liberal hooey. There's no Queen's Cabinet. There's no House of Lords. There's no Brenchley. There's no Christopher Monckton. It's all just Marxist propaganda. The only thing that's real is "Climategate". CLIMATEGATE CLIMATEGATE CLIMATEGATE!!!!!!!!!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Alden Griffiths' work is top quality, and devastating for those whom he places under his lens.

I'd very much enjoy seeing Alden and Peter Sinclair join forces and put together a documentary-length debunking of the anti-climatology lobby. If the [Insight episode](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/09/steven_schneider_and_the_skept…) aired this week is anything to go by, the rank and file of the denialist body-collective are simply insufficiently educated or not sufficiently intelligent to be able to assess the science for themselves - the plain-language and high-clarity graphics would help to straighten out those who genuinely are confused by the Denialatus-mulm, and it would be a nice resource with which to challenge those who claim to have empirical backing for their contrarianism.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 10 Sep 2010 #permalink

Sunbloack at #19

'...don't worry, Dr Trenberth is still looking.......... infact we are all looking...... hey phil, have you looked under the carpet ?'

Phil?

Who is Phil?

Perhaps SBS could be persuaded to run another episode with David Karoly in the chair answering skeptics delayers opinions. And this time instead of video of Plimer, why they didn't show balance there and play bits of Monbiot skewering Plimer I don't know, they could use selected Climate Crock episodes. Come on broadcaster give the replies time - they take longer than the simply put canards of the delayers.

Fantastic presentation overall! Thanks for the link. I have seen many presentation about the subject and this is by far the best one.

Not to be out done by Monckton, Fuller is now also distorting the science (again) at WFUWT.

ThingsBreak has called him on it. Maybe Alden (or Tim?) would like to take on the task of refuting Fuller too....

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 10 Sep 2010 #permalink

That sound you hear is the denialists moving the goal posts, yet again.

I think Sunny-boy @ 19 is multi-tasking.
He's lost track of where he's trolling.

What? Monckton has been incorrectly manipulating the figures?

No, tell me it ain't so!!

Has anybody heard if Monckton aka C-b-a-c is suing yet? Shurely som mistake...(ed)

It's probably a bad idea to dignify a scientifically illiterate mining company CEO (McIntyre) or his penny-an-impression Matt-Drudge-on-the-cheap co-author by "refuting their science."

Steve McIntyre and Tom Fuller, so far, have no science to refute. And one of the things that has given McIntyre more than his 15 minutes is precisely the inordinate attention given to him.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 11 Sep 2010 #permalink

Technically, the analysis is sound but misses a huge point, which is that AR4 came out in 2007 and thus the use of climate model predictions prior to that date is simply an exercising in hindcasting. That's the big problem with IPCC models, they have a zero percent prediction rate from the time they're developed, especially over a period of 10+ years. The models of 2000 got 2010 wrong, 1990 got 2000 wrong etc. They were all 'fixed' up by backfitting. It's simply not a legitimate method to be using in any discipline. (PS - financial and other money market modelling is my profession these days).

> (PS - financial and other money market modelling is my profession these days).

I worked on software technology for financial modeling for a several years with some very smart finance people, and although I didn't have a huge amount to do with *defining* the models I had to understand how they worked and what their characteristics were. Climate modeling is quite different - in part because there are significant physical principles and constraints - so you can't assume that what holds in finance holds in climate science.

> The models of 2000 got 2010 wrong, 1990 got 2000 wrong etc.

Firstly, what do you define as "wrong"? Is it a binary "right" or "wrong", or is there a metric of "wrongness"?

Secondly, 'd be very interested in how well your financial models do at 10 year forecasts under the same definition, especially if they're dealing with (say) stocks - or even mutual funds. In my modeling technology days we produced a distribution of probable outcomes - and even then if you get far enough into the tails you can't say much at all about what might happen. And we were pretty confident that anyone claiming to do significantly better (be more sure about outcomes over those kinds of timeframes) was deluding either themselves - or everyone else.

Thirdly, a difference in climate science is the distinction between climate and weather - which can lead to some misunderstanding. Physical principles provide fairly strong constraints on climate - providing you understand (a) the difference between climate and weather and (b) the length of time for the various major feedback loops involved to settle.

When discussing climate, climate change is the trend and weather is noise. And there's a *lot* of noise. Fundamentally that means you have to operate over long enough timescales ("climate timescales") to discern trend from noise. 30 years is generally long enough, although (depending on the noise levels) sometimes 15-20 is just good enough. This means that a (say) 30 year climate model forecast is expected to be **closer** to the realisation (i.e. what actually happens in 30 years) than a 10 year climate model forecast.

To put it another way, calling for an accurate 10 year forecast is asking for a long long long range weather forecast - which climate models are simply not expected to provide. That means *assessing* them on that basis is inappropriate.

> They were all 'fixed' up by backfitting.

I'm fairly sure that's not correct, although you may have a different definition in mind. Perhaps you could explain what you think was done to "fix them up" and why it's invalid.

Meanwhile, have you checked out how well Hansen's original model did, given that the predictions were published decades ago? Or the *very simple* model predictions [made 35 years ago](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/happy-35th-birthd…)? You might be surprised.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 12 Sep 2010 #permalink

Lotharsson,

I'd have a look at Jack's blog before assessing how much time to waste answering him. It seems to me a lost cause. Kudos for the effort, though.

A stores quartermaster has a much better time of coordinating resupply for 10,000 troops and associated mechanicals than with a squad of 20 soldiers.

US football betting has a high scoring game because the higher points make for a better (more reliable) statistical analysis than the low-scoring UK soccer game.

Surveys are more accurate when compiling the opinions of 10,000 people than they are with 100.

Climate is the average expected of 10,000 days. Weather reporting is the average of 1/4 day.

Why do you think that climate is harder to predict, Jack?

Munchkin is at it again - a letter criticising Prince Charles comments about AGW deniers.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/7997993/HMRC-can-add-a-furth…

(Scroll down to Royal Views on Climate)

I couldn't cut & paste the letter a moment ago but now here it is:-.

