El Nino

Spike in Greenhouse Gasses

gregladen — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 11:51:57 +0000

Spike in Greenhouse Gasses

Greenhouse gases go up and down in three ways.

First, there is the annual up and down cycle that happens because there is more land in the Northern Hemisphere. I won't explain that to you now because I know you can figure out why that happens.

Second, there is natural variation up and down aside from that annual cycle that has to do with things like volcanoes and such. This includes the rate of forest fires, which increase greenhouse gases by turning some of the Carbon trapped in plant tissue into gas form as CO2. (That was a hint for the answer to the first reason!)

Third, humans.

There was a big spike in CO2 concentration this year, and it was caused by El Nino increasing forest fire output, which in turn, freed up some of that CO2. Also, regional drought in some places simply slowed down plant growth, leaving some Carbon stranded in the atmosphere.

So was that natural? Not at all. ENSO cycles, that cause El Nino and La Nina constitute and oscillation in rainfall patterns, and part of that results in extra forest fires or other effects as mentioned. But these effects are caused directly by weather disruption. Human caused global warming was already doing that. The severe El Nino of 2014-2016 was more severe (and probably longer) than any, or almost any, ever observed, precisely because it was a big dermatological monster sitting on top of a big hill made by anthropogenic global warming.

But there is also another,subtler but very important lesson in this event. At any given time we could have what would normally be a "natural" shift to bad conditions. But under global warming, such a shift can be transformed from a disaster to a much bigger disaster. In this way, think of climate change as the steepening of the drop off alongside the road from a 2 foot ditch to a 10 foot embankment. When we drive off the road due to natural forces (some ice, for example) without global warming,we get bounced around a bit. With global warming we get to rely on our airbags to save us, but the airbag deployment will probably break both our arms and mess up our face.

Anyway, the confirmation of the role of El Nino comes from new research discussed here.

gregladen Wed, 08/16/2017 - 07:51

Tags

Climate Change

Global Warming

CO2

El Nino

global warming

Keeling Curve

Ha ha ha!

ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/preliminary/
ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/data/trace_gases/co2/in-situ/surface/

I asked for the 2017 preliminary digital CO2 data for BRW, MLO, SMO and SPO just yesterday (actually three days ago).

Thank you Kirk at NOAA.

There is a more conventional explanation for CO2 variations, which is a function of temperature (among the other factors mentioned above).

Could enough forest fires cause a "Fire Winter" like a mild Nuclear Winter/

"There is a more conventional explanation for CO2 variations,"

Which is that oxydiation of hydrocarbons produce water, CO2 and energy I am sorry that you have to look for esoteric and poorly understood features to keep your insanity alive, Francis. Maybe one day you'll get better.

Thomas, no. The nuclear winter is from stratospheric dust which doesn't rain out in a couple of days. Fires don't cause that much lift.

AGW denialists would be funny if they weren't trying to kill people. Every unusually hot year, every new record, is blamed on El Nino, and while they are El Nino years, they conveniently ignore the fact that, over the past few decades, any major El Nino event is generally hotter than the one before.

Wow,

There is a well known ~2nd order effect of temperature on atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The ocean CO2 sink in the overall carbon cycle get's slightly smaller during El Nino and slightly larger during La Nina.

This is best seen in the 1st derivative of the CO2 time series. I'm using the weekly (and monthly) time series from MLO. Of course, the 1st derivative loses the primary 1st order anthro contribution to atmospheric CO2.

I am in no way questioning the overall net anthro contribution to atmospheric CO2. The article GL points to, and the MLO chart that GL shows, points out some subtleties of the atmospheric CO2 time series.

One subtlety is the uptake of CO2 by the ocean sink as the oceans warm (or cool) (e. g. the ENSO).

So, atmospheric CO2 increases are 100% anthro. How it traverses the end points of the observational time series is of some interest, as GL points out in the linked article and the included MLO CO2 graph (for the most recent El Nino).

That is all.

Where did wow get the meta-myth that :

"The nuclear winter is from stratospheric dust which doesn’t rain out in a couple of days. Fires don’t cause that much lift." ?

#4 Exactly

Where did teapot get the meth myth that it was a metamyth?

"There is a well known ~2nd order effect of temperature on atmospheric CO2 concentrations."

There is a well known first order effect of burning that it produces CO2. And it was known in the early days of chemistry.

Meanwhile CO2's degassing was not known about until much later.

Sorry, Frankie, the asinine claim is still assinine.

Wow,

"And it was known in the early days of chemistry."

Would that be in the Stone Age, Iron Age or the Bronze Age?

Alchemy fool.

"Would that be in the Stone Age"

I would suggest you ask a schoolchild about what chemistry is. Clearly when you were fed that line you prattled out in your first post, this was just a script you were reading from.

Wow,

"Clearly when you were fed that line you prattled out in your first post, this was just a script you were reading from."

Are you an atmospheric CO2 rate of change denier? :(

Are you clinically in a vegetative state? There is clearly no discernable brain activity going on there.

You deny combustion. Confuse chemistry with Alchemy, and have zero reading comprehension.

Wow,

How many harmonics of the weekly MLO CO2 time series does NOAA take out to derive their "increase since 1800" time series?

ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_weekly_mlo.txt

The correct answer is four (including the annual harmonic). :(

Wow,

Are you seriously math impaired? :(

You traffic in informal logical fallacies, the current one being a straw man. :(

"How many harmonics of the weekly MLO"

Meaningless. Combustion of hydrocarbons produce CO2. Ask the internet how much fossil fuel we burn in a year. If you don't trust the leftist internet, ask the fossil fuel corporations.

Are you on meth?

"including the annual harmonic"

Mathturbation.

You're blind to reality because of all the mathturnation you've been fed by people who attended school and have found in you a gullible idiot to hide behind.

Meaningless? Then I would very kindly suggest that you notify NOAA as to their "meaningless" column of data. Mkay? :(

Note to self: Combustion of carbon into CO2 is a given along with anthro carbon emissions. Dealing with meth (er math) impaired internet trolls, not so much. :(

Wow,

Are you seriously math impaired?

He thinks that if you plot the natural log of CO2 forcing against CO2 ppmv, the result is a linear 1:1 relationship. So, yes.

"You’re blind to reality because of all the mathturnation you’ve been fed by people who attended school and have found in you a gullible idiot to hide behind."

Still trafficking in the straw man informal logical fallacy, I see. :(

Wow

FFS go back and read what FES actually wrote at #1 and #5. He is correct and you have not understood what he wrote and are now doing your standard rabid idiot attack thing.

Your target acquisition software is buggy.

@ FES

Sorry, to be clear, my #20 referred to a 'conversation' with Wow on an earlier thread.

You will get no sense out of the man. Be warned.

Hello BBD,

"He thinks that if you plot the natural log of CO2 forcing against CO2 ppmv, the result is a linear 1:1 relationship. So, yes."

I'm not sure if that one deserves a /sarc tag.

As in he could be me.

"FFS go back and read what FES actually wrote at #1 and #5."

I did. It was content free and even letter lite, being mostly initials and an ftp graph.

"He is correct "

Where? He's not correct in denying combustion of CO2 was known about long before outgassing from oceans. Nor about the combustion happens.

Thanks BBD. :)

"You will get no sense out of the man"

Don'tlsten to the hysterical woman. they've been eternally butthurt over her nuke fluffing being destroyed. Just like with the fake "I'm not an *atheist*, I'm an agnostic, I don't believe there's a god, and that's the only sane option!". She gets self gratification by pretending to be a moderate accepting "both sides" therefore *better than either*. And therefore Mackay's nuke fluff and renewable attack piece really frotted her trotters. It used rhetoric to make "both sides" wrong and therefore all true followers (tm) of Mackay the best of everyone.

"I see"

Still on meths, I see.

"Meaningless? Then I would very kindly suggest that you notify NOAA "

No need. They don't deny chemistry and combustion. You do.

"Note to self: Combustion of carbon into CO2 is a given along with anthro carbon emissions."

Then why did you not say so in your first post? Why wait until now to recant your idiocy?

"Dealing with meth (er math) impaired internet trolls,"

Then stop taking meth and stop the impairment getting worse.

"if you plot the natural log of CO2 forcing against CO2 ppmv, the result is a linear 1:1 relationship."

Have you even looked at how to calculate the CO2 forcing from QM first priniciples? I did not but worked in the next nissan hut from someone who did and looked over some of the coding of the maths as a double check (along with another coworker independently: we scientists take rigour quite seriously, especially when programming and knowing we are not computer graduates).

You are just a tired old moron digging for something that you believe merely on the basis of you believe is other than reality says.

Wow,

"Where? He’s not correct in denying combustion of CO2 was known about long before outgassing from oceans. Nor about the combustion happens."

You DO understand informal logical fallacies?

If not, as would appear to be the present case, then look into "straw man fallacy" as you are putting your own words into my mouth.

You have now made several incorrect statements and have assigned them to me. :( :( :(

"You DO understand informal logical fallacies?"

Yes.

You DO realise that blank assertions like that lies, right? That by asking that question you are asserting by insinuation that I do not and that therefore I am wrong without having in any way whatsoever to provide any argument, evidence or proof of the assertion, leaving it entirely up to me to do all the work, and that this offloading is why the gish gallop and the associated fallacy is used?

"then look into “straw man fallacy”"

Since the only one was the one you made in #12, why should I be the one to look into it? I already know what it is. You are the incompetent moron who cannot comprehend what one is. Or playing the incompetent moron. Neither works out well for you.

"You have now made several incorrect statements"

Ah, projection too.

Hey BBD, is Wow aka Blogger profile from RR infamy?

Just, you know, sayin'

"Just, you know, sayin’"

Here's the problem. "just sayin'" what? No, actual information is not conducive and besides as long as you keep it to insinuation, to find out you're wrong means everyone else has to do more work, and you don't nee anyone to find out you're right because you know you are even if you aren't.

As long as you keep it vague, nothing can be done without punishing those who dare not accept your sayin's.

Which is what deceptive morons and charlatans do. Takes less effort that way and anyway information makes your brain hurt.

Wow,

Moving on to ad hominems, I see.

Six posts in a row, wow!

Time to steal me some quotes from the internets ...

There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this, there is no catharsis; my punishment continues to elude me, and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself. No new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing.

"Moving on to ad hominems,"

Still hallucinating.

"Six posts in a row, wow!"

So you watched and learned from Sesame Street! AMAZING!

Oh, and a argument by irrelevant comparison "You're posting therefore your argument is wrong".

Sad.

And still more continuing with the unformed accusation so it cannot be verified or rejected. How is that working out for you, cupcake?

"This confession has meant nothing."

So now you recant on the "It's NOT meaningless! Go tell NOAA!!!!".

Sick.

And then you delve into insanity.

Bigly.

Hey BBD, is Wow aka Blogger profile from RR infamy?

Yup.

we scientists take rigour quite seriously,

You are, at best, a PC tech, Wow. You are not, and have never been, a scientist.

Stop lying. It's not even funny.

"Yup."

Meaningless yupping.

"You are, at best, a PC tech,"

Lie.

" You are not, and have never been, a scientist"

bullshit claim made because you are clueless but have great opinions. There's an orangutan in a big house just like you, dumdum.

"Stop lying."

Stop making shit up, retard.

"It’s not even funny."

Yet more meaningless babble from dumdum.

"Yet more meaningless babble from dumdum."

dumdum?

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2015/11/nuff-said.html

Thought so.

"dumdum?"

Yeah, he's a dumdum.

"Thought so."

No thinking apparent.

we scientists take rigour quite seriously,

Once again, for the record, this is Wow lying about being a scientist.

Abusive, delusional and downright dishonest.

For the record.

Once again, you're wrong, dumdum.

When it comes to your ped peeves, you're as ignorant yet strongly opinionated as dick.

You.
Are.
Wrong.

"Abusive, delusional and downright dishonest. "

Says someone who KNOWS they have no evidence for their claim and insists that I can't be a scientist, because, well, she wants to denigrate me for not accepting their batshittery merely because they accept that AGW is real, and thinks that this will work. Which is abusive, delusional and downright dishonest.

Making the claim there ironic.

There's only one thing to say about this thread ... wow.

Every time I see or have to read a Wow post I go ...

OMFG! Humanity is s-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o DOOMED!

FES

Just realised what I wrote at #20. Which was not what I *thought* I wrote. Because if I had written that a plot of CO2 forcing (W/m^2) against CO2 conc (ppm) does not yield a linear 1:1 relationship, then I would have said what I meant.

Sorry :-)

BBD #52:

Don't be so hard on yourself. You said "natural log of CO2 . . ." in #20. I thought that using the logarithm of one or more variables instead of the un-logged form makes the effective
relationship non-linear, while still preserving the linear model. So I didn't think your #20 was wrong in the first place.

>looked over some of the coding of the maths as a double check (along with another coworker independently: we scientists take rigour quite seriously, especially when programming and knowing we are not computer graduates).

Now that's funny. You couldn't even recognize the code you posted didn't match your files, after having it pointed out to you.

"OMFG! Humanity is s-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o DOOMED!"

Ah, yes, lacking any argument, you talk bollocks. Well done, moron. I'm sure you're a legend in your own mind.

"You couldn’t even recognize the code you posted didn’t match your files"

Ah, the alternative reality. You mean when you posted a link and claimed it had some lines in it you quoted, the lines did not appear. And somehow that is my fault...?

"plot of CO2 forcing (W/m^2) against CO2 conc (ppm) does not yield a linear 1:1 relationship"

Yeah, other way round.

Log co2 vs temp. Linear coefficient. Dumdum thinks not. Neither does dick.

Exxon lied.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2…

El Nino Season Two?

gregladen — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 14:25:19 +0000

El Nino Season Two?

It is like that stabby lady in the bath tub in that movie.

Here, I'll give you a more readable version of the graphic from NOAA:

The chance of an the Pacific ENSO system being neutral, meaning, not adding extra heat to the atmosphere and not removing extra heat form the atmosphere, is about 50% from now through mid 2017.

But, the chance of a la Nina is pretty darn low, and the chance of an El Nino, which would add more heat to the atmosphere than the average year, is not only approaching 40% but it has been growing.

A second El Nino this close on the last one, which was a very severe El Nino, will not be as strong because there is that much heat stored up in the Pacific. A lot of it came out last time. But there is a fair amount left in there, so we could have a real, if not major, El Nino event this summer or fall.

Or not. This is really up in the air, as it were. But it is a little unusual to see a second El Nino this close in time, so I thought you might find this interesting.

gregladen Tue, 02/07/2017 - 09:25

Tags

It's been a crazy winter here in BC Greg. I'm 67 and the Vancouver/Lower Mainland area has seen more snow than in my lifetime

"It's been an unusually cold and white winter across the region, and the latest storm has shattered historic snowfall records, said Environment Canada meteorologist Jennifer Hay. A new high was set at Vancouver's airport Friday, when 12 centimetres fell, beating the record of 10.7 centimetres set in " (www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...snowfall-records-in...vancouver/article…)

Here in Trail it's been quite heavy snow - we've run out of places to move the snow to from off the sidewalks and street parking. I saw in one paper today the province is asking people to stay home tomorrow - I can't ever remember that happening before.

There is a lot of moisture coming in from the Pacific and I'm guessing it is running into this year's polar vortex and dropping as snow rather than rain.

10.7 centimetres set in 1946

"that stabby lady in the bath tub movie"? I take it you mean Janet Leigh in the shower scene in Psycho.

Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction?

Yes indeed!

Troubling that geoscientists can't figure out the underlying long-term pattern of ENSO. Faraday and Rayleigh were on the right track in the 1800s with their pioneering work on oscillating waves, and probably would have figured it out if they lived long enough :)

Paul, this is a pretty "figured out" phenomenon in many ways, though you are right in that there is much to learn. One problem is that to really characterize an ENSO event, you need to measure it from satellites and a lot of other instruments. For that reason, we have about a half dozen large events observed, which is a small sample.

ENSO is a system that involves most of the major climatological features that exist, and that drive other features, on this planet. If you were thinking that we could predict El Ninos and La Ninas much more accurately than we can now, you might want to consider how we would predict the temperature and precipitation three Wednesdays from now in a North American city. Not perfectly analogous by any means, but a good metaphor. It isn't that scientists haven't figured out how to do that, as much as it is the case that it can not be done.

Greg writes: "Not perfectly analogous by any means, but a good metaphor. It isn’t that scientists haven’t figured out how to do that, as much as it is the case that it can not be done."

Ummmm..... I think WHUT''s point was that ENSO *CAN* be done and that the necessary clues have been around for quite some time. I.e., it's not chaotic, it's deterministic.

I've been following his blog for quite some time now and I think the science in general seems to have more and more people moving in the direction he believes in.

You can view much of the material that went into his 2016 AGU presentation on his website. Presentation at 2016 AGU

Thanks Kevin, I spent time talking with some scientists at NASA JPL and others at the AGU and discussed the predictability aspects of ENSO. Like Kevin says, if you start digging into the research literature on ENSO, you will find that a number of groups are looking at external forcing mechanisms. And the extra twist is that similar external forcing mechanisms are being applied to earthquake time series. Amazing the correlations to lunar phases, according to independent work by the USGS and Japanese groups.

I don't know why this is suddenly being discovered. Is it just because the time series have finally gotten lengthy enough that significance tests have become meaningful?

" I think the science in general seems to have more and more people moving in the direction he believes in."

What "He"?

"With the Excel Solver"

Oh dear.

Here's an idea. CO2 increases can account for more than all the warming seen.

Just an idea.

Another one is that I still have no idea what you're trying to say in that presentation. Wiggling lines do not a presentation make. Try fixing that. Remember the rule of three.

WOW- "Here’s an idea. CO2 increases can account for more than all the warming seen."

Inane non-sequitur. How do CO2 increases predict ENSO or the QBO? Non-sequitur? No, clueless.

You really ought to read. The "wiggly lines" are basically tidal predictions. Do you deny that we can predict tides? Duh!

Hey, but if you can't be bothered to read the literature, much less P.P.'s page perhaps you should refrain from commenting and saving us all your ignorance.

Part of the problem, Keith.

The presentation was pretty much presupposing a shitload of pre-read to know what the hell the thing was about.

The link you gave was pretty much nonsequitur.

Hence the advice to put something around it to tell people what the fuck they're reading to see what the hell it's on about.

Because it throws around "trend" and "moon cycles" and scores and scores of graphs, which, let me tell you, make a pretty shit presentation. Sure as a paper, it works (for some papers, it depends on what the hell it's for), but for papers you get an abstract and a conclusion to read to find out whether there's anything to read in it and why you're supposed to go on and read it.

Remember "rule of three" there???

Tell them what you're going to say
Say it
Then tell them what you said.

I didn't read it because there was no damn structure to it and there was so massive a digiporn section that there wasn't any telling what the hell it was on about.

Since I'm not paying to attend the AGU, and I don't have the goddamned prospectus for the evening, the link was pretty much pointless to put up here and soley digiporn for graphs.

Next time, like I said, consider this the middle part of the paper, and try to direct people to what the hell they're reading and why.

Just a hint to kids who don't know what the hell they're writing these days.

Mr. Wow:
Who's Keith?

Yup, presentations with a 15 minute time limit, conditioned on the conveners actually asking you to do it in 10 minutes (so the audience can get some questions in) is tough sledding.

I keep typing keith when it;s kevin. Possibly because I have a brother kevin, and keep thinking I may be getting them confused.

Sometimes I am.

Sometimes not.

It's not in a 15 minute presentation now, though. So pad it out and make it comprehensible.

And I would not have bothered with all the graphs in a presentation to begin with. There's no way for the figures to be considered in half an hour or even an hour, let alone 15 minutes (I figured it was a 30 min presentation).

Boil that bastard down. Drop the graphs and give the conclusion and then the graphs you have become the footnotes for people.

Seriously, lots of presentations (and IMO the best thing to do if you have to give science presentations for the first time is to go to see a symposium with a lot of presenters. Somewill be great, but as a viewer, some will have you thinking "I can do better", and you won't feel as crappy and unworthy when you do your first) do it quite wrong. They present too much of what YOU found interesting when you were doing it.

Remember, you had a lot longer, and an a priori interest. Your audience doesn't.

So give them a reason to look at your further notes, even if only to check your figures and reasoning. Present them with your findings and make them think that they want to read up the extra stuff you added that would be dry to sit there and just watch.

And now it's no longer a presentation, you have all the time in the world (to abuse the title of a song).

If someone gets to the end knowing what you found and how robust your conclusion, and the possible future of this sort of investigation, AND GIVE THEM THE DETAIL LATER, they will, if they're interested go and read it.

Giving them the dry stuff, especially when they're just passively sitting there and watching you read what's up in the display, doubly so when they're not going to be able to make it out (therefore have to divert attention to reading the handout, which they probably didn't keep track of where you were in it) just makes them tune out.

At best, they'll keep thinking of what they want to ask about, based on the skim they gave of the handout while waiting for you to set up.

Let them know why you're there, why they want to listen and that there is more information there about proofs, evidences and calculations.

Those uninterested in going deeper will know what's going on and not feel like switching off. Those interested in going deeper will be clear in what you're trying to do (and they may ask questions about things that come up in the graph. Guess what? You already have the info about their question right in front of them!).

Be honest: nobody listening in 15 minutes will be able to ask deep questions or ask for verification of the maths.

Give them the skeleton and the bits of the meat that you want everyone to know about. And leave the guts in the bucket, free to delve into in private.

To extend the metaphor grossly.

And if you get the idea out in 5 minutes and three graphs (and a couple of figures), then that's 10 minutes to go through the graphs for those interested, and those not can just sidetrack on their own.

Wow, tl;dr

As a lark, I created a 1 minute YouTube elevator pitch video

https://youtu.be/WUkPglrR7Uo

Severe Droughts vs. Earth Day

milhayser — Fri, 13 May 2016 14:46:07 +0000

Severe Droughts vs. Earth Day

On Significant Figures, Peter Gleick explains that growing populations worldwide have exerted peak pressures on water supplies, leaving entire regions more vulnerable to natural variations in rainfall. In turn, global warming has made these natural variations more extreme. One such variation is El Niño, when "droughts are typically more widespread and severe." Dr. Gleick reports on the challenges faced around the world in 2016, as several historic droughts grow worse. Meanwhile, in honor of Earth Day, Ethan Siegel suggests we count our blessings: "there’s still no planet as friendly to life or hospitable to humans as Earth. It’s the fact that we went beyond the Earth and discovered the Universe that’s allowed us to appreciate just how rare, precious and special our home world is."

milhayser Fri, 05/13/2016 - 10:46

Tags

People finally concerned about climate change

gregladen — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 06:52:33 +0000

People finally concerned about climate change

Though not enough. And for the wrong reasons. But this is still good news.

Somewhere around 1990, but you could justify an earlier date if you like, science knew enough about global warming, the increase in the planet's surface temperatures caused by human release of greenhouse gas pollution and other human effects, to have initiated meaningful action to shift our energy supply away from fossil fuels. We didn't know exactly what would happen, but we knew stuff would happen. How long has it taken for this science to turn into effective policy to address global warming? We don't know, because, while some things are happening now, not enough. We are not doing what we need to be doing decades after we should have started doing it.

The main reason we have avoided effective action is because of bought and paid for denial of the science supported mainly by the industries that stand to lose the most if we eliminated our reliance on fossil fuels. These industries could have done something very different. They could have started to develop and deploy clean energy solutions, and dissolve their fossil fuel based assets. But they didn't. So we are in a bad situation right now.

Meanwhile this systematic and effective denial of science has kept public opinion confused, with many people failing to accept the reality of global warming. But now, we are seeing a major shift away from denial and towards accepting, if not fully understanding, the science, and getting on board with a shift in policy.

That is a good thing, though it is slightly annoying that a) recent lackluster opinion has resulted from the incorrect perception that an expectable slowdown in warming means global warming isn't real (it doesn't actually mean that) followed by b) an uptick in global warming's effects caused by short term exacerbation from the current, now winding down, El Nino.

The last time there was a big uptick in US public concern about global warming was in association with the most recent major El Nino, and now, with this new major El Nino, concern has risen again, according to Gallup.

Hunter Cutting has a piece on Medium exploring this in more detail. He asks if the current uptick in concern is a tipping point in public opinion.

He notes,

For the past year there have been hints of a significant shift in the U.S. political landscape on the question of climate change. Now, new polling numbers just out from Gallup confirm not just a shift, but a seismic shift, in public opinion on the question. The shift is so dramatic that we may have passed a key tipping point in the politics of climate change.

But he further notes,

The political landscape must change still further before federal action can take the next big steps forward on climate change. Despite increasing agreement that climate change is a problem, most still don’t see the problem as a pressing concern calling for immediate action. But U.S. politics are notoriously non-linear. Political change often happens fast once the ball gets rolling.

If a Republican is elected to the White House, and both houses of Congress stay Republican, expect anywhere from a half decade to a decade of delay in acting meaningfully on clean energy policy. Yes, the markets are already heading that way, but don't underestimate the ability of a nefarious petroleum fueled anti-change government to slow that down or even reverse it. This is why this November is the most important election in American, and global, history. Please don't blow it.

gregladen Fri, 03/18/2016 - 02:52

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El Nino Effects For This Spring in the US

gregladen — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 06:38:03 +0000

El Nino Effects For This Spring in the US

The US NOAA has this video summarizing what they expect for weather in the US as the result of the current, winding down, El Nino:

2016 Spring Climate and Flood Outlook
As a near-record El Niño begins to wind down, NOAA issued its spring seasonal outlooks for flooding, drought, precipitation, and temperature. Flood risk is highest in the lower Mississippi valley and along the Southeast coast. Learn more at: http://go.usa.gov/c7xYx

Posted by NOAA Climate.Gov on Thursday, March 17, 2016

gregladen Fri, 03/18/2016 - 02:38

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Current Status of California Drought, and other matters: Interview with Peter Gleick

gregladen — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 08:49:12 +0000

Current Status of California Drought, and other matters: Interview with Peter Gleick

The latest episode of Ikonokast, the science podcast Mike Haubrich and I do, is now up. This is an interview with Pacific Institute's Peter Gleick. We talk about the California drought (past, present, and future), Syria, virtual water, El Nino and climate science denialism.

You can hear the podcast here: WHAT ABOUT WATER? DR. PETER GLEICK OF THE PACIFIC INSTITUTE.

gregladen Fri, 02/26/2016 - 03:49

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Thank you for the link.

Global Warming Over The Next Decade: Candidates take note. UPDATED

gregladen — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 10:05:39 +0000

Global Warming Over The Next Decade: Candidates take note. UPDATED

The Time Scales of Political and Climate Change Matter

The US is engaged in the laborious process of electing a new leader, who will likely be President for 8 years. Climate change has finally become an issue in US electoral politics. The climate policies of the next US President, and the Congress, will have a direct impact on the climate, because those policies will affect how much fossil carbon is put into the atmosphere over coming decades. So it is vital to consider what the climate may do during the next administration and the longer period that will include that administration’s effective legacy period, more or less the next decade starting now.

There is evidence that the ongoing warming of the planet’s surface is likely accelerate in the near future. Recent decades have seen the Earth’s surface temperatures go up at a relatively slower than average rate compared to earlier decades. The best available science suggests that this rate is about to increase. We can expect a series of mostly record breaking months and years that will add up to an alarmingly warm planet.

(The graphic showing continued global warming through 2015 at the top of the post is from here.)

The Rate Of Global Warming Is About To Increase

I wrote about this last February, in discussing a paper by Steinmann, Mann, and Miller, that said:

The recent slowdown in global warming has brought into question the reliability of climate model projections of future temperature change and has led to a vigorous debate over whether this slowdown is the result of naturally occurring, internal variability or forcing external to Earth’s climate system. … we applied a semi-empirical approach that combines climate observations and model simulations to estimate Atlantic- and Pacific-based internal multidecadal variability (termed “AMO” and “PMO,” respectively). Using this method [we show that] competition between a modest positive peak in the AMO and a substantially negative-trending PMO … produce a slowdown or “false pause” in warming of the past decade.