............

Royal views on climate

SIR â The Prince of Wales (report, September 11) says that scientists who question the extent of our climatic influence believe the carbon dioxide âjust disappears through holesâ into space. Such partisan pusillanimity does not befit a prince.

He says he knows of no natural cause for recent global warming. A natural reduction in global cloud cover let more sunlight through, and caused most of the warming, from 1983-2001. There has been none since. Finally, he advocates a âprecautionary approachâ. Yet who should pay the cost of this, which is vastly disproportionate to the risk?

If he wants to speak further on global warming, let him renounce his claim on the throne first.

Lord Monckton of Brenchley
Deputy leader, Ukip
Rannoch, Perthshire

By Clippo UK (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

"Yet who should pay the cost of this, which is vastly disproportionate to the risk? "

I've never seen anyone promoting this meme show how they work out the cost.

It's often the same people complaining that "alarmism" is why the don't "believe" climate change is caused by humans.

Apparently no problem with alarmism like "sending us back to the stone age", though...

> I've never seen anyone promoting this meme show how they work out the cost.

I've never seen them show how they work out the risk either - mostly they make huge (and unjustified) assumptions about it.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

Todd I [fixed your chart](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/plot/hadcrut3vgl…) for you.

BTW Thanks for the lesson in short term cherry picking (and how to conflate internal variability with a forced trend).

If global warming continues at its [current 50 year average](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/last:600/plot/hadcrut3vgl/…) (without factoring nonlinear feedbacks) the anomally will be +1.6 degrees C by 2100, a warming of +2 degrees C above pre industrial levels.

> I'd have a look at Jack's blog before assessing how much time to waste answering him. It seems to me a lost cause.

I haven't seen his blog - but I thought it might be worth making some points to other readers that show that "I'm a financial modeller" doesn't mean "I'm an authority on the usefulness of climate models".

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

Todd, when you say "generally", do you mean "not in 2006, but I've found a year that conforms to my assertion, so I'll just refer to that"?

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

Tood writes:

>*Based on the previous patterns, the monthly global mean temperature anomaly generally decreases from September to December [...] As a result, you cannot include values for 2010 until December, which shows my graph (post #45) is correct, but yours is not.

What a complete hypocrit! Todd cherry picked 1998 as his startpoint. "*Based on the previous patterns*" 1998 is an extrem outlyer an not representative. "*As a result, you cannot include values for*" 1998 as a valid baseline to any trend.

So you'll have to settle for the [50 year trend](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/last:600/plot/hadcrut3vgl/…) instead.

Also Todd, is there any particular reason you choose 1998 as a starting date?

If I include much more data and start in 1990, I get a completely different-looking trend:

Tell me something - did you choose the starting date because it paints the picture *you* want to tell? Are you cherry-picking, massaging the data, and producing a fraudulent graph?

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

> ...the monthly global mean temperature anomaly generally decreases from September to December...

...which you attempt to illustrate with a graph from a single year? (And even then you include start ".6" of a year in, which is July, not September. How about starting at ".75", i.e. [September](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2006.75/to:2006.99)?

Oops, that year really didn't follow your script. Maybe a single year doesn't prove your claim.

> As a result, you cannot include values for 2010 until December, which shows my graph (post #45) is correct, but yours is not.

Even if one agrees that "you can't include values for 2010 until December",

a) your graph is **still** cherry-picking in order to conflate noise with trend. This renders your argument moot. But hey, let's humour your error further...

b) ...if you **must** plot a 12-year graph, even though it's been clearly shown time and time again that 12 years isn't long enough to reliably detect trends, and that starting at 1998 is always a blatant attempt to cherry-pick, then it is quite correct to include the [12 year trend *to current month*](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998.7/to:2010.7/plot…).

And **yet it warms**!

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

Todd:

the zero global warming rate at 0.4 deg C since 1998

Anyone who cherrypicks 1998 (the strongest El Niño in more than 100 years) as a starting point to determine the rate of climatic warming achieves nothing more than to show that they are intellectually dishonest. Todd, you now have zero credibility.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

> If global warming continues at its current 130 year average ...

Why are you obsessed with extrapolating past trends without understanding the forces that drive them and how they will affect future trends?

> Why was the global warming rate of 0.16 deg C per decade from 1970 to 2000, after 60 years of human emission of CO2, is nearly identical to that of 0.15 deg C per decade from 1910 to 1940? Does this show the effect of CO2 in global mean temperature is NIL?

No to both of your questions - but you'd need to have a much greater scientific understanding than you have shown in order to see why. Have you actually looked at the science, or do you just look at graphs and extrapolations?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

>*However, Jakerman, is the following statement correct? If global warming continues at its current 130 year average (without factoring nonlinear feedbacks) the anomaly will increase by +0.55 deg C (0.0061*90) by 2100.*

Yes but irrelevent, as forcing factors have changed significantly. And hence we'd need to see steep decline in our 30 year trend (30 years being the period need for CO2 forcing to dominate internal variablity) to reach such a slow rate of warming.

>*Why was that the global warming rate for the 60-years period from 1910 to 1970 of 0.058 deg C per decade is nearly identical to the global warming rate for the 60-years period from 1940 to 2000 of 0.064 deg C per decade?*

Becasue of the ratio of aersol to GHG forcing from 1940s and a change to SST measurment duing WW2.

>*Does not this proof that there was almost no acceleration in the recent global warming rate?*

No, it shows that [heating sea water when you collect it](http://www.skepticalscience.com/A-new-twist-on-mid-century-cooling.html) has a warming bias and cooling when you collect it has cooling bias.

0.17 degrees per decade from 1975 to present.

I.e. 0.15 < 0.16 < 0.17 inspite of 1940s sampling error.

Todd,

Strange cherrypick. I always worry when somebody takes three different time periods, when you could instead use [the whole dataset](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from/to:2010/trend/plot/ha…)

What are you calling "catastrophic manmade global warming"? Global warming, yes. Catastrophic is a value judgement and so subjective you'll rarely hear a scientist call it such.

> the zero global warming rate at 0.4 deg C since 1998

Confused and wrong.

Yes, there was no global warming rate at 0.4C since 1998.

There was a global warming rate at 0.17C since 1998.

There was no zero global warming rate since 1998.

Also Todd you're running the error that every single denialist complains about the IPCC and mitigaton effects: concentrating on only CO2.

Funnily enough, the IPCC are the ones who aren't doing this.

There's an entire chapter on attribution in the IPCC AR4 WG1 report [here](http://www.ipcc.ch).

I would suggest you stop fallaciously concentrating on one factor before someone on the denialist side refutes your error.

Yet, despite all those "turning points", 2000 is much warmer than 1880.

I think you have the name of these points [wrong](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflection_point).

Not a surprise since you have displayed no knowledge of maths or english, except just enough to be dangerous and "prove" your point.

It seems like once you get an answer you like, you stick with it and don't investigate further.

This is not science and this is not honest either.

Of course, you have to remove the trend to SEE [oscillation](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:2010/compress…).

All you've managed to prove is that the trend is upward and that if you take a trend, the values that surround that trend extend equally around the points in an apparently cyclic manner.

Which is the result of [RMS error minimisation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_squares) fitting.

You've proven that the trend upward is valid.

Well done, todd.

Todd:
>Do you guys agree that the following years were global mean temperature turning points?

No.

But a more pertinent question would be: Do any peer-reviewed studies agree?

Provide details of any that do agree with you, or an estimate of when you are going to publish your own.

>*Do you guys agree that the following years were [That Todd has tortured the data in without regard for attribution or forcing]*

Yes.

Your naive turning point analysis requires future sampling error (highly unlikely with cross referencing available) and requires massive increase in aerosol forcing.

So without these factors there is no reason for a temperature plateau at 2030.

> Is Todd the latest outbreak of Girma?

An alternative hypothesis is that Todd isn't that bright, and is merely cutting-and-pasting...

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 14 Sep 2010 #permalink

Pitty that Girm@ has shown little evidence of progressing his knowledge in a over a year. Its likey that the denialist approach retards ones's development.

> 1880=>-0.2

> 2000=>0.4

And, since any schoolboy know, 0.4 is greater than -0.2.

Hence you have merely proven the statement you decried as false:

> Yet, despite all those "turning points", 2000 is much warmer than 1880.

> Assuming this pattern ...
> Conclusion: Little change in mean global temperature change in the 21st century!

If you assume it doesn't, then the conclusion is that there is a huge change in temperatures.

You're also failing again with well-decried complaints against the IPCC from denialists that "correlation is not causation".

Funnily enough, that charge against the IPCC is false.

But you're running right through the middle of it.

What a pity Grima here hasn't learned...

>*Assuming this pattern*

There is no reason to assume that Girm@. Open your eyes and [read the critique](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/09/temperatures_and_projections.ph…) of your your empty claim.

Its like going back in time, and Girm@ is still using the same hands over the eyes technique, so I shouldn't be surprise he he still using the same bankrupt claim.

But we should thank Girm@ for showing the quality standard accepted by Watts and his readers (if there were any doubt).

Todd/Girm@

You're also confusing weather and climate. You can hardly take the temperature for a single year and compare it to that of another single year.

Anyhow, if one humours your claim, your last predicted low for 2090 will be 0.3. This is almost one degree warmer than your first stated low for 1910. Your predicted high is 0.7 in 2060. It was -0.2 in 1880. This is equating approximately 1 degree of global warming on account of both the low and high extremes. How can you not see this?

> According to the data, there is an overall linear warming rate of about 0.5 deg C per century as shown below,...

Your method is wrong. (Nasif Nahle would be proud - which is not a complement.)

Learn to correctly calculate trends if you don't want to be dismissed as an ignoramus. Hint: you need to calculate it using **all** the data. Comparisons of individual years are invalid.

> As a result, IPCCâs EXAGERATION FACTOR varies from 4.8 to 12.8.

You don't seem to (want to?) realise that predictions cited by the IPCC are **not** based on naively and stupidly extrapolating from past temperatures - let alone your particular method of incorrectly calculated "trends" - AND that predictions vary depending on the amount and timing and type of emissions that will be emitted in the future.

It's about as smart as saying that my car has been traveling accelerating very slowly up this hill (where the traffic is also heavy), so predictions that it will accelerate faster after cresting the hill (where the traffic also thins out) are wrong because of an "EXAGGERATION FACTOR".

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 14 Sep 2010 #permalink

Todd,

Two things. Firstly, the IPCC did not 'forecast' how temperatures would rise during the 20th century.

Secondly, you do not know how temperatures will vary during the 21st, unless you are a psychic or claim to know the precise functioning of every factor affecting global temperature (what a feat! Where is your Nobel Prize?).

You are saying that by adding the 20th century warming to your imaginary 21st century changes, which I stress, are only in your mind, the IPCC somehow have their projections wrong? Major logic fail.

Unless you can produce a reference to the IPCC reports showing that they forecast a temperature change during the 20th century of 2.4 to 6.4 deg. C., and given your claim to know precisely how global temperatures will behave in the next century, I am calling it as I see it:

You're a nutter.

> What is wrong in assuming the global mean temperature pattern of the 20th century repeats in the 21st century?

What is **right** about your assumption that the factors driving warming are **exactly** the same for both centuries, when there's plenty of evidence to the contrary?

(And that's before we discuss the rising impact of slow feedbacks in the 21st century due to 20th century emissions.)

> For the next two decades, a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emission scenarios.

You need to understand what the IPCC means by "projected", what an SRES emission scenario is, and how a projection for a scenario differs from "forecasted". Right now you're bandying about terms that you misunderstand and therefore misapply.

Here's an example. You loudly proclaimed that the "2.4-6.4" degree "forecast" [sic - it wasn't a forecast] was wrong because it had an ["EXAGGERATION FACTOR" of "4.8-12.8"](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/09/temperatures_and_projections.ph…).