That research was also discussed by Chris Mooney and John Upton. John Upton updated this discussion earlier this week, noting,

Cyclical changes in the Pacific Ocean have thrown earth’s surface into what may be an unprecedented warming spurt, following a global warming slowdown that lasted about 15 years.

While El Niño is being blamed for an outbreak of floods, storms and unseasonable temperatures across the planet, a much slower-moving cycle of the Pacific Ocean has also been playing a role in record-breaking warmth. The recent effects of both ocean cycles are being amplified by climate change.

Why Does The Rate of Global Warming Vary?

This is pretty complicated, and even those who are on the cutting edge of this research are cautious in making links between their models and the on the ground reality of warming in the near future. The long term rise in surface temperature, which is what we usually refer to when using the term “Global Warming,” is not steady and smooth, but instead, it is rather squiggly. But the ups and downs that accompany the general upward trend are mostly caused by things that are known.

The sun provides the energy to warm the Earth’s surface, and this contribution changes over time, but the sun varies very little in its output, and thus has less influence than other factors. The sun’s energy warms the Earth mainly because our atmosphere contains some greenhouse gasses. The more greenhouse gas the more surface warmth. As humans add greenhouse gas (mainly CO2 released by burning fossil fuel) the surface temperature eventually rises to a higher equilibrium. But the variation in the sun’s strength is hardly observable.

Aerosols, also known as dust or in some cases pollution (or airborne particles) can reduce the surface temperature by intercepting some of the Sun’s energy on its way to the surface (I oversimplify). These aerosols come mainly from industrial pollution and volcanoes. The addition of a large amount of aerosol into the atmosphere by a major volcanic eruption can have a relative cooling effect but one that lasts for a short duration, because the dust eventually settles.

There are many other important factors. Changes in land use patterns that cause changes in effectiveness of carbon sinks – places where atmospheric carbon (mainly CO2) is trapped in solid form by biological systems – increase atmospheric CO2. Melting glacial ice takes up heat and influences surface temperatures. And so on.

The biggest single factor that imposes a squiggle on the upward trending line of surface temperature is the interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean. Close to 100% of the extra heat added to the Earth’s system by global warming ends up in the world’s oceans. The heat is moved into the ocean because the surface warms up (from the sun) but surface water is constantly being mixed into lower levels of the ocean, and visa versa. When it comes to the Earth’s surface temperature, the ocean is the dog and the surface is the tail.

A famous, and now perhaps infamous, example of this interaction between ocean and air is the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Here’s the simple version (see here for more detail). The equatorial Pacific’s surface is constantly being warmed by the sun. The surface waters are usually blown towards the west by trade winds. (Those trade winds are caused in part by the rotation of the Earth, and in part by the ongoing redistribution of excess tropical heat towards the poles). This causes warm water to move west, where it is potentially subducted into the ocean, moving heat into the sea. That heat eventually may work its way out of the ocean through various currents.

During many years, the ins and the outs are similar. During some years, La Niña years, the amount of heat moving into the ocean is larger, which can cause a small cooling influence on the planet. Every now and then, the reverse happens. This involves complicated changes in trade winds and ocean currents. A good chunk of the heat that has been stored in the Pacific now emerges and is added very abruptly, over a period of several months, to the atmosphere. This is an El Niño event. We are at this moment experiencing one of the strongest El Niño events ever recorded, possibly the strongest (we won’t know until it has been going a while longer.)

ENSO is one, in fact the biggest, example of atmosphere-ocean interaction that influences surface temperatures. But, ENSO is only one part of the interaction between the Pacific and the atmosphere. There is also a phenomenon known as the Pacific Multidecadal Oscillation (PMO). For its part, the Atlantic has the AMO, a similar system. These phenomena are characterized by a general transfer of heat either into or out of the ocean, with several years in a row seeing more heat move into the ocean, followed by several years in a row of more heat moving out of the ocean.

Though ENSO and the PMO are distinct processes, they may be related. I asked climate scientist Michael Mann if he views El Nino as part of the larger scale system of PMO, or if El Niño essentially rides on top of, or acts independently from PMO. He told me, “I would say the latter. At some level, the PMO really describes the long-term changes in the frequency and magnitude of El Niño and La Niña events, i.e. change in the behavior of ENSO on multidecadal timescales, and it will appear as multidecadal oscillation with an ENSO-like signature with some modifications due to the fact that certain processes, like gyre-advection and subduction of water masses, act on longer timescales and do they are seen with the PMO bot not El Niño or La Niña.”

The influence of ENSO on global surface temperatures is well illustrated in this graphic from Skeptical Science.

Here, the surface temperature anomaly is shown from the late 1960s to the present. The annual values are classified into years during which ENSO was neutral, or neutral with volcanic influences, La Nina years, and El Niño years with or without volcanoes. A separate trend line is shown for years that should be relatively warm (El Niño), relatively cool (La Niña), and years that should be about average.

The influence of the PMO is also apparent.

This graphic shows the measurement of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the surface temperature anomalies. The data are averaged out over a two year cycle (otherwise the PDO would be way too squiggly to be useful visually). Notice that during periods when the PDO is positive (adding heat to the atmosphere) there tends to be a stronger upward trend of surface temperature, and when the PDO is negative, the surface temperature rises more slowly. Remember, a lot of other factors, such as aerosols, are influencing the temperature line, so this relationship is quite imperfect.

Also notice that both lines trend dramatically upward near the end of the graph. This reflects the last couple of years (including right now) of dramatically increasing surface temperatures, and an apparent positive shift in the PDO. Just as interesting is the negative PDO associated with a reduced upward trend in the surface temperatures, fondly known by many as the “Hiatus” or “Pause” in global warming, during the first part of the 20th century. Indeed, it is likely that this slowdown (not really a pause) in warming is largely a result of a higher rate of excess heat being plowed into the oceans, and less coming back out. This is also a period during which the ENSO system produced no strong El Niños.

But the PDO is, as noted, part of a larger phenomenon of ocean-atmosphere interaction. The study noted above by Steinman, Mann, and Miller takes a broad view of these oscillations and their impact on climate. In RealClimate, Mann writes,

We focused on the Northern Hemisphere and the role played by two climate oscillations known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation or “AMO” … and the … Pacific Multidecadal Oscillation or “PMO”… The oscillation in Northern Hemisphere average temperatures (which we term the Northern Hemisphere Multidecadal Oscillation or “NMO”) is found to result from a combination of the AMO and PMO.

…Our conclusion that natural cooling in the Pacific is a principal contributor to the recent slowdown in large-scale warming is consistent with some other recent studies…

…the state-of-the-art climate model simulations analyzed in our current study suggest that this phenomenon is a manifestation of purely random, internal oscillations in the climate system.

This finding has potential ramifications for the climate changes we will see in the decades ahead. As we note in the last line of our article,

Given the pattern of past historical variation, this trend will likely reverse with internal variability, instead adding to anthropogenic warming in the coming decades.

That is perhaps the most worrying implication of our study, for it implies that the “false pause” may simply have been a cause for false complacency, when it comes to averting dangerous climate change.

What Will Global Warming Do During The Next Decade?

Have political leaders and representatives been lukewarm on climate change over recent years in part because the climate change itself has been less dramatic than it could be? And, conversely, is it the case that the next couple of decades will see a reverse in both? I asked Michael Mann if his research indicated that the indicators such as the PMO, AMO, or the derived NMO, show that the oceans are about to contribute to a speedup in warming. He told me, “…both PMO and AMO contribute to NMO, but in recent decades PMO has been the dominant player, and yes, I would expect to see the recent turn toward El Nino-like conditions and enhanced hemispheric/global warming as an apparent upturn in the NMO, though it is always difficult if not impossible to diagnose true change in the low-frequency signal right at the end of a time series.”

Let’s have a closer look at the influence of the PDO on global surface temperatures. Since the human influence on the atmosphere has grown over time, we want to focus on more recent decades when the input of additional greenhouse gases had already risen to a high level. This graphic shows the NASA GISS surface temperature anomaly values (the dots) from 1980 to the present, but with some trend lines added in.

(The NOAA GISS data are a running 12 month mean using the monthly data. Note that the trend lines added to this graph are meant to visually underscore the differences between time periods in the overall trend, and have no special statistical value.)

The black dots and the curvy trend line to the left represent a period of time when the PDO was positive, but also includes a depression in surface temperature because of the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. I made the trend line a “second order polynomial” instead of a regular straight line. A polynomial equation can capture internal curviness of a series of data.

(A polynomial equation that is of the same “order” as the number of points in the data set would, theoretically, zig and zag back and forth to account for each data point’s position which would be absurd. One must be careful with poylnomials. But a second order polynomial can honestly reflect a modest curviness in a series of data, and in this case, helps the line do its job at visually presenting a short term pattern.)

The second series of data, in blue, shows a period of mostly negative PMO, again, with a second order polynomial line drawn on it. This is the period of time that includes the so-called “hiatus” in global warming, when the upward trend of increasing surface temperature was somewhat attenuated. That attenuation was probably caused by a number of factors, and in fact, at least one of those factors had to do with inadequacies of the data itself, in that the measurements fail to account for extreme warming in the Arctic and parts of Africa. But the negative PMO, and likely, according to Steinmann, Mann and Miller, a larger scale relationship between atmosphere and ocean, seem to have somewhat flattened out the line.

But then we come to the third part of the data, in red. The ocean-atmosphere relationship has switched the other way. The PMO has been positive since the last part of 2013, and over a smaller and more recent time frame, we have been experiencing a strong El Niño.

This graphic does a nice job showing how short and medium term upward and downward trends eventually cancel out to produce a single upward trend in global surface temperature. Very short term shifts such as a given El Niño event or a given Volcanic eruption cause the most obvious squiggles. Somewhat longer term, multi-decade trends such as the PDO cause longer parts of the series of measurements to rise more or less quickly. But over nearly 40 years shown here, and longer periods, all the ups and downs average out to a single trend that can be reliably projected for a reasonable period of time.

Will More Rapid Global Warming Spur A More Effective Policy Response?

These ups and downs in the rate of warming are not important to the long term trend, but they are important because of their immediate effects on weather. And that is all that should matter. But these short and medium term trends, as well as even more immediate events such as individual storms, take on a greater importance that has nothing to do with the science of climate change itself. These changes affect the way politicians, advocates, and the general public, regard climate change, and serve to motivate or attenuate action on one side of the false debate or another.

We have known enough about climate change and its causes to have started the shift from fossil fuels to alternative strategies for producing energy long before 1980, but have in fact done very little to solve this problem. Initially, climate change seemed more like a thing of the future, and in fact, had relatively little impact on the most influential and powerful nations and people. Disruptions of weather patterns started to become more apparent around or just before 1980, but for the next few decades anti-science forces were well organized, and their efforts were enhanced, at the beginning of the 21st century, by the unthinking and unknowing process of air-sea interactions that reduced the rate of surface temperature increase even while weather patterns continued to become more and more chaotic.

But the truth is, a widespread flood in the American bottomlands defeats a snowball in the hands of a contrarian Senator. Eventually, more and more people in the US have been affected by inclement weather, and the frequency with which destructive storms of various kinds hammer the same subpopulation again and again has gone up. The symbolic snowball melts under the cold hard stare of voters who wonder how they are going to rebuild their lives after floods, severe storms, and droughts have taken away their property, in some cases their loved ones, and raised their insurance rates.

So the question emerges, will the next decade or so be a period of increased, or of attenuated, motivation from Mother Nature to act on climate change? The rational actor will act now, because we know that the greenhouse gas we pump into the atmosphere today changes the climate for decades to come. The reactionary actor with little capability or interest in thinking long term (i.e. most people) will be mollified by a decade with few severe storms, not much flooding, a seemingly secure food supply, and a snowball or two.

I left the projection of the future as a single estimate based on the past several decades (all the data shown on the graph). I could have imposed a more upward trending line, maybe a nice curve like these polynomials show, as an extension to the blue line. But since the graphic is going out a couple more decades, and the ups and downs average out over several decades, I think it is fair enough to use the linear projection shown by the red dotted line.

I’m not actually making a prediction of future global surface temperatures here. What I’m showing instead is that two things seem to be true. First, long term (over decades) global warming has happened and will likely to continue at about the same pace for a while. This has been going on long enough that by now we should viscerally understand that the squiggles are misleading. Second, the last couple of decades have been a period of reduced warming, but that period is likely over, and we are likely to experience an increased rate of warming.

Will surface temperatures during the term of the next POTUS squiggle about mostly above that red dotted line on this graph, or will those temperatures squiggle up and down above and below the line, or even below it? Based on the best available science, that first choice is most likely. Whomever ends up being POTUS, and the corresponding Congress, will be enacting (or failing to enact) policy during a period of surface temperature increasing at a rate higher than we have in recent years.

A vitally important known unknown, is what will the effects of such a rise in surface temperature be. We have various levels of confidence that storminess, changes in the distribution of rainfall, drought, and through the melting of glacial ice, sea level rise, are all important forms of climate disruption we are currently experiencing, and we should expect more of the same. The unknown is whether or not we should expect a dramatic acceleration of these changes in the short term future.

How will the insurance industry address an increase in widespread catastrophic damage caused by storms and floods? Will the government have to underwrite future losses, or will disaster insurance simply become something we can’t have? Will there be damage to our food production system that ultimately results in less certainly in the food supply, and how will we deal with that? The well known “reugee crisis” is a climate refugee crisis. But it may be a small one compared to what could happen in the future. Will we need to restrict development in mountain areas more subject to fires, and withdraw settlement from low lying areas along major rivers? How will we address more widespread and more severe killer heat waves?

The battle to preserve the use of fossil fuels exists at the state level in the US. Should we have a national effort to stop the legislatures in red states from putting the kibosh on local development of clean energy sources, either by energy utilities or individual home owners?

Sea level rise has already had several negative effects, but it is also is a longer term issue, and is perhaps among the most serious consequences of human greenhouse gas pollution. At some point, American politicians in some areas will be faced not with the question, “Will this or that Congressional district be represented by a Democrat or a Republican,” but rather, “Where the people who lived in this district go now that the sea is taking it?”

Over time, I think the social and political will to address climate change has grown, though very slowly. It might seem that the effects of climate change right now are fairly severe, with floods and fires and all that being more common. But while these effects are real and important, they have been minor compared to what the future is likely to bring. The anemic but positive growth of willingness to act has occurred in a political and physical climate that is less than nurturing of dramatic and effective action.