So, please explain the definition of the A1F1 scenario so that you can demonstrate that you understand it. Then please explain whether (and if so, how) it differs from actual emissions over the period that you used to calculate your baseline from which you determined your mooted "EXAGGERATION FACTOR". Finally, to demonstrate understanding, please explain what *other* factors are expected to differ in the A1F1 future scenario from the period over which you calculated your baseline. Then given all that please explain why your claim that the IPCC exaggerates was unjustified by your argument.

> The observed recent global warming rate per decade is ZERO.

Er, no. The "rate per decade" does not mean "the rate over the last 10 years" - and you don't even graph *that*, because your argument relies on cherry-picking by starting from 1998. As you've had explained to you several times you need to operate over more than 12 years to distinguish trend from noise. 30 years is generally good; if the noise is particularly co-operative you might be OK with 20 or even sometimes 15.

When you do that over the last 30 years the rate per decade is [decidely non-zero](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1980.7/to:2010.7/plot…) And what do you know? The trend rate on that plot is about **0.17 degrees C per decade**, NOT zero.

And if we plot [only the last 20 years](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1980.7/to:2010.7/plot…) (even without checking whether trend can be reliably distinguished from noise over this period), the rate is *still* about 0.17 degrees C per decade.

The warming **trend** is clearly NOT zero degrees per decade.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 14 Sep 2010 #permalink

> Global warming was flat for 12 years since 1998; so please donât include these years in any trend calculation.

ROFL! That's one of the better Dunning-Kruger moments we've seen on Deltoid.

Todd, you **can't exclude data you don't like** - unless you're **trying** to fake a result. And you clearly are - because what's even more amusing is that you, Todd, **include those very years in your own trend calculation** which you use to claim that "the warming rate is zero" and "global warming stopped in 1998".

Perhaps you should ponder why you are arguing against yourself here - and who is going to win that argument.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 14 Sep 2010 #permalink

[Todd](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/09/temperatures_and_projections.ph…)

I ask the question again, this time highlighting the critical bit you omitted when you [tried to answer it](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/09/temperatures_and_projections.ph…):

>Unless you can produce a reference to the IPCC reports showing that they forecast a temperature change during the 20th century of 2.4 to 6.4 deg. C.

You are taking the IPCC projections for different scenarios during the 21st century and pretending they should have applied in the 20th century, which is utterly ridiculous.

Ahhhh. I just noticed the posts disappearing as I write this. I guess the sockpuppet was outed.

> OK, Todd is Girma -- I have removed all his comments.

Am I alone in thinking the temporary appearance was worth it - if only for the priceless "I calculate a 1998-2010 trend of zero so you must not use the 1998-2010 range in your trend calculations"? ;-)

Now we return to the regularly scheduled thread...

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 14 Sep 2010 #permalink

Recent reports claim June was the warmest on record, but it seems to fly in the face of reports of record cold from around the world.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/s5b

Recent reports claim that there is a record cold around the world, but it seems to fly in the face of reports that the year is the warmest on record.

(insert link to goatse here)

>"(insert link to goatse here)

LOL!

Sorry, I giggled like an idiot for about 5 minutes...

sunspot, have you ever stopped to think for a moment that weather and climate might not be the same thing?

> sunspot, have you ever stopped to think for a moment that weather and climate might not be the same thing?

He's never stopped to think how "global average" differs from "some regional reports" either. If he did it would destroy his favourite beliefs, and he can't have that, can he?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 15 Sep 2010 #permalink
sunspot, have you ever stopped to think for a moment that weather and climate might not be the same thing?

He's never stopped to think how "global average" differs from "some regional reports" either. If he did it would destroy his favourite beliefs, and he can't have that, can he?

He's never stopped to think.

There, that's better.

New Paper âWhat Do Observational Datasets Say about Modeled Tropospheric Temperature Trends Since 1979â³ By Christy Et Al 2010

abstract

âUpdated tropical lower tropospheric temperature datasets covering the period 1979â2009 are presented and assessed for accuracy based upon recent publications and several analyses conducted here. We conclude that the lower tropospheric temperature (TLT) trend over these 31 years is +0.09 ± 0.03 °C decadeâ1. Given that the surface temperature (Tsfc) trends from three different groups agree extremely closely among themselves (~ +0.12 °C decadeâ1) this indicates that the âscaling ratioâ (SR, or ratio of atmospheric trend to surface trend: TLT/Tsfc) of the observations is ~0.8 ± 0.3. This is significantly different from the average SR calculated from the IPCC AR4 model simulations which is ~1.4. This result indicates the majority of AR4 simulations tend to portray significantly greater warming in the troposphere relative to the surface than is found in observations. The SR, as an internal, normalized metric of model behavior, largely avoids the confounding influence of short-term fluctuations such as El Niños which make direct comparison of trend magnitudes less confident, even over multi-decadal periods.â

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/s7h

One wonders if Christy et al corrected for the fact that most historical (tropical, if not global) observations are over land rather than water - and at least one main model, if you bother to ask, predicts significantly greater ratios of atmospheric-to-ground-level warming over water than over land.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 16 Sep 2010 #permalink

Well sunspot has evidently read & understood the paper (otherwise he wouldn't have posted it right?) so perhaps (s)he can tell us?

Candid Admissions On Shortcomings In The Land Surface Temperature Data [GHCN and USHCN] At The September Exeter Meeting

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/sdf

there were several candid admissions with respect to the robustness of the global and USA surface temperature record that are being used for multidecadal surface temperature trend assessments (such as for the 2007 IPCC report).

sunspot,

Pielke???

Pray, tell us what the linkspam has to do with Monckton's claim that temperatures do not measure up to IPCC projections.

MFS @ 92, of course Pielke!

If you want to instill a doubt without being specific, then Pielke is da man! Then you just leave it to his less-than-sane Watts site to build that up to ludicrous levels.

Pielke's getting old, as is his technique.

Maybe Spots and Bent ought to duke it out to decide what country should be the world.

Bent: Central England
Spots: USA, USA, USA!