Whoever is elected president this time around, and the Congress, will serve during a period when the people’s will to act will transform from that inspired by activists pushing for change, to outcries of a larger number of desperate and suffering newcomers to the rational side of the climate change discussion.

Expect a sea change in the politics of science policy.

Added: See this recent post by Peter Sinclair, and his video:

gregladen Fri, 01/08/2016 - 05:05

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How warm was 2015, how warm will 2016 be?

gregladen — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 11:41:39 +0000

How warm was 2015, how warm will 2016 be?

The year that just finished, 2015, was the warmest year recorded in the instrumental record. The actual data for December is not officially available yet, but my friend and colleague John Abraham keeps track of the global surface temperature daily and has done an amazing job at estimating the final temperature anomaly value that is eventually reported in each of several databases. He has provided a graph using his estimated value, above.

There are two major contributing factors, maybe three depending on how you count everything, to 2015 being the warmest year. The main factor is, of course, global warming. The Earth's surface temperature is going up because of the Greenhouse Effect, and along with that, we are seeing remarkable climate disruption, including floods, other inclement weather, and a host of problems. On top of this, the last part of 2015 saw a strong El Niño, the strongest recorded in historic documents. This weather event, which involves the departure of ocean-stored heat in the Pacific into the atmosphere, is continuing, though it will likely peak soon and begin to decline (but see below). That is all we need, really, to explain 2015, but there may be a third factor that overlaps with those two worth singling out. Some areas of the world's oceans, including parts of the Atlantic and the Pacific (outside the usual Pacific El Niño warming effect), have been exceptionally warm on the surface. This is really just part of the whole anthropogenic global warming thing, but seems more extreme this year. In other words, it seems as though the ocean is putting more stored heat into the atmosphere than just that part that El Niño contributes, and the surface temperature measurements include sea surface temperature.

How warm will 2016 be? Playing the odds, it would always be a good bet that the next year will be warmer than the current year, on average, because global warming continues. However, even as the surface temperature trends upwards over time, the actual measurements from year to year wiggle up and down a fair amount owing to a number of factors. So, on average, if you bet on warming for each subsequent year you would overall win, but you might lose that bet during some years. (In fact, you could lose your shirt if warming happens to occur with infrequent large spikes interspersed among years that see modest cooling, so be careful!)

However, 2016 is actually more than 50-something percent likely to be warm compared to 2015. One reason is that El Nino will continue for the first part of 2016, and the effect that El Niño has on surface temperature is delayed. The peak effect occurs several months after the peak of the El Niño itself. So, if El Niño peaks in February, for example, we will have global warming + El Niño enhancement through early summer. So at least half of the months of 2016 will be very warm. There is a very good chance, then, that 2016 will be warmer even than 2015.

Mark Boslough, a physicist who writes quite a bit about Global Warming, has made a bet along these lines. He is not betting that 2016 will be warmer than 2015, but he is betting on the long term upward trend of the Earth's surface temperatures. He's really putting his money where his mouth is, by the way, to the tune of 25,000 US dollars. The details of his bet are here. So far, as far as I know, none of those in the climate science denial world have taken him up.

gregladen Mon, 01/04/2016 - 06:41

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I correctly predicted four years of global average temperature, on IPredict before it ceased offering the market. I had to offer odds to get people to fork over their cash.

My wagers are here, which no denialists have accepted:

http://warmwagers.org/

@ Desertphile

They probably figured it involved a sneaky trick on your part. You know, like the planet warming or something like that.

Magma: They probably figured it involved a sneaky trick on your part. You know, like the planet warming or something like that."

Dr. Mann is in charge of warming the planet anomalously; I am in charge of the doughnuts at the conspiracy's quarterly meetings.

@ Desertphile -- wouldn't deniers just claim NASS GISS temperatures were made up. Still, even RSS and UHA should show records this year or next year. If not, then something fishy is definitely going on.

Greg C: Desertphile — wouldn’t deniers just claim NASS GISS temperatures were made up. Still, even RSS and UHA should show records this year or next year. If not, then something fishy is definitely going on."

That is the most common, most used excuse people gave for not accepting my wagers. It means they believe all of the world's science organizations that record temperatures globally are part of the conspiracy.

My wagers are here, which no denialists have accepted:

Just a guess - it's harder for people to put their own money on the line in a wager like yours than it is to use the money of backers to spread the "no warming" word - and the backers won't front the dough for the wager.
It's almost as though the people behind the money that funds the loudest denialists know something their mouthpieces don't.

dean: "Just a guess – it’s harder for people to put their own money on the line in a wager like yours than it is to use the money of backers to spread the “no warming” word – and the backers won’t front the dough for the wager. It’s almost as though the people behind the money that funds the loudest denialists know something their mouthpieces don’t.

I am convinced that close to 100% of people who have stated they do not accept the fact that Earth's climate is changing, and Earth is warming anomalously, actually believe what they assert. I am convinced they know Earth has warmed anomalously, is warming anomalously, will continue to warm anomalously, and that humans are responsible.

In the international predictions markets I had to offer at least 5:1 odds before people would wager against the proposition that Earth is getting warmer. In some cases I had to offer 20:1. And even in those cases, damn few people accepted the contrary position. I had to risk several thousand dollars to gain a few hundred dollars.

I correctly predicted global average temperature ranking for our years, and each year there were fewer people who would bet against Earth setting a new record high temperature. For year 2015 there were so few people willing to wager against a record high being set that most predictions markets didn't even offer the marker. The few markets that offered a year 2015 record high temperature market opened at 90:10.

Yes - 2015 was warm and maybe 2016 will be even warmer.

However, what I would like to know is how much of the warming in 2015 was caused by humans and how much by nature (i.e. not humans).

I would also like to know that for the 20th century, and the 21st (I mean why not - since I am wishing).

The more warming sloshing from the ocean to the atmosphere (nature moving heat around) - the less that can be caused by human CO2 emissions.

Ricka: "However, what I would like to know is how much of the warming in 2015 was caused by humans and how much by nature (i.e. not humans).

Explained in 88 comments in a previous blog entry.... "RickA" still too stupid to understand.... and he expects everyone to keep explaining it.....

RickA believes that if he puts money into a bank account, lets it sit there for several years, then later comes and withdraws it, that all that money is suddenly "earned income" and he sadly has to pay taxes on it.

DNFTT

RickA is a patent lawyer. Must work for a patent troll.

Brainstorms #6:

Not all of it - but certainly the interest earned over those years is earned income, and you do have to pay taxes on it.

You seem to believe that heat loaded into the ocean a 100 years ago can never slosh out and move into the atmosphere today (or in the future) - and that internal variability is always a short-term thing. How do you know that is correct?

cosmicomics #8:

That is a good one!

RickA thinks heat is leaving the ocean to warm the atmosphere.

This would mean the oceans are cooling.

Where's your data, Rick?

Craig Thomas: RickA thinks heat is leaving the ocean to warm the atmosphere.

This would mean the oceans are cooling.

Where’s your data, Rick?"

Jesus is the answer! Or, specifically, it must be magic warming both the oceans and the atmosphere--- because by gods it for damn sure isn't CO2, because Obama.

Craig #11:

It is called "el nino".

Greg wrote about it in this post.

It is heat leaving the ocean and moving into the atmosphere.

Or so I am told.

But no - I didn't take the temperature of the oceans before and after "el nino", if that is what you are asking.

Re. climate bets:
Betting strategies on fluctuations in the transient response of greenhouse warming
Abstract
We examine a series of betting strategies on the transient response of greenhouse warming, expressed by changes in 15-year mean global surface temperature from one 15-year period to the next. Over the last century, these bets are increasingly dominated by positive changes (warming), reflecting increasing greenhouse forcing... Negative 15-year changes (decreases) have not occurred since about 1970, and are still possible, but now rely on large, and therefore infrequent, natural variations. Model projections for even intermediate warming scenarios show very low likelihoods of obtaining negative 15-year changes over the coming century. Betting against greenhouse warming, even on these short time scales, is no longer a rational proposition.
rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/373/2055/20140463

Global warming is here to stay, whichever way you look at it
Kevin Trenberth

"Some of the penetration of heat into the depths of the ocean is reversible, as it comes back in the next El Niño. But a lot is not; instead it contributes to the overall warming of the deep ocean. This means less short-term warming at the surface, but at the expense of greater long-term warming, and faster sea level rise. So this has consequences."
http://theconversation.com/global-warming-is-here-to-stay-whichever-way…

RickA, we know that heat leaves and enters the ocean on the short time scales of El Nino and La Nina, ~2-7 years.

But.. what reason is there to believe it happens on ~100-year timescales? Where would this warm pool be, that doesn't mix with cold water in that time, and what would cause it to accumulate there?

Anyone can posit something, but in science you need to go further, and demonstrate it with evidence.

And with both oceans and atmosphere warming over the last few decades, it doesn't make sense for warmth to be leaving the oceans to warm the atmosphere.

At least RickA is not repeating his fictional claim that it is not very likely that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures BEFORE mid-20th century is caused by humans.

We should be thankful for small mercies.

RickA:

But no – I didn’t take the temperature of the oceans before and after “el nino”

Glad to know you make up claims without data.

Does anybody here have a scientific model, Ouija board, or Magic Eight Ball with high enough resolution and verifiable track record for me to be able to, say, invest the shreds of my portfolio in a gambling scheme that can assure me of not having to spend my golden years under a bridge overpass eating catfood? Alternatively, I am still handy with an ax and a brush hook and my wife has a vast collection of vegetable seeds , so maybe we should be working on laying the groundwork for a new and glorious civilization/agrarian tribe.

In the mean time, I think it makes sense to devote some time and effort to looking at the two most likely events ( 1. Next year will be warmer 2. Next year will be cooler) and seeing what prognostications we can make regarding those two outcomes based on our knowledge of other laws of nature with which we may be more familiar. Here are my predictions.

1. Deniers will keep denying. They are a force of nature, and until someone comes up with a smart pill powerful enough to force people to stop trying to try the laws of physics in the court of woo, deniers will keep denying.
2. If it gets warmer, the glaciers of denial will suffer a major melt event, because that much climate change is going to be awfully hard to sweep under the rug. Rugs do not hide bodies or melt water well. This is a known fact.
3. If it gets cooler, the forces of denial will want to proclaim the end of global warming, and will reset all their charts and graphs to 2015 as a starting point, a strategy which will probably hold them another year or two.

Beyond that, I am not prepared to make a statement at the moment, other than to write that this ought to be a really really interesting year. Cheers y'all.

SteveP: In the mean time, I think it makes sense to devote some time and effort to looking at the two most likely events ( 1. Next year will be warmer 2. Next year will be cooler) and seeing what prognostications we can make regarding those two outcomes based on our knowledge of other laws of nature with which we may be more familiar. Here are my predictions."

Alas, the problem is not in predicting the ranking, from warm er to cooler, for the following 2 or 3 years---- that's easy. The hard part is getting someone to accept your wagers. Year 2016 will likely match, on global average temperature, with year 2015. Year 2017 and year 2018 will be cooler than year 2015 and 2016. To get someone to wager against the propositions you will have to put up (risk) far more than they will.

If you want to give me 9:1 odds, I will wager $100 that year 2016 will be cooler than year 2015. I wouldn't accept the wager with less favorable odds.

Well, there you go. Observational temperatures heading right for the middle of the CMIP5 forcing-adjusted range.

Once the models are forced correctly, the supposed mismatch between observed and modeled temperature largely vanishes (Schmidt et al. 2015). And so goodbye to a particularly misleading contrarian meme about climate sensitivity being over-estimated and 'the models not fit for purpose'.

And before any contrarians pipe up with the 'yes but AR5 adjusted models down by 10% out to 2035' etc, this is a small adjustment with no significant policy implications.

The UKMO has projected that:

"The global mean temperature for 2016 is expected to be between 0.72 °C and 0.96 °C above the long-term (1961-1990) average of 14.0 °C, with a central estimate of 0.84 °C, according to the Met Office annual global temperature forecast."

That will be another record.

Source:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2015/global-temperatu…

cosmiccomics at #8

RickA is behaving like the heel on a patent shoe.

Excellent two parter on climate sensitivity has just appeared at RealClimate.

RickA and #12, where is El Niño getting its heat from?

#21 Lionel A

Yes. Marvel et al. (2015) is a timely and important response to the massed chorus of wrong on the topic of so-called 'observationally' derived estimates of sensitivity.

Lionel A #21:

"where is El Niño getting its heat from?"

The ocean.

Ricks: “where is El Niño getting its heat from?”

The ocean.

This is a fine example of what I mean be "Denialists are learning impaired."

RickA

And the ocean gets its heat from ..........?

Lionel A:

"And the ocean gets its heat from ……….?"

Why, La Niña of course!

I'm putting words in RickA's mouth but his argument basically boils down to this...

I would not be surprised to read that from him dhogaza, with a garbled statement about it being a "feedback loop" or some other creature.

I realise that folks here have tried to 'splain these things to the likes of RickA many times before, with little success. But for the sake of the lurkers who aren't intellectually dishonest like our RickA, here goes. RickA sez:

However, what I would like to know is how much of the warming in 2015 was caused by humans and how much by nature (i.e. not humans).

Since 1950 or so, mankind is most likely responsible for 110% of the warming:

IPCC attribution statements redux: A response to Judith Curry

I know, I know, you're asking how can it possibly be more than 100%?! The answer is to be found in the second chart in that article. From greenhouse gases (GHG), which mankind has contributed 100% of the excess, we should see the amount of warming represented by the green bar (subject to the error margins, which are admittedly large).

But the observed warming (black bar) is smaller than that. The reason for this is that mankind also contributes a rather large negative forcing in the form of aerosols (yellow OA bar in the diagram) due to activities like burning half of Indonesia to make way for palm oil plantations. This offsets the GHG warming somewhat , and the combined anthropogenic result is the orange (ANT) bar. The reason the black and orange bars are not exactly equal is due mostly to the combined uncertainties of all these factors. Note that the natural (NAT) and internal variability contributions are negligible, which addresses the 2nd part of RickA's question.