'course the SANE people are wondering why these numbnuts are worrying about a tiny fraction of the planet... (yet strangely enough, they care nothing for "a few lousy degrees" temperature rise).

All their "skepticism" leans one way.

It is interesting to note that he is referred to as
"Mr. Monckton" throughout the report. It is time this vain and arrogant person is brought down to earth.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 21 Sep 2010 #permalink

A new reconstruction of past 2000 years temperature has been published by Ljungqvist, which seems to corroroborate Loehle's reconstruction. (Ljungqvist, F.C. 2010. "A New Reconstruction of Temperature Variability in the Extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere during the Last Two Millenia". Geografiska Annaler 92A(3):339-351)

Watts and crew are making much to do about this.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/28/loehle-vindication/#more-25461

If true, it does seem to put the recent warming in a different perspective: it's happened before, on a cyclic basis, with no real man-made impetus (except for the Social Fascist hype).

Johanus, care to tell us the mechanism of those "cycles"? Remember, you'd have to come with a mechanism that increases and decreases energy storage in the earth's atmosphere. If any of those mechanisms include the sun, you're in trouble: we KNOW the sun has not increased its output in the last 30 years. If it's GHGs (and that includes water vapor), you're in trouble, too: we know GHGs are increasing. If it's Milankovitch: oops, also there we know that that can't be the cause of recent warming. Well, maybe ocean oscillations then? Problem, too: where's the energy coming from?

Yes, we all know global temperatures can change without anthropogenic input. There are many factors that can have an effect. But are we really to hope they all point downward while we are increasing GHG concentrations? Think about what happens if several actually point upward...

So, what cycles are you talking about? (note that we KNOW and expect the Roman Warm Period to be warm).

Yes, we all know global temperatures can change without anthropogenic input. There are many factors that can have an effect. But are we really to _hope_ they all point downward while we are increasing GHG concentrations? Think about what happens if several actually point upward...

That's an acceptable attitude to take. But "hoping" is no substitute for science (and I sincerely believe the Social Fascists are _hoping_ AGW is true so they can continue their wealth-distribution machinations). But let's stick to science, not politics, OK? :-]

you'd have to come with a mechanism that increases and decreases energy storage in the earth's atmosphere.

Why the atmosphere? Its heat capacity is minuscule compared to the oceans.

If any of those mechanisms include the sun, you're in trouble: we KNOW the sun has not increased its output in the last 30 years.

Methinks you're too quick to dismiss plausible solar mechanisms. Yes, there may not be any solar TSI trend over decades, but TSI fluctuates almost 7% on an annual basis because of the inverse square law.

http://www.leif.org/research/Does%20The%20Sun%20Vary%20Enough.ppt

That's almost a hundred watts difference per square meter per year!

Could you make money on the stock market if there were no long term trends? Of course, you could. "Buy low, sell high" creates wealth for clever investors, even when the market wealth is falling overall.

I confess I'm no solar expert, but doesn't it make sense that a similar 'stock-market' mechanism might assert a modulation on climate sensitivity which could affect the net balance of heat trapped vs heat released (heat "profit/loss")?
:-]

Hi luminous beauty! You said:

All that seems is not necessarily true.

Oops!

I left a comment on Tamino's blog (before your post) but he seems to be blocking it. Here it is:


Johanus | September 28, 2010 at 1:24 pm | Reply
Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Open Mind said:
âMake the Ljungqvist reconstruction a lot hotter â then compare.â

What is your justification for making it hotter? Recall that we are examining a record of temperature _anomalies_, not absolute temps.

absolute_temp = mean_temp +/- temp_anomaly

So we must align both plots on their mean value before we can compare the anomalies. No rescaling needed because the anomalies already have the same units.

So (quoting Loehle) this is exactly how he did his comparison:
âI centered both on their respective long-term mean values (I did NOT rescale) and got the following.â

Again, how do you justify making one scale hotter? Perhaps to prevent the falsification of your alarmist AGW theory?
:-/

> But "hoping" is no substitute for science

Johanus, that is what Marco is asking YOU not to do.

YOU are the one hoping that all the uncertainties are in the direction of "CO2 is not a problem".

How about trying science and going "in all likelihood, the average is the best bet, given we have one number to work with" and in that case, it's CO2 doing it, not any form of "oscillatory thingy".

> and I sincerely believe the Social Fascists are hoping AGW is true so they can continue their wealth-distribution machinations

Why do you sincerely believe they exist?

This is a repeat of the "Reds under the bed" scare of McCarthyism.

THEY DO NOT EXIST.

And the few that could be said to do, exist in such few numbers that they cannot be heard, unlike the Rush Limbaugh's and the other shock jocks whipping you into a terrified frenzy about Social Facists.

Try science instead of hysteria.

> Methinks you're too quick to dismiss plausible solar mechanisms.

Because you HOPE it is so.

> Yes, there may not be any solar TSI trend over decades, but TSI fluctuates almost 7% on an annual basis because of the inverse square law.

And TSI hasn't shown any such large variation over decades, therefore it cannot accumulate change.

It's not like we can't *see* the sun.

And, TSI varies 100% over a 24 hour period for most of the planet (some parts see a 100% variation over a year).

Proof that there is no climate at the poles?

> I confess I'm no solar expert

You seem able to dismiss those who are and say that this doesn't have much of an effect: [The IPCC](http://www.ipcc.ch).

> but doesn't it make sense that a similar 'stock-market' mechanism might assert a modulation on climate sensitivity

Except the stock market has an accumulation effect: the sun cannot decide when to go up and when to go down and cannot park away unwanted excess for leverage later.

So they aren't the same.

> Again, how do you justify making one scale hotter? Perhaps to prevent the falsification of your alarmist AGW theory? :-/
> Posted by: Johanus

By the simple expedient of not making one scale hotter but by comparing equivalents rather than unequal elements as you have proposed.

And isn't

> your alarmist AGW theory?

a rather alarmist and unscientific thing to say?

Johanus, it's the TREND that matters. And that includes any potential TREND in the annual modulation, which isn't different now from what it was 100 years ago. Your economical example does not make sense, but I'm not surprised if someone is paranoid about supposed "social fascists" trying to steal his money.