Anyway, if Judith Curry can't comprehend this (and she's a climate scientist, remember?), we probably can't expect lawyerly RickA to either; though it's likely for the same reason: their ideology won't let them. This comment is getting long, so I'll start another one for the next topic.

The second question is actually easier to answer:

Lionel A asked: “...where is El Niño getting its heat from?”
RickA sez in response: "The ocean."

Well, yes, but indirectly. How did all the heat get into the ocean in the first place? We caused it to be there, by putting vast amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. All that excess heat would have escaped into space otherwise - just like it always did before we arrived on the scene and started digging up and burning fossil fuels.

All El Niño does is move around heat that's already in the system. It doesn't cause global warming. We do.

metzomagic #29:

So El Niño gets its heat from ocean.

And the ocean gets its heat from the sun.

But you want me to say that because of CO2 and other GHG's that more heat from the sun it getting into the ocean than otherwise would.

Ok - I agree that this is true.

But how much more heat is getting into the ocean than otherwise?

The truth is that nobody knows the answer to that question.

110% is just a guess - not a measurement.

Even 50% due to human caused GHG's is a guess - we just don't know.

Now some papers are written which put guesses out there - but they are just guesses.

It may turn out - once we get some measurements - that CS will turn out to be 1.5C instead of 3C (or whatever).

We can obtain an effective CS by simply waiting until CO2 is 560 ppm and measuring the global average temperature that year and subtract the global average temperature from the year when CO2 was 280 - and voila - we can measure effective CS.

I look forward to that measurement as we will no longer be guessing at that point - but will actually have some real data.

Science!

I love it.

I love it.

You enjoy what you seem to think it is, but deny what it really says. What a loser.

RickA sez:

No, you can't. There is an inherent lag in the system. The oceans, especially, have a lot of inertia. A certain amount of heat is always 'baked in', even if we stop emitting right now. So even if we stopped emitting all greenhouse gasses the moment the CO2 concentration hit 560ppm, it would still be years/decades before you could 'measure' the ECS, because you have to wait for the system to be in equilibrium.

Like I said, RickA, what I wrote above is never going to convince the likes of you, because you refuse to learn the science. It's mainly for the lurkers.

Oh, and, almost forgot:

But how much more heat is getting into the ocean than otherwise?

The truth is that nobody knows the answer to that question.

Wrong again. About 4 Hiroshima bombs worth of energy per second. Well, about 93% of that energy goes into the oceans. But I can see where you would refuse to believe that scientists can figure that out too.

Just because we don't know everything to the last decimal point, doesn't mean we don't know enough to know we're screwing up the planet.

110% is just a guess – not a measurement.

It's not a "guess", it's the result of many analyses based on hard, experimentally measured physics.

You've committed the logical fallacy of argument by assertion.

Again, you've committed the logical fallacy of argument by assertion.

You may not "know", but professionals far more intelligent and trained than you most certainly do know.

Now some papers are written which put guesses out there – but they are just guesses.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

It may turn out – once we get some measurements – that CS will turn out to be 1.5C instead of 3C (or whatever).

Or not.

We can obtain an effective CS by simply waiting until CO2 is 560 ppm and measuring the global average temperature that year and subtract the global average temperature from the year when CO2 was 280 – and voila – we can measure effective CS.

Erm, equilibrium climate sensitivity is such that the results only fully manifest decades after the doubling has been reached, so "the global average temperature that year" would not be the final say on the matter.

And if the science is right, and ECS is 3 C, then that experiment will likely spell the end of global civilisation, and lead to the extincton of perhaps 25% or more of the species on Earth. If it was presented as an experimental protocol for consideration at a research institution you'd have no chance getting the ethics approval for that...

It's unfortunate that this aspect of human activity is basically free of ethics oversight.

[Blast.

Somehow deleted a line in the previous post...]

110% is just a guess – not a measurement.

It’s not a “guess”, it’s the result of many analyses based on hard, experimentally measured physics.

You’ve committed the logical fallacy of argument by assertion.

Even 50% due to human caused GHG’s is a guess – we just don’t know.

Again, you’ve committed the logical fallacy of argument by assertion.

You may not “know”, but professionals far more intelligent and trained than you most certainly do know.

Now some papers are written which put guesses out there – but they are just guesses.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

It may turn out – once we get some measurements – that CS will turn out to be 1.5C instead of 3C (or whatever).

Or not.

We can obtain an effective CS by simply waiting until CO2 is 560 ppm and measuring the global average temperature that year and subtract the global average temperature from the year when CO2 was 280 – and voila – we can measure effective CS.

Erm, equilibrium climate sensitivity is such that the results only fully manifest decades after the doubling has been reached, so “the global average temperature that year” would not be the final say on the matter.

And if the science is right, and ECS is 3 C, then that experiment will likely spell the end of global civilisation, and lead to the extincton of perhaps 25% or more of the species on Earth. If it was presented as an experimental protocol for consideration at a research institution you’d have no chance getting the ethics approval for that…

It’s unfortunate that this aspect of human activity is basically free of ethics oversight.

RickA:

We can obtain an effective CS by simply waiting until CO2 is 560 ppm and measuring the global average temperature that year and subtract the global average temperature from the year when CO2 was 280 – and voila – we can measure effective CS.

No. You'll still be whining that the heat is coming out of the oceans.

In RickA's world scientist is just another name for fortune teller. Only the clothes are different. Those who believe they can educate him should take this into consideration.

Bernard J. said:

Erm, equilibrium climate sensitivity is such that the results only fully manifest decades after the doubling has been reached, so “the global average temperature that year” would not be the final say on the matter.

Looks like our messages to RickA crossed in the post, Bernard. I suppose it shows that rational minds think alike :-)

Erm, equilibrium climate sensitivity is such that the results only fully manifest decades after the doubling has been reached, so “the global average temperature that year” would not be the final say on the matter.

To be fair, RickA did say *effective* CS, not equilibrium, but obviously we can't wait and S_eff does not account for nonlinear feedbacks...

So RickA's suggestion is roundfiled.

I suppose it shows that rational minds think alike.

It also demonstrates the point that regardless of political affiliation, agendas, and desired outcomes, rational minds conducting scientific inquiries always all get the same basic result: Reality.

Ideologues, like RickA, get whatever their agendas dictate the answer should be. And when confronted by rational minds, start spewing FUD and confusing terms and concepts to evade that Reality.

As if that works. Get a clue, RickA.

In my world - which I consider to be reality - observations trump models and guesses.

The effective CS, which is the closest we will ever get to an actual measurement for equlibrium CS, will be an actual observation - a measurement we can make in reality (i.e. the real world).

Who is more disconnected from reality:

me, who says I don't know what CS will be and wait to get an actual measurement, or

you, who pretend you know what CS is, but will change your models hundreds of times (and your answer) between now and whenever we hit 560 ppm.

In my reality, we have no idea how much warming humans are causing and need more data over much longer periods of time to tease that out of the background of constantly changing non-linear natural effects.

No thanks - I will stick with my reality and leave you guys to your model driven fantasy.

From my no-science-background the crux is this:
Climate change represents a well-documented threat to human civilization and life on Earth as we know it. According to RickA science has no predictive ability and cannot be used to assess risks. It can only involve itself in a never ending data gathering process that can first be evaluated after the fact, i.e. after significant damages have occurred and more significant damages have been locked in. RickA's science has nothing to do with science, but everything to do with perpetuating the use of fossil fuels while avoiding spending on mitigation and adaptation. It is an ethical abomination. Conducting a scientific discussion with RickA is not rational.

Three years ago some idiot USA Republican Party member politician (redundant) insisted humans were not warming the planet: the world's oceans were.

In my (scientific) world – which I consider to be reality – observations trump models and guesses.

Observations:
* CO2 concentrations have been rising rapidly since the industrial age.
* The average global surface temperature has been rising also.
* The arctic ice has been melting.
* Breeding and migration cycles have been changing.
* Droughts and flooding and other "anomalous" weather patterns have been occurring.
* Sea levels have been rising.

And one of the most important observations:
* Attempting to fit a wide variety of proposed causes of the above observations results in ONLY ONE of them producing the observations: The increase in CO2 concentrations is the only observation that explains the other observations.
* We must start to mitigate the above by cutting back/cutting off the CO2 emissions, etc. Or perish.

RickA callously and carelessly wants people to perish in order to preserve his selfish lifestyle. Ethical abomination indeed... You should be ashamed, RickA. But we know how your ideology smothers the human conscience. Please don't vote.

RickA callously and carelessly wants people to perish in order to preserve his selfish lifestyle.

I think it is simpler than that: his is incapable of understanding the science or the results of the analyses, doesn't want to admit it, so simply repeats "results' that match what he wants to believe.

Dean, I have to disagree with you there. RickA is not let off the hook by the "I'm not smart enough to understand" excuse. (I find that to be too close to the "I was just following orders" excuse...)

I think RickA does understand (sufficiently) the science, the results, etc. -- and that this understanding is exactly why he continues to play his little game: He finds the implications of his responsibilities in light of these results to be unpalatable (as though he thinks we enjoy the prospects of what must be done).

RickA realizes that mitigating the effects of AGW in order to preserve lives, property, food production, species, and economies will cost him money and will likely take away some of his creature comforts, too.

RickA desperately wants to keep things the way they are for him. He's not just "stealing from future generations" (as he's been doing all his life), he's now advocating "murdering future generations" simply in order to keep his situation unchanged.

Ethical abomination indeed...

Possibly - you have more experience with climate deniers than I do. My thought comes from dealing with the anti-vacc folks we have around West Michigan: most of them are simply dumb as a bag of broken rocks.

RickA claims to be both a lawyer (patent law) and an electrical engineer. If either is true, he's not dumb. He's crafty (especially if he's actually a lawyer, which I'm inclined to believe).

One does not make it to matriculation getting an EE degree even from a bad school without being smart enough to understand the science and analysis, and developing a trust of models (of which EE is almost 100% comprised of). He "gets" this. That's precisely why he fights it so vigorously. And so futilely.

RickA only succeeds in getting the experts on this blog to spin and refute, but they're not getting the fact that doing so is not addressing RickA's moral failures; they're addressing an intellectual failure that I don't detect.

I think we're too used to right-wing assholes who advertise their inner rot with their disagreeable diatribes. RickA and Dan the Denier are trained as silver-tongued lawyers, and are smart enough to put on the "innocent li'l ol' me, aw shucks" act so as to come across as more agreeable -- as they seek to undermine justice and righteousness by pushing FUD and misleading people.

They enjoy their little game of making the experts spin uselessly, working to make them look like what they know is questionable. That's their goal -- spread doubt and uncertainty to the maximum extent that they can. (Except of course that what the experts are saying is entirely consistent and will act to inform the truly inquisitive and the innocent. We can only hope this backfires on them on a national/global scale.)

We are not all fooled by the likes of RickA and Dan the Denier...

#41 RickA

In my reality, we have no idea how much warming humans are causing and need more data over much longer periods of time to tease that out of the background of constantly changing non-linear natural effects.

Nolinear nature effects? What nonlinear natural effects? How are they nonlinear, exactly?

* * *

What you call guesses would more accurately be described as informed estimates. When done properly, the result is always somewhere around 3C per doubling of CO2. This value is too high to allow for policy wriggle-room, so it is necessary to act now, not in several decades time when we get to 560ppm CO2.

This is very simple to understand, so I'm at a loss to why you are struggling with it. I suggest you familiarise yourself with the work that has been done on estimating (not guessing) ECS instead of wasting time posting arguments from personal incredulity on the internet.

#46
"RickA realizes that mitigating the effects of AGW in order to preserve lives, property, food production, species, and economies will cost him money and will likely take away some of his creature comforts, too."

Every serious report on the economic consequences of climate change concludes that doing nothing will be far more costly than mitigation and adaptation. The following is an excerpt from the executive summary of the latest report:

• Experts on the economics of climate change expressed higher levels of concern about climate change impacts than the general public, when asked identical survey questions.
• Economic experts believe that climate change will begin to have a net negative impact on the global economy very soon – the median estimate was “by 2025,” with 41% saying that climate change is already negatively a ecting the economy.
• Respondents believe that numerous sectors of the U.S. economy will be harmed by climate change. A majority predicted negative impacts on agriculture (94%), shing (78%), utilities (electricity, water, sanitation – 74%), forestry (73%), tourism/outdoor recreation (72%), insurance (66%), and health services (54%).
• More than three-quarters of respondents believe that climate change will have a long-term, negative impact on the growth rate of the global economy...
• On average, economic experts predicted far higher economic impacts from climate change than the estimates found in older surveys of economists and other climate experts. Respondents predicted a global GDP loss of roughly 10% if global mean temperature increases by 3°C relative to the pre-industrial era by 2090 (this increase approximates a “business as usual” emissions scenario).
• Experts believe that there is greater than a 20% likelihood that this same climate scenario would lead to a “catastrophic” economic impact (de ned as a global GDP loss of 25% or more).
http://policyintegrity.org/files/publications/ExpertConsensusReport.pdf

A brief description of the report can be found here:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per- cent/2016/jan/04/consensus-of-economists-cut-carbon-pollution

Paste problems:
"...with 41% saying that climate change is already negatively affecting the economy."

"A majority predicted negative impacts on agriculture (94%), fishing (78%)..."

"...(defined as a global GDP loss of 25% or more)."

Cosmi, I think RickA gets that choice: Pay a bunch now to avoid having to pay a whole lot more later if we don't mitigate now.

And he wants to avoid both "I have to pay" scenarios. He wants a third option: Business as Usual.

The only way he can argue, and convince politicians and policy-makers, to go with the BAU option, is to convince himself and everyone else (i.e., those making the policy decisions that will cost him money & loss of lifestyle, and, ultimately, those who will vote in those policy-makers) that BAU is the least expensive, yet still viable option.

And the ONLY way he can hope to achieve that is to discredit the first two options, by discrediting the science that indicates that they are, in fact, the only two options that actually exist.

He is a fool, however: To discredit science is to discredit Reality.

So go ahead, RickA: Speak to the Wind and the Waves, and command them to do as you declare!

Good luck with that.

BBD #49 asks:

Nolinear nature effects? What nonlinear natural effects?

Volcanoes are non-linear. They happen and then they effect the atmosphere for one or two years. Sometimes they happen more frequently and sometimes less so - very random and non-linear.

The sun is cyclical (11 year sun spot cycle) - but also random. Solar mass ejections or the sun's magnetic field, which impacts the heliosphere - not necessarily linear.

Are plankton blooms non-linear? I think they are exponential.

Many natural processes are exponential, or sinusoidal.

Are ice ages linear? I am no expert, but I think they are cyclical.

Is population growth linear? I don't think so - although human population growth seems to be tappering off its non-linear growth.

Are ocean currents linear - or cyclical? I think cyclical.

It seems to me that linear is something humans do to simplify the complexity of nature. We just grab any two points and draw a line - but that is not necessarily what nature does in reality.

#52
"Cosmi, I think RickA gets that choice."

You have more confidence in him than I. Love makes blind. So does extreme motivated reasoning.

cosmicomics: You have more confidence in him than I. Love makes blind. So does extreme motivated reasoning."

Maybe "Ricka" is posting comments from a wildlife bird sanctuary parking-lot in Oregon.... and forgot the snacks.

"It seems to me that linear is something humans do to simplify the complexity of nature. We just grab any two points and draw a line – but that is not necessarily what nature does in reality."

It is also not what scientists who study natural systems, and human-environment interaction, do.

metzomagic #32:

You said "So even if we stopped emitting all greenhouse gasses the moment the CO2 concentration hit 560ppm, it would still be years/decades before you could ‘measure’ the ECS, because you have to wait for the system to be in equilibrium."

I have been involved in this debate since 2009 and I have learned over that time period that we can never measure ECS.

What I have learned is that equilibrium may take centuries or even 1000 years - and guess what - all the other variables will change during that time so we will never be "at equilibrium".

So that begs the question - what good is ECS as a metric?

We will never be able to measure it, or use it to see who is right or wrong, or use it as a feedback to tweak the climate system.

It cannot be checked.

We will be arguing about ECS for the next 1000 years.

I was very disturbed by this, once I figured it out.

That is why I talk about effective CS - and others talk about TCR. Because ECS is pretty useless.

So I agree with you that it will take quite a while after we hit 560 ppm to even try to tease out ECS - and my thinking is it will be impossible to ever determine when we are "at equilibrium" and untangle everything which has happened between 560 and ECS, to actually measure ECS.

I say screw equilibrium and just measure once we hit 560 ppm - at least we can do that and it ought to tell us something useful.

For example, if we are at or over 3C from 1880 ish (whenever we were last at 280 ppm) then we know ECS will be greater than 3C.

If we are only at 1.4C at 560 ppm, while we will know ECS is going to be higher than 1.4C, we will surely fight over how much higher it will be, and that will be pretty useless.

Bottom line - ECS is a crappy metric.

I wish we were using something a bit more measurable.

Greg #56:

I was not trying to imply that all scientists who study nature use linear analysis - sorry about that.

I was responding to BBD who was questioning my non-linear natural effect assertion.

I totally agree that scientists often use non-linear maths to model stuff happening in nature (which are often non-linear).

Exponential decay all over the place (for example).

I wish we were using something a bit more measurable.

Then stop implying that "tallying up the deaths, the lost property values, the failed crops, the extinct species, and the droughts & floods" is an appropriate metric.

We'll do it THIS way: Begin full-scale mitigation of CO2 levels, and then measure the results of that.

I wish we were using something a bit more measurable.

Then stop implying that “tallying up the deaths, the lost property values, the failed crops, the extinct species, and the droughts & floods” is an appropriate metric.

We’ll do it THIS way: Begin full-scale mitigation of CO2 levels, and then measure the results of that.

Every morning I wake up, put on my hat and boots, stagger outside to feed the heifers, cows, bulls, horses, chickens, cats, and dogs, then stagger back inside to drink coffee and read my email. My in-box is always crammed full of people who insist Earth is flat.

I wonder how many people who deny humans have warmed and are warming Earth also deny Earth is an oblate spheroid; how many deniers think Earth is flat? A bloody hell of a lot of people I've met who deny human-caused climate change do so for religious reasons; maybe from now on I will ask them if they think Earth is flat because the Bible says so.

This morning:

"Desertphile sorry there buddy... the earth IS flat and all you have to do is look for ANY curvature.... and there is NONE whatsoever!!! The math to figure out the curvature for a ball that is 25000 miles in circumference is 8 inches times distance in miles squared or times itself!! So for 50 miles it is 8 inches times 50 times 50 and to get feet divide by 12= 1666.66 feet.... and all you have to do is look say at the horizon on lake ontario and you can see toronto from all the way over to niagara..... which is over 58 miles..... and toronto should not be visible at all!! BUT.... with zoom lenses and just the unaided human eye toronto is fully visible!! This should be IMPOSSIBLE if we were living on a ball!! Take a globe and a toy airplane and tell me why pilots dont have to point their nose down when supposedly going over the ball earth!! Also when going from the north to the south when does up become down and when do people actually fly upside down??? THINK ABOUT IT!! Its all bullshit!! You can make fun of people who are waking up all you want but the truth will always prevail!!?" -- Paul Cadorette

Brainstorms #60:

I don't know who you are quoting, but it doesn't look like me.

I am not in favor of assuming the worst and then figuring it out.

I want to know exactly what your plan is to begin full-scale mitigation.

Then I want to subject it to a complete cost/benefit analysis.

You assume that it will be cheaper to act now.

However, it may very well be that you would take action costing a trillion per year, with no benefit (or very little).

It that were the case, the opportunity cost would be great.

We may have better uses for that money now than mitigation.

Like raising the standard of living of third world people, providing clean water, and research for non-carbon producing energy production which is cheaper than oil, coal and natural gas.

However, if you consider mitigation to include building nuclear power plants - then I am with you.

I think the USA should be replacing its coal power plants as they reach end-of-life with nuclear, so that in 40 years we could be producing 75% of our energy with nuclear.

That would be mitigation - if that is the direction you are proposing.

RickA

I think it would be more correct to describe volcanism as unpredictable or random rather than nonlinear. Perhaps unnecessary confusion can be avoided.

As for your attempt to dismiss ECS, well, it's specious. Just because you don't 'like' the metric has no effect on the climate response to 2xCO2 and ECS is a useful tool for exploring this question. I don't like climate agnosia and I don't like argument from personal incredulity, which is anyway a logical fallacy.

All this is particularly irritating in the light of the fact that we know that ECS will be about 3C. Could be a bit more or a bit less, but peddlers of FUD are wrong when they pretend that there is huge uncertainty. They pretend that all values within a range of uncertainty are equally likely and ignore the (long-standing) existence of a most likely value.

This is, at best, misleading.

Since you oblige me to repeat myself by ignoring the rest of what I wrote at #49, here it is again:

What you call guesses would more accurately be described as informed estimates. When done properly, the result is always somewhere around 3C per doubling of CO2. This value is too high to allow for policy wriggle-room, so it is necessary to act now, not in several decades time when we get to 560ppm CO2.

This is very simple to understand, so I’m at a loss to why you are struggling with it. I suggest you familiarise yourself with the work that has been done on estimating (not guessing) ECS instead of wasting time posting arguments from personal incredulity on the internet.

RickA, #62 I don’t know who you are quoting, but it doesn’t look like me.

It was you, #57.

I am not in favor of assuming the worst and then figuring it out.

We're not talking about assuming the worst. We're talking about not waiting until the worst happens to "figure it out".

You assume that it will be cheaper to act now.

No, I don't. Those much wiser and knowledgeable about this than you or I have made these determinations. This was provided. See #50 for one example.

However, it may very well be that you would take action costing a trillion per year, with no benefit (or very little).

However, it may very well be that you would block taking action, costing a trillion per year (and going up from there), with no benefit (or very little) by taking a wait-and-see attitude.

You assume that it will be cheaper to not act. Let's see your cost/benefit analysis of that, with the currently-agreed on consensus that not acting will incur costs detailed by the reference in #50.

We cannot "raise the standard of living of third world people, providing clean water" if that water is lost or turned brackish by climate change because we're failing to act. That is not a "better use for that money".

You also make the argumentation fallacy that money spent mitigating is all a "loss to society". That argument pre-supposes that all the money spent already on, for example, solar and wind technologies, has been a drain on our economy and provided no benefits. This is not true -- your argument is a fallacy.

Here's a mitigation that I favor: Replace the coal plants with thorium plants.

RickA

Please see Brainstorms #64:

You assume that it will be cheaper to not act. Let’s see your cost/benefit analysis of that, with the currently-agreed on consensus that not acting will incur costs detailed by the reference in #50.

Expert consensus is that inaction will be more expensive than mitigation. Stop trying to blank this out and reverse the burden of proof. It lies with you.

"RickA against the world."

Good luck with that. We really wish you were right. (We do -- for the same reasons you wish you were correct.)

But you're not correct. And we all must start paying, like it or not. You can't argue Nature into conforming to your wishes. Even a skilled lawyer will fail at that.

Brainstorms #64:

Yes - I would like to see us do thorium plants also.

I think we agree on something!

BBD #65:

The burden of proof is always on the one advocating action.

SickA: "The burden of proof is always on the one advocating action."

"... therefore it isn't happening." LOL!

The burden of proof was met decades ago.

RickA, you're advocating taking action to block those who would prevent an economic & societal disaster.

Per your (endless) argumentation, the burden of proof is always on you and the deniers to demonstrate why you should be allowed to block mitigation efforts.

Scientists have already sufficiently demonstrated that the damage to our economy and society is already in progress, justifying mitigation regulations and policies.

The burden of proof is now on you to show why action should be taken to stop mitigation of what is already happening.

Desertphile #69:

If the burden of proof had been met, we would have taken action.

Since we have not taken action, the burden of proof was not met.

Brainstorms #70:

An object in motion tends to stay in motion. This is called inertia and is the low energy state.

To stop or change course requires the application of force (energy).

Our (USA) present course, which I will call business as usual, is the low energy state - this is our default, in that if we make no changes we will keep doing what we have been doing.

To change what we have been doing to something different will require the application of force (energy).

That is why you have the burden of proof.

You have to convince 51% of the voters (at least) to vote for your plan, to get the government to change course.

Just because three people wish (or whatever minority number you conjure up) for something really hard does not make it happen.

And don't bother to trot out polls with feel-good questions.

Everybody agrees that we should try to lower carbon output.

But put a dollar value on it - like would you spend $1000 to put less carbon out and the # of people who will put there money where their mouth is drops dramatically.

People's votes are where the rubber hits the road and show what people value first, second and fiftieth. Climate is pretty far down the list of issues people care about - so it doesn't really matter for voting (yet).

You will have to expend a lot of force (energy) to change that - or wait for the climate to change enough for people to want to take action.

Eight inches of sea level per century isn't going to do it.

RickA: If the burden of proof had been met, we would have taken action.

See what I mean?

RickA:

Since we have not taken action, the burden of proof was not met.

Thank you, Dr. Pangloss! That is very possibly the most fatuous assertion I've ever seen on a climate blog. Forget what I said about RickA's willingness to learn -- he's just unequivocally demonstrated his unshakable commitment to hardcore AGW denial.

If RickA is in a bus that is heading for a cliff, he does not want me to take action to stop it, for I have no ability, in his mind, to prove that it will in fact go over the cliff and take RickA to his death. (Its path could be, as he educates us, "non-linear" and "uncertain". Best we wait and not expend our worldly capital to "take action"...)

For after all, it is plainly evident that if the burden of proof had been met that RickA's bus will go over the cliff, then society would have already taken action and stopped it.

Quod erat demonstrandum, Dr Pangloss.

Brainstorms #74:

If it was only as simple as one person stepping on a brake.

If congress had to pass a law to stop the bus I would be doomed.

If you wanted a group of people to convince congress to pass a law to stop the bus I would be even more doomed.

Since we have not taken action, the burden of proof was not met

assuming there is no human stupidity.

How did that assumption turn out?

RickA

We know enough (see serially ignored comments on most likely value for ECS, above). We know that we *should* be acting to reduce emissions immediately. Those who oppose this have no scientific counter-argument whatsoever, nor even an economic one at this point (#50). You are arguing purely from political ideology.

It's high time that politically-motivated contrarians acknowledged that all they are doing is obstructing progress towards the lower-risk policy option. Your ideological rejection of science is now a problem on the same order as the radiative properties of CO2.

This bizarre remark illustrate the point perfectly:

Since we have not taken action, the burden of proof was not met

In formal logic, this is known as 'arse before tit'. The reason no action has been taken (in the US) is that vested interest and its political enablers on the right have prevented it.

RickA, given your employment of multiple fallacies of logic and of consistent misrepresentation of whole disciplines of science in which you obviously have no operative understanding, it's fortunate for everyone that you're (apparently) a patent lawyer and not practicing in a different area of law.

The world is a better place for it.

RickA.

As a nonscientist who is given to frequent pontification and contradiction of tens of thousands of professional scientists, you might usefully heed the words of people a little wiser than yourself:

"The kind of man who always thinks that he is right, that his opinions, his pronouncements, are the final word, when once exposed shows nothing there. But a wise man has much to learn without a loss of dignity." (Sophocles, Antigon)

"Ten gods cannot change the opinion of one fool, especially if another fool agrees with him." (Abraham Miller, Unmoral Maxims)

"There is nothing in the world so easy as giving an opinion; consequently, in general, there are few things so utterly valueless." (Charles William Day, The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos)

"At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice." (Gore Vidal, "Sex and the Law," Homage to Daniel Shays)

"The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered." (Samuel Butler, Note Books)

"The greatest deception which men incur proceeds from their opinions." (Leonardo da Vinci, Thoughts on Art and Life)

"Look less at an opinion given, than at the character of him who pronounces it. Incalculable mischief is often done by people unreflectingly receiving as "authority" the opinions of a mere ass, on subjects with which they are imperfectly acquainted, but on which he is supposed to be better informed, yet which are often the farthest from the truth, the judgment of such a person being either swayed by the most absurd prejudices, or blinded by the most ineffable conceit." (Charles William Day, The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos)

"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated, and well-supported in logic and argument than others." (Douglas Adams, American Atheist Magazine, winter 1998-1999)

And before you attempt one of your fallacious lawyerly rejoinders, remember that we distinguish between opinion, informed opinion, and fact. You appear to be swimming in the first of the three, and effectively unacquainted with the last two...