Note that the atmosphere mimicks what happens in the oceans and thus is a fine proxy.

Oh, and do you have any comment on Loehle's apparent dishonesty?

Johanus said:

I confess I'm no solar expert

Very true.

He also said:

but doesn't it make sense that a similar 'stock-market' mechanism might assert a modulation on climate sensitivity which could affect the net balance of heat trapped vs heat released (heat "profit/loss")?

Anyone who tries to equate stock market graphs to actual science results should refrain from discussing or giving advice on either. To do so only shows how ignorant of science they are or they are obfuscators and deniers.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 28 Sep 2010 #permalink

> By the simple expedient of not making one scale hotter but
> by comparing equivalents rather than unequal elements as
> you have proposed.

Nonsense. You have to convert to absolute scale to make equality comparisons feasible. What you're saying (based on comparing anomalies) is this:

"Joe got a two-dollar raise but Sam got a ten-dollar raise. Therefore Sam makes more money than Joe"

>> your alarmist AGW theory?

> a rather alarmist and unscientific thing to say?

No more than Tamino's website logo: "Lies, Damned Lies, and _Denial_ of Global Warming"

> it's the TREND that matters. And that includes any
> potential TREND in the annual modulation, which isn't
> different now from what it was 100 years ago. Your
> economical example does not make sense...

So I was wrong? No one can make money on the stock market if it's not rising? :-] If you 'save' the extra solar heat in the winter (when it's strongest) and release it in the summer (when it's weakest) then you've gained 100 watts per square meter (up to the efficiency of the storage mechanism).

>> I confess I'm no solar expert

> Very true.

The only thing I said that you all agree with? :-]

But everything you said was nonsense or 'ad hominem' attacks. Tim, can you call in your real experts? [Gotta run. Will be back this evening]
Thanks,
Johanus

> Nonsense. You have to convert to absolute scale to make equality comparisons feasible.

No you don't.

Why else isn't anyone using Kelvin and Kelvin alone for measuring temperature differences, what with Celsius and Farenheit being relative scales and all...

Seems you missed out on junior school physics too.

> No more than Tamino's website logo

Which has WHAT to do with your hypocrisy?

Nothing.

> So I was wrong?

Yes, in various and novel ways.

> No one can make money on the stock market if it's not rising

Uh, the Sun doesn't have a bank account to put extra output in.

The stock market is not the sun.

> If you 'save' the extra solar heat in the winter

Yes. I've got some shocking news for you. THE EARTH IS ROUND.

That means there are TWO poles and when one side has winter, the other has summer.

And anyway, where do you put this extra solar heat? Abbey National?

> But everything you said was nonsense or 'ad hominem' attacks

And SOP #90434: Misrepresent ad hominem whilst vigorously enacting it yourself.

No, it wasn't an ad hom.

Who has said "He's wrong because he's an idiot"?

Nobody.

Johanus,

Let us give Loehle the benefit of the doubt and assume his 2000 year mean comparison to Ljungqvist is correct. If true, this would give Loehle's reconstruction a much better fit when calibrated against the instrumental record than his prior attempts, and closely in line with Ljundqvist's calibration.

When that is done, the 2000-2009 decadal mean of NH land anomalies from Crutemp3v, as suggested by Zeke Hausfather in the Open Mind thread, is 0.830C above the 1961-1990 climatology. Quite a bit off the chart, and leaving Loehle's peak Medieval anomaly at a measly 0.3C above the same climatology. Quite in line with constructions of Mann and Moberg, as is clearly stated in the abstract of [Ljundqvist](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0459.2010.00399.x/abs…)

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 28 Sep 2010 #permalink

Luminous B.
> this would give Loehle's reconstruction a much better fit
> when calibrated against the instrumental record than his
> prior attempts ...

Help me out here. I don't understand what you mean by 'instrumental record' in this context. I thought Loehle was using a bunch of proxies (leaving out trees), so what instrument are we talking about?

Wouldn't this be a weighted mixture of several proxy models? Where each proxy has a different calibration model. I remember that in his paper he commented that the proxies were so different that his initial fittings looked like tangled strings or such.

So he fiddled with the weights and voila! his now famous curve with MWP hump (not much different from Mann's first estimate).

The 'hard part' , in developing these models, is to make results independent of the methodology used to create them.

Do we agree so far?
:-]

Luminous B.
> this would give Loehle's reconstruction a much better fit
> when calibrated against the instrumental record than his
> prior attempts ...

Help me out here. I don't understand what you mean by 'instrumental record' in this context. I thought Loehle was using a bunch of proxies (but leaving out trees), so what 'instrument' are we talking about?

Wouldn't this be a weighted mixture of several proxy models? Where each proxy has a different calibration model. I remember that in his paper Lohle commented that the proxies were so different that his initial fittings looked like tangled strings or such.

So he fiddled with the weights and voila! his now famous curve with MWP hump (actually not much different from Mann's first estimate).

The 'hard part', in developing these models, is to make results independent of the methodology used to create them. So you have to test the fitting by using different subsets of proxies to find the most robust combining weights.

Do we agree so far?
:-]

By Johanus Dagius (not verified) on 28 Sep 2010 #permalink

[Hmm, sorry for the double post, but the blog machine informed me that it was 'too busy' to accept my first post. I guess it accepted it anyway].

I wanted to add: some of you view me quite harshly. Lighten up. My views are probaby not that far from Marco, if I'm reading his open-ness to constrasting viewpoints correctly. I can't deny the _plausibilty_ of AGW, I just don't think the science behind it is 'settled'. No one really knows the true climate sensitivity to radiative forcings (because it's so bloody complex)

Several issues:
1. Warming. I think the recent warming trend stopped around 2004. Oceans are cooling. Lot of heat capacity there, atmosphere is more volatile but will soon follow.

2. Solar influence. You don't have to take my 'pump and dump' analogy seriously, but I am curious why no one is concerned about the 7% annual TSI variance. That's a _huge_ variance in wattage spread over the earth.