“The burden of proof is always on the one advocating action.” #68

RickA is a rhetorical contortionist. He will assume any shape, ignore any evidence, use any argument, no matter how insanely illogical, to deny the reality of anthropogenic climate change and the necessity of rapidly reducing GHG emissions. The argument cited above turns things upside-down. Multiple studies have already proved that dealing with climate change is cheaper than not dealing with it. The “burden of proof” is no longer with those advocating action, but with those who, like RickA, wish to disprove those proofs. RickA can't do this, so instead he offers us imbecilic inanity.

Robert J. Brulle, the author of a study on denialist funding,
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-013-1018-7
has an op-ed in today's Washington Post entitled, America has been duped on climate change.

“Just as Congress investigated the efforts of the tobacco industry to dupe the public into believing its products were harmless, we need a full and open inquiry into the conduct of ExxonMobil and the other institutions whose misinformation campaigns about science have delayed our efforts to address climate change.
The central concern here is the moral integrity of the public sphere. The Declaration of Independence says the legitimacy of government is based on the consent of the governed. But when vested interests with outsize economic and cultural power distort the public debate by introducing falsehoods, the integrity of our deliberations is compromised.
Such seems the case today when we consider the fossil fuel industry’s role in distorting discourse on the urgent topic of climate change. If vested economic interests and public relations firms can systematically alter the national debate in favor of their own interests and against those of society as a whole, then the notion of democracy and civic morality is undermined. Congress can and should act to investigate this issue fully. Only then can we restore trust and legitimacy to American governance and fulfill our moral duty to aggressively address climate change.”
(My emphasis)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/01/06/america-has…

A new study has found that rightwing think tanks have intensified their attacks on climate science:
Era of climate science denial is not over, study finds
Conservative thinktanks in the US engaging in climate change have increased their attacks on science in recent years, a study of 16,000 documents finds.
The conservative thinktanks under the microscope are the main cog in the machinery of climate science denial across the globe, pushing a constant stream of material into the public domain...
McCright said the “denial machine” had since expanded from think tanks to include bloggers and fake grassroots campaigns and was now “more diverse and seemingly ubiquitous.”
He said conservative think tanks had influenced the public’s understanding of climate change and the way policymakers had reacted to it, in two ways.
First, he said in recent decades US Republicans had used thinktank materials in committee meetings and hearings “to justify inaction on climate change”.
Second, thinktank materials had been taken up as the standard talking points for conservatives.
“Indeed, I would argue that anti-environmentalism - and climate change denial more specifically - has become a central tenet of the current conservative and Republican identity.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2016/jan/07/era-of-cli…

One important social explanation for someone like RickA, is that libertarians recognize particular interests, especially interests that pertain to me, but not “those of society as a whole.” The result can be defending the freedom to pollute as much as I want on my land, or the right to buy energy guzzling light bulbs. With climate change the reaction can be based on a narrow, unenlightened sense of my economic responsibility to me.

Brian Angliss has written a very fine series on libertarians and climate change denialism. Here are links to two of the articles and the study behind them:

http://scholarsandrogues.com/2012/12/13/libertarians-engineers-and-clim…- disruption-denial-part-1-libertarians/
http://scholarsandrogues.com/2012/12/20/libertarian-values-climate-deni…
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0042366

BBD #77:

The logic I am using is perfectly valid and is called modus tollens. However valid it is, it may not persuade you. And that is ok.

Everybody Else:

Thank you for all the psychoanalysis.

However, if you want to persuade people like me you will need more than insults or labelling.

First, let me make it clear that I am not against taking action.

I am against taking stupid action.

In order to take action, you first have to have a plan.

I am not clear on what the "plan" is.

Is it a carbon tax?

Is it 100% renewables?

Is it turning off all coal power plants?

I am not sure what the plan is - and that makes it impossible to even tell if it is stupid, or more importantly subjecting it to a cost benefit analysis.

It is easy to think of different plans.

Carbon tax - I am not in favor. People will just finds way around it like every tax code gimmick. New York taxes the crap out of cigarettes and people buy them in a different state or from Indian tribes. You are working against gravity (the market) and I just don't think it will work and therefore have no benefits. Just one person's opinion.

Another plan - you could propose turning off all coal power plants in the world.

We can look at the cost of this - pretty damn cheap (flipping some switches I imagine). There would be benefits also - no CO2 emitted by coal power plants, savings in CO2 emissions from not transporting coal, savings in life in not mining coal, savings in health from coal mining - so there are benefits.

But there would also be some negatives - 40% (just a guess) of the electricity in the USA comes from coal. 19% from natural gas (we could shut that off to). It would be pretty bad to just turn off 40 or 60% of the electricity in the USA - so that would be a negative.

I would not be in favor of this plan - but it is a plan.

Another plan could be to replace each coal power plant with a nuclear power plant as the coal plant reaches its end-of-life. Preferably passively cooled fourth generation reactor designs (safer).

This would cost a pretty penny and make electricity more expensive (the incremental cost of nuclear compared to replacing with a new conventional coal plant). However, it would provide the same amount (or more) of electricity and it is baseload and it has all the same benefits with respect to turning off coal plants - no CO2 emissions from each plant replaced, saving on transportation of coal, mining, health, etc.

I am in favor of this plan.

We could be done in 40 years.

I would also like to see massive research on non-CO2 producing power and power storage (grid level). Things like fusion or space based solar - both could be baseload, non-carbon producing and could provide all the electricity we need.

If we invent a new non-carbon producing energy source which is CHEAPER than coal, natural gas or oil - that would be the best solution - as economics would aid in the rollout. People (in the aggregate) always take the cheapest approach (in my opinion).

So if you want to persuade people like me, insults don't work. Analyzing how there can be people like me doesn't work. Labeling doesn't work. Whining and emotional appeals don't work.

What you need is to lay out a plan and show me it isn't stupid and that it makes sense on a cost/benefit basis.

Lets hold the temperature increase to 2C (or 1.5C) is not a plan. You (collectively) need to explain how you plan to hold the temperature increase to 2 or 1.5C so we can analyze it.

Try to be less emotional and more analytical.

Another thought.

When making a plan, why not propose one plan using 1.8C for ECS?

That is the observationally constrained value and even though it disagrees with the 3C median value based on the models, it has the advantage of being agreed to by many more people (most of the skeptics for example).

You can also propose plans based on 3C - but a 1.8C plan should be cheaper, so it is worth considering just from the standpoint of garnering more support.

RickA

Since we have not taken action, the burden of proof was not met

And:

The logic I am using is perfectly valid and is called modus tollens. However valid it is, it may not persuade you. And that is ok.

The first premise does not depend on the second. You are arguing from assertion.

Diversionary bollocks aside, the problem is exactly as stated at #77 and ignored by you:

It’s high time that politically-motivated contrarians acknowledged that all they are doing is obstructing progress towards the lower-risk policy option. Your ideological rejection of science is now a problem on the same order as the radiative properties of CO2.

I can see why others here are fed up with you, RickA. Ignoring the major part of someone's argument and focusing on an irrelevance is a transparent evasion tactic. It derails rather than furthers discussion of the major issue at hand, which is the obstruction of the democratic process in the US by vested interest and the political right.

RickA

When making a plan, why not propose one plan using 1.8C for ECS?

That is the observationally constrained value and even though it disagrees with the 3C median value based on the models, it has the advantage of being agreed to by many more people (most of the skeptics for example).

It is an outlier produced by limitations in the methodology that produced it. It is NOT an 'observationally constrained' value - that is misleading rhetorical framing used by 'sceptics'. Please see the discussion of Marvel et al. (2015) here and Knutti & Rugenstein (2015) Feedbacks, climate sensitivity and the limits of linear models.

What the 'sceptics' believe is largely irrelevant to most discussions of the science.

"Try to be less emotional and more analytical."

Back at ya. Or perhaps the word you were looking for was either 'hyperbolic' or 'aggressive'. If you weren't so comfortably set in your ways, I'd suggest what I'd suggest to anybody, that honest self-reflection helps you ward off motivated reasoning.

Emotion doesn't have to be demonstrative to be misleading. And yanking people's chains and then cynically complaining about the reaction is just trolling.

Any way you look at it, you could probably use some analysis youself.

Try to be less emotional and more analytical.

What a hypocrite you are RickA. If you were analytical then you would not, in response to:

“Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations” claim that:

"This means that it is NOT very likely that most (> 50%) of the observed increase in global average temperatures BEFORE mid-20th century (before 1950) is caused by humans."

The statement upon which you are basing your claim does not mean that. It just means they do not want to claim that most of the observed increase in global average temperature in the first half of the 20th century is very likely (>90% IPCC definition) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. It just means they are not making any claims about likelihood in that period. That doesn’t mean they are making a claim about proportions in that period. They’re just leaving that open with the proviso that the anthropogenic part is (significantly) greater than zero.

Instead we just get a non-analytical claim from you, in spite of your cries to be more analytical.

“More than half of the observed increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) from 1951 to 2010 is very likely due to the observed anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations.”

From RickA: Now I read this statement as saying that it is not very likely that more than 1/2 of the warming before 1950 is anthropogenic.

Let’s give RickA the benefit of the doubt for the moment, and assume that he’s correct. Now let’s see where that leads us:

Ninety-nine percent (99%) is truly “more than half”, so we have no contradiction…

Then, to continue RickA’s logic, “… it is not very likely that more than 99% of the warming before 1950 is anthropogenic.”

Hence, if RickA is correct, he is pointing out that only 1% of the warming before 1950 is likely to be other than human-caused…

Ergo, per RickA, it is overwhelmingly probable that nearly all the warming before 1950 is caused by human activity.

There. We were analytical, as requested.

OA, Chris and Brainstorms:

Do you have a plan?

If not - what do you think the plan is - or should be?

What's the point of stating a plan for those, such as RickA, who have no problem writing misrepresentations?

I'll state my plan once all the misrepresentations are honestly withdrawn.

Oh, goodie! The Plan! The Plan!

I've seen this one before; used notably to thread clogging effect over at RealClimate by the commenter named DIOGENES. Basically it can be linked to a lukewarmer strategy as a diversion. You troll the science by blurring the lines between science and policy and then ostensibly troll policy. It basically exploits people's unfamiliarity with how policy is formulated, and shifts the burden onto individual commenters to instantaneously formulate a complete plan sans consensus.

Nice try.

RickA

I agree with OA #92 and Chris O'N #93. You are trying to place an impossible burden on other commenters and so immobilise the conversation without ever withdrawing your many misrepresentations of the science.

So, to specifics:

1/ Where is is your acknowledgement that all warming post-1950 is anthropogenic?

2/ Where is your acknowledgement that the most likely value for ECS to 2 x CO2 is about 3C?

3/ Given those, where is your acknowledgement that it is necessary to act to reduce emissions *now* and not decades down the line when it will be too late to avoid >2C warming?

BBD #94:

I have made no misrepresentations of science.

It is just that my science disagrees with your science.

That happens in science.

Not all climate scientists agree.

As to your specifics:

1. Cannot agree. This is merely a hypothesis and not proven yet. It makes no sense to me (as a lay person).

2. Cannot agree. All of the models which spit out 3C seem to be overly warm compared to reality (observations). The likely value seems to be about 1.8C (or even lower).

3. Act how? Do what? Tell me what you want to do and I will tell you whether I will oppose it or support it. I already told you I would support replacing coal with nuclear and support additional Federal research into non-carbon producing power which is cheaper than hydrocarbon based power, as well as power storage - is that good enough for you?

RickA

I have made no misrepresentations of science.

It is just that my science disagrees with your science.

There is only *the* science, and your apparent understanding diverges from the norm. You DO NOT own your own facts and your opinion is worthless.

Your 'answers' completely ignore what has been said on this and other threads, which is indicative of bad faith on your part.

1/ You: wrong. There is no evidence of natural forcing playing a significant role in modern warming but ample evidence from basic physics on up that CO2 is the principal cause.

2/ You don't need models to derive a best estimate of~3C. Earlier this thread I suggested you do some reading on the topic instead of being incessantly wrong about it. Try Hansen & Sato (2012) for an *empirical* estimate of ECS. The lowball estimate by Lewis is an artefact of his methodology, as explained earlier. Please RTFRs at #87 instead of repeating your errors as if nothing had been said.

3/ Read the question properly. You are being asked to acknowledge in the light of (1) and (2) that there is a need to act, not to supply the specifics of the action.

I have made no misrepresentations of science.

Every time you refer to scientific estimates of anything as guesses you misrepresent the science.

I am getting rather tired of your nonsense. Please stop it.

It is just that my science disagrees with your science.

Yes, it does. And as famously noted by Daniel Patrick Moynihan,

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own scientific facts.”

"Your" science is notScience.

You cannot dictate Reality as the spoils of a political victory. And that's what you (and other deniers) continue to attempt to do.

You are only entitled to your own opinion, and that means "what you would like mitigation policy to be". You are not entitled to your own climate science.

RickA's game is to try to throw up roadblocks to emissions reduction and adaptation any way he can, while trying to maintain a facade of reason. His refusal to accept the need to reduce carbon emissions without a "plan" is another roadblock. His own “plans” consist largely of an easily rejected strawman, a proposal that's in conflict with his cost-benefit criteria, and solutions that have no chance of being deployed at scale within the necessary time frame.

One plan he suggests is "turning off all coal power plants in the world.”
No one would accept this. What we can do is replace coal plants as quickly as possible, but RickA insists on presenting a false choice. Score one for coal.

Note that, even though he can see some negative costs related to using coal, he leaves out the positive environmental and health effects of lowering emissions, and he has consistently refused to acknowledge a social cost of carbon when comparing coal to other power sources. Score two for coal.

RickA wants “a new non-carbon producing energy source which is CHEAPER than coal, natural gas or oil” and “makes sense on a cost/benefit basis.” He then proposes nuclear power, which he acknowledges is considerably more expensive. In other words, when talking about his preferred option, price no longer matters. Also, as it takes years to plan, license and build a nuclear facility, there's no way that nuclear power could be deployed quickly enough to address our acute crisis, or quickly reduce the consumption of fossil fuels.