3. Livingston&Penn. They claim sunspots have already started to fade out, probably the beginning of another Maunder Minimum (the Eddy Minimum). Don't see much discussion about that on the AGW blogs. Why is that?

DaveR said:
"Quoted in case anyone thinks this one can be reasoned with."

You took my remarks somewhat out of context, see below. I felt compelled [perhaps trollishly] to defend them because of Tim's charge of 'stupidity' [peer-reviewed paper no less]. Hey, I liked the paper and learned from it. In retrospect I would say they were wrong about some stuff. But how many papers get everything right? Lighten up, I think I'm as 'reasonable' as the rest of you.
:-|

>> Gerlich and Tscheuschner managed to get their stupidity
>> published in the International Journal of Modern

>> Physics , which is embarrassing for the editors of that
>> journal.

> I also have a degree in Physics and see nothing stupid at
> all in the Gerlich/Tscheuschner paper. Where's
> the "stupidity" you speak of?
>
> It's a brilliant work, IMHO. The section on the Wood
> Experiment, for example, completely demolishes the notion
> that selective absorption causes the so-called "Greenhouse
> Effect". It's clearly a matter of trapped air, not
> reflected 'longwaves' that heats up your car when you park
> it in the direct sunlight.

>So bring on the CO2, and we'll make the world a greener >place to live! :-) Johanus

Johanus,

I explictly named the 'instrumental record' of which I spoke. I can't help you out much if your reading skills are that poor.

I see that your comment has made it through moderation at Open Mind along with a stern but reasonable hand slap from tamino. So much for your paranoia.

>Solar influence. You don't have to take my 'pump and dump' analogy seriously, but I am curious why no one is concerned about the 7% annual TSI variance. That's a huge variance in wattage spread over the earth.

It's an annual variability, due to the eccentricity of the earth's orbit. It doesn't change much until one starts looking at scales of tens of thousands of years. It's one of the 'Milankovich Cycles' you might have heard some discussion of on paleo related threads. Or not. It's hard to tell if your ignorance is real or feigned. We get so much of that from self-described 'skeptics'.

>Livingston&Penn. They claim sunspots have already started to fade out, probably the beginning of another Maunder Minimum (the Eddy Minimum). Don't see much discussion about that on the AGW blogs. Why is that?

Au contraire. It has been widely noted that global temperatures have continued to rise in spite of the current slightly extended solar minimum.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 28 Sep 2010 #permalink

> No one really knows the true climate sensitivity to radiative forcings...

Argument by red herring.

We've don't need to know the one true value to be concerned; we've got a lower bound that it's very unlikely to be below that is concerning, and a likely range that's even more concerning, and we can't rule out as very unlikely even higher ranges which are very very concerning.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 28 Sep 2010 #permalink

> I think the recent warming trend stopped around 2004.

You just demonstrated you have no climate science competence.

Climate trends cannot be detected in 6 year periods. It often takes 30, sometimes down to 20 or so if you're lucky with the particular noise vs signal characteristics.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 28 Sep 2010 #permalink

> I am curious why no one is concerned about the 7% annual TSI variance...

Perhaps because you don't know what you're talking about?

- a one year timeframe is not climate.

- Because what you've cited is **not** a "TSI" variance. What does the "T" and the "I" stand for and how and *where* is TSI measured?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 28 Sep 2010 #permalink

Johanus: Anyone who believes G&T contains something useful is seriously deluded. The Wood experiment is long known as NOT a proper experiment to explain the greenhouse effect of the atmosphere. At best, it shows why the greenhouse effect can be considered to have a slightly unfortunate name, because the mechanism by which a greenhouse retains heat is different from the atmosphere. G&T wrote nonsense on specifically those areas that they tried to criticise. The rest was a load of hot air (pun intended).

And no, you are not closer to me than 'we' think.

> No one really knows the true climate sensitivity to radiative forcings...

However, we have our own climate here and now where the earth is 33C warmer than it "ought" to be, 1/4 of that is CO2, and that is the dominant driver of GHG warming (since water rains out).

This would give a sensitivity of 4x the direct CO2 effect as a rought finger-in-the-air calculation and solid science (not models, just maths) gives 1C per doubling of CO2.

Therefore we have a good idea that the forcings come to 4C per doubling of CO2.

This isn't "correct", since the calculations are simplified, but it's a LONG way from "no idea".

> I wanted to add: some of you view me quite harshly

Shall I quote you?

> and I sincerely believe the Social Fascists are hoping AGW is true so they can continue their wealth-distribution machinations

Lighten up, indeed. We Social Facists don't give a fig for your money, you're pissing it up a tree as it is.

We just don't want you pissing on a tree in a public garden.

Plus when someone with that attitude ignores everyone and states they are wrong, isn't that likewise uncouth, arrogant, self-opinionated and boorish?

You started the mental fist-fight, and now you're crying because you came unarmed...

> Solar influence. You don't have to take my 'pump and dump' analogy seriously,

Why did you demand we do, then? Why get pissy when we don't? Why not ignore your pump and dump analogy because it is a false one?

> but I am curious why no one is concerned about the 7% annual TSI variance. That's a huge variance in wattage spread over the earth.

The diurnal TSI variance is 100%. Why aren't you concerned about that? It's a MASSIVE wattage spread over the earth.

My prediction is that this is another Tim Curtains sock puppet.

>My prediction is that this is another Tim Curtains sock puppet.

Could be. But we've also heard Brent harp on about this stuff ad nauseum, almost more so than Tim Curtin... and Brent's thread seems to have gone quiet... he might be getting bored...

Johanas writes:

>*Again, how do you justify making one scale hotter? Perhaps to prevent the falsification of your alarmist AGW theory? :-/*

But Johans you've just a hole in Loehle's comparison.

This was Tamion's critique of Loehle's slight of hand:

>For those who are a little unclear (and for WUWT readers who are a lot unclear), let me translate **his** [Loehle's] procedure for you: âMake the Ljungqvist reconstruction a lot hotter â then compare.â

You must be (as Tamino anticipated) a WUWT reader?

Well, Monckton too, as we've previously discovered on deltoid in another thread...

So we could BOTH be right (and anyone else who wants to surmise it's Lord Monkey this time)!

Ah, but that Craig Loehle is an imaginitive boy, isn't he?

[He says](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/28/loehle-vindication/#comment-493458):

"Warm" posts an overlay of the new recon with Mann 08 EIV. The most recent alarming rise in the two graphs is only possible with the new recon if you splice the instrumental record on, which I did not do in my overlay.

Does my parsing let me down, or is he saying that if one leaves off the modern (rising) temperature record, there is no alarming increase in the proxies to be frightened by?

Riiight...

He says in the next breath:

Steve at 3:51 attributes the 300 yr run up to industrialization. My dear boy, CO2 did not become elevated until the 1940s.

Erm, is my parsing bone actually broken, or did someone forget to tell Lolly about [the Law Dome](http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/lawdome.gif)? Perhaps he thinks that CO2 only started to increase after Keeling commenced measurements at Mauna Loa... just as [Ernie Beck thinks that atmospheric CO2 stopped hiccupping like a butterfly on a pogo-stick](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/03/remember_eg_becks_dodgy.php) just when Keeling had the temerity to Schrödinger the atmosphere.

Lolly's post ends with a non sequitur:

Causation has a time direction. For much of the early industrial revolution the power was wood and water in any case.

Seriously, I'd consider actually smacking my undergrads for such as that.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 29 Sep 2010 #permalink

> I think the recent warming trend stopped around 2004.

you're a physics grad, but you don't understand statistical significance? there's no way in hell you're going to detect a change in a mere 6 years when working with data as noisy as that.

Looks like MFS was right in No. 125.

Darn.

Over on Craig Loehle's amusing thread at WTFUWT Tilo Reber says [at 8:05 am on 30 September 2010](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/28/loehle-vindication/#comment-495349):

John Finn:

âThe ânature trick â has nothing to do with a decline in thermometer readings. Itâs due to an apparent temperature decline in the proxy data (tree-rings) in the mid to late 20th century. â

Yes, and the question that the divergence brings out is â how do we know that this is only a phenomena [sic] of the mid to late 20th century?

Beyond that, Iâm still waiting for someone to point to a proxy of any type that consistently reflects the magnitude of the gain that is shown by the instrument record for the last 50 or so years.

Well, Reber is obviously not acquainted with the Aono proxy which, even though it is merely a Japanese regional one, does exactly what Reber's been waiting for.

Similarly, when Loehle says in the post immediately following Reber's:

None of these reconstructions in my opinion is a âtemperatureâ history.

he is obviously not including the cherry blossom data, which is both strongly correlated with temperature, and is meticulously dated for over a millennium. Oh, and the data do not suffer from any issue of divergence.

[Anna v](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/28/loehle-vindication/#comment-495042) also appears to doubt the existence of the 'hockey stick', and further, that pre-instrumental data can be calibrated. Again, she appears to be ignorant of the Aono data and it's direct capacity for calibration with instrumental data.

There are many other posters on that display of wishful thinking who would join the chorus of denial, so out of a perverse curiosity I decided to [compare the Aono data with the Ljungqvist and the Loehle reconstructions](http://i56.tinypic.com/i4qql3.jpg). It was an interesting exercise...

Many of the disparities between the Ljungqvist reconstruction and Loehle's attempt have already been discussed, and it's of little benefit to repeat the comparisons here. For now I will simply point out that there is a curious coincidence between the times where the Ljungqvist reconstruction crosses the GISS NH anomaly baseline and when the Aono cherry blossom trajectory does so - both trajectories do so in the early 1960s and previously in the early 10th century. Further, both trajectories show a maximum temperature peak in the mediæval period in almost exactly the same year, rather knocking Loehle's estimation of such a peak almost a century earlier on the head... Of course, if Loehle is not really reconstructing the same information (his is global, after all), then the point may be a moot one â but then, that makes a mockery of his claim of "validation".

There appears to be a distinct similarity in the directionality of both the Ljungqvist and the Aono trends. The numerical values of the anomaly trends do not seem to be quite so correlated, but one would not really expect them to be so because they reflect temperatures at different scales. Keep in mind that both this and the preceding observation are only eyeballings, and hardly the definitive comment. I'll enumerate both the qualitative and quantitative trends for the comparison of Aonon with both Ljungqvist and with Loehle later this week if I can find a spare few minutes.

As I have just noted, the Aono data show (trivially) that local Kyoto March temperature anomalies fluctuate more over time than do the annual global anomalies. More interestingly, the data show that since the early 1960s the Kyoto mean March temperature, as indicated by the start of the Cherry Blossom Festival, has consistently tracked over the mean annual Northern Hemisphere temperature, whether referring to the Ljungqvist reconstruction or to the NH GISS data. A comparison with the Ljungqvist reconstruction shows that prior to the 1960s, this over-tracking only occurred in about four or so years out of the last one thousand. Thus, cherry blossoms and the Ljungqvist reconstruction would seem to indicate that Kyoto is one place that is being noticeably affected by AGW.

The latest warming trend in the Aono data is by far the longest period of consistent warming, and it also demonstrates by far the largest increment of warming since commencement. It's a hockey stick no matter how one slices and dices it.

Now, many of the WTFUWT crowd will probably argue that because the Aono data pertain only to the Japanese regional context, it is no proof that there is a global hockey stick. Fine. How then do they escape the parsimony inherent in the fact that this little regional dataset reflects the instrumental record, other proxy reconstructions, and the empirical evidence of the biosphere and the lithosphere?

The parsimonious conclusion is that it's warming, and it's a hockey stick.

Just as an understanding of basic physics predicts.

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

Lest some folk become querulous because I used GISS, [here's a comparison](http://i53.tinypic.com/2d6wmjo.jpg) with CRUTEM NH as well, and Mann 2008 thrown in for good measure.

Reference to the CRUTEM NH data does not materially change the nature of the cherry blossom data.

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