And what readily deployable non-carbon solutions does RickA choose to leave out? Primarily wind and solar, but also hydro and geothermal. Space based solar is mentioned, but not the available and increasingly price competitive solar we have today. Why not? Perhaps because space based solar can't replace fossil fuels. The same probably goes for as yet non-existent fusion energy.

Both wind and solar work. Both can be quickly deployed. With a good wind resource onshore wind is already cheaper than coal – even without the inclusion of a social cost of carbon, and with the cost of a backup. RickA should be aware of this, because I've mentioned it before.

Just as there are reports showing that reducing emissions will save money, there are reports showing that it's possible to transform to an energy system based on 80-100% renewables by 2050. All of these reports have been written by experts. All – without argument – are rejected by RickA. Just as he replaces climate science with "your science is as good as mine," he replaces the energy plans of experts with his own obfuscatory schemes.

cosmicomics: RickA’s game is to try to throw up roadblocks to emissions reduction and adaptation any way he can, while trying to maintain a facade of reason.

Just like Creationists and Flat Earthers, I call it "The I'm Just Asking Questions Evasion." The goal that these people work towards is to spend 30 seconds of their time to waste 30 minutes of dozens of pro-science peoples' time. It is the most common behavior among denialists: force the communicators of science to squander their vastly more valuable time and effort and resources where and when that effort is wasted, so that the effort is not applied where it will be effective.

This is why scientists and science communicators are finally talking about "honest inquiry" before they will educate people asking questions or pretending to do so.

Multiple lines of evidence:

1. RickA rejects the climate science of consensus climate scientists.
2. RickA rejects the cost-benefit assessments of economic experts.
3. RickA rejects the energy plans of energy experts.

BBD #96:

Your link didn't work for me.

I used google scholar to try to find the paper and found "Perception of climate change" by Hansen and Sato from 2012 - is that the correct paper?

If so, I didn't see it as an empirical estimate of ECS. I searched the paper and the SI and couldn't find ECS, equilibrium, sensitivity or 3C anywhere.

This paper looks like an an empirical approach to showing that extreme weather evens are more common now than in the past - and seems to have nothing to do with ECS (so me anyway).

cosmicomics #99:

I am not playing a game.

I am not trying to block anything.

I am talking to you, and OA and others about climate change.

I disagree with many of the assertions you make, because they are opinions not fact.

Yes - I disagree with consensus climate science you cite as fact. It is not fact, but hypothesis. And not supported by observations to date.

Your economic experts are relying on faulty climate science for their analysis. Garbage in, garbage out.

Most energy experts I have read cite major problems utilizing renewables on the grid as the percentage of renewable energy rises - without some sort of grid level power storage. We have not invented that yet.

Try to get Germany to cut off all source of power outside Germany and see what happens. They use power from other countries (power provided by nuclear and other baseload power plants)now to smooth out the vagaries of wind and solar (wind and solar is intermittent - not baseload).

That won't work if everybody used only renewable power.

Hydro is tapped out in the USA - we have dammed every river we can and in fact are undamming rivers for environmental reasons.

I cite baseload power solutions because that is what we need - although we could use renewable at high percentages if we could invent grid level storage - which I am in favor of increased research for.

I wish I had the power you cede to me - as if one persons opinion could stop climate warmists in their tracks.

I am merely talking - and I am not sure anyone is listening to me.

Certainly no one on this blog is (as far as I can tell).

#102
"Yes – I disagree with consensus climate science you cite as fact. It is not fact, but hypothesis. And not supported by observations to date."

Not supported by which observations?

RickaA: Yes – I disagree with consensus climate science you cite as fact. It is not fact, but hypothesis.

... except for the fact that it is an observed fact, not a hypothesis. It ceased being a hypothesis over 100 years ago.

RickaA: And not supported by observations to date.

All observations, without exception, support the fact humans have caused and are causing Earth to warm anomalously.

cosmicomics: Not supported by which observations?

Free Market profit.

Notice how RickA is not the "layman" he claims to be.

And note how he has been very consistent in painting science he can't challenge as "opinion and not fact", that which he thinks he can challenge as "uncertain" and "non-linear", and all around making everything we know and everything we do as questionable in the eyes of true laymen as he can.

Typical lawyerly tactics. Obfuscate, confuse, mislead, undermine, mis-label, impugn, mis-characterize, create false equivalences, create false balances, strawman arguments, etc. -- he's probably touched on every one of the sleazy tactics that lawyers use to undermine and defeat Truth & Justice in our nation's courts...

I think he's just "practicing". And enjoying it.

#102
"Most energy experts I have read cite major problems utilizing renewables on the grid as the percentage of renewable energy rises – without some sort of grid level power storage. We have not invented that yet."

In 2014 Iowa got 28% of its power from wind. Denmark now gets more than 40%. By 2020 we'll be up to 60% and more than 80% of our power will come from renewable sources. At present our experts are focusing on the optimization of our wind resource by coordinating it better with our cogeneration system through the addition of large heat pumps. The electrification of transportation will enable vehicles to become an integrated part of the energy system, and there are other options, one (in Danish – varmepatroner) might be called heat capacitators in English. In addition, we collaborate with other countries, primarily Norway, that can store surplus wind energy as pumped hydro. The problems you mention can be solved, and are over-exaggerated by those who oppose renewable energy.

I might add, that as electric motors are far more efficient than ICE, our transition means that we'll be using less energy, but more electricity.

Yes – I disagree with consensus climate science you cite as fact. It is not fact, but hypothesis. And not supported by observations to date.

You've said a great number of stupid things. This is near the top of the list.

But Dean, note that such a statement is not "stupid" when used in a trial -- in fact, it's very effective. No wonder he laughs when he hears these responses.

RickA is not piqued by any of these characterizations -- as he has explicitly told us -- because this is one of his "winning formulas". He's not ashamed of saying these things, they're the tools of his trade.

And based on how everyone here is being hooked by his tactics, yet fails to meet his criteria for defeat, it's being effective here, in what he has made "a court that's trying Science".

Don't allow him to try Science. Put him on trial instead. (After all, he's the guilty party, so he should be the Defendant, not the Defense Lawyer.)

cosmicomics #103:

http://climateaudit.org/2016/01/05/update-of-model-observation-comparis…

RickA:

And not supported by observations to date.

And outright lie.

"And outright lie.
#109

Or an expression of unadulterated ignorance.

#101 RickA

Your link didn’t work for me.

Sorry, my fault - it's not clear - click the first item in the Google search results list: 'Download sample pages1 - Springer' for the full pdf.

Or use this link for a draft version of the paper at arxiv: Hansen & Sato (2012) Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change. It's a very interesting study and I recommend reading from the beginning when you have time, but you will find the relevant discussion in section 3 (3.2)

* * *

#108

As usual, the Auditor is playing tricks. There are two cherry-picks in the comparison he presents:

1/ He uses HADCRUT4, which is the 'coolest' of the global temperature data sets and demonstrably cool-biased (see Cowtan & Way 2014).

2/ he should be using the forcing-adjusted CMIP5 model spread, not the AR5 one which is obsolete. Look at the figure in the OP and see #15 (the reference should be Schmidt et al. (2014) btw - sorry).

McI is being deliberately misleading. Yet you place your trust in him despite the information in the OP and on this thread regarding the exaggeration of the model-obs mismatch. That is, as they say, illogical, captain.

Yes – I disagree with consensus climate science you cite as fact. It is not fact, but hypothesis. And not supported by observations to date.

You've been rightly criticised for this above so I won't pile on, but this pattern of rejectionism and bias is dismaying. Once again, science deals in probability, and the probability of eg. ECS being close to 3C is much greater than for lower values based on a full evaluation of all the available evidence.

RickA isn't able to refute my description of his modus operandi in #99, so he simply postulates that he's not interested in blocking anything. He claims that climate science isn't supported by observations, and his proof is a crap source, Climate Audit, that reduces climate science to climate models and shows no understanding of what climate models are and what their limits are. There's not a word about observed melting glaciers, sea level rise, the collapse of Arctic sea ice, the destabilization of the west Antarctic ice sheet, changing melt and growth seasons, the migration of flora and fauna to cooler locations, the geographical spread of vector borne diseases, changes in precipitation patterns, the increased incidence and intensity of heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires. Not a word that surface temperatures aren't linear, but that the trend has continued upward and that the observed global temperature now is in the middle of model projections:

“The recent observations are back in the middle of the plume after a few years on the low side.”
http://www.climatecentral.org/2015-global-temp-record
https://www.wmo.int/media/content/wmo-2015-likely-be-warmest-record-201…

Moreover:

“The UAH data is out for the lower troposphere for December. For three months in a row, the lower troposphere has had the hottest months - the hottest October, the hottest November and the hottest December in the record (since 1979).”
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2016/01/three-hottest-evers-in-succession-fo…

As for the reliability of models:

“Are the models, in fact, untestable? Are they unable to make valid predictions? Let's review the record. Global Climate Models have successfully predicted:

That the globe would warm, and about how fast, and about how much. That the troposphere would warm and the stratosphere would cool. That nighttime temperatures would increase more than daytime temperatures. That winter temperatures would increase more than summer temperatures.

Polar amplification (greater temperature increase as you move toward the poles). That the Arctic would warm faster than the Antarctic. The magnitude (0.3 K) and duration (two years) of the cooling from the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.

They made a retrodiction for Last Glacial Maximum sea surface temperatures which was inconsistent with the paleo evidence, and better paleo evidence showed the models were right.

They predicted a trend significantly different and differently signed from UAH satellite temperatures, and then a bug was found in the satellite data. The amount of water vapor feedback due to ENSO. The response of southern ocean winds to the ozone hole.

The expansion of the Hadley cells.

The poleward movement of storm tracks. The rising of the tropopause and the effective radiating altitude. The clear sky super greenhouse effect from increased water vapor in the tropics. The near constancy of relative humidity on global average. That coastal upwelling of ocean water would increase.
Seventeen correct predictions? Looks like a pretty good track record to me. Are there problems with the models, and areas where they haven't gotten it right yet? Sure there are. The double Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone which shows up in some coupled models, ENSO variability, insufficiently sensitive sea ice, diurnal cycles of moist convection, and the exact response of climate to clouds are all
areas of ongoing research. But the models are still the best thing we have for climate prediction under different scenarios, and there is no reason at all to think they're getting the overall picture wrong.”
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ModelsReliable.html

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n9/full/nclimate2310.html
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskyCMIP5.html
http://environmentalforest.blogspot.dk/2014/07/risbey-et-al-2014.html
https://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models-intermediate.htm

https://www.skepticalscience.com/10-Indicators-of-a-Human-Fingerprint-o…
https://www.skepticalscience.com/10-Indicators-of-a-Human-Fingerprint-o…

Given a choice between reliable sources, written by scientists, based on papers by climate scientists, and crap sources written by wannabes without scientific qualifications, RickA consistently chooses the latter. When it comes to climate economics, he uses the same crap to motivate his rejection of expertise:

“Your economic experts are relying on faulty climate science for their analysis. Garbage in, garbage out.” #102

When it comes to energy, the situation appears to be the same, and his attempt to sketch his own energy plan is a display of manipulation and ignorance. #83, #99.

By the way, I've seen a lot of balloons fall up. Gravity? Your guess is as good as mine.

Link error: should be Cowtan & Way (2013).

RickA

Contrarian emphasis on the supposed model-observational divergence in recent years tends to exclude a very important point about what is being shown.

The 'ensemble mean' is derived from a large number of individual model runs. The Earth climate system is a single instance. Obviously, the averaging of many model runs smooths out the natural variability visible in individual runs. So comparing an individual run - or the single instance of the actual Earth climate - with the mean is relatively uninformative over short timescales (eg. 1 - 2 decades).

So just because natural variability causes a transient (1 - 2 decade) period when warming is below the modelled average doesn't mean that 'the models are wrong'. It's just what happens when you compare an average (inherently smoothed) with the actual Earth climate.

That's why you can't use a transient excursion above or below the ensemble mean as evidence that the centennial trend estimate is wrong. Yet contrarians do this every single day.

There's a useful illustration of the non-significance of natural variability on longer timescales here, where two identically-forced model runs are compared. You can see that very different short term behaviour recedes into the noise of natural variability on the centennial scale.

When people tell you that the models are wrong - especially if they use misleading graphs in the telling - you should be sceptical.

#111
“As usual, the Auditor is playing tricks.”

I'm wondering about something that I'm not qualified to figure out, but that might be another “Auditor trick.” From the Climate Audit link #108:

“Lower Troposphere (TLT)
Next, here are corresponding graphics for the lower troposphere, using the RSS series preferred by warmists (data is available through December).”

A HotWhopper comment by metzomagic may be relevant here:

“The article I found below by Roy Spencer seems to buttress what tamino found: divergence [from GISS] starting about 2000, and getting worse over time. It might well be due to the decaying orbit of the NOAA-15 satellite - on which the RSS record is based - not being corrected for... well, correctly. See:

On the Divergence Between the UAH and RSS Global Temperature Records

Quotes of interest from that article:

As can be seen, in the last 10 years or so the RSS temperatures have been cooling relative to the UAH temperatures (or UAH warming relative to RSS... same thing). The discrepancy is pretty substantial…since 1998, the divergence is over 50% of the long-term temperature trends seen in both datasets.

And:

Anyway, my UAH cohort and boss John Christy, who does the detailed matching between satellites, is pretty convinced that the RSS data is undergoing spurious cooling because RSS is still using the old NOAA-15 satellite which has a decaying orbit, to which they are then applying a diurnal cycle drift correction based upon a climate model, which does not quite match reality. We have not used NOAA-15 for trend information in years... we use the NASA Aqua AMSU, since that satellite carries extra fuel to maintain a precise orbit.
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2016/01/the-surface-compared-with-lower.html…

Is “the Auditor's” use of RSS data “preferred by warmists” another trick, or am I comparing apples and oranges?

#111
Re. #115

Carl Mears has a comment in Spencer's blog which I'll quote in its entirety:

"Carl Mears says:
July 8, 2011 at 6:23 AM

Hi Roy

Like you and John, I am interested in understanding the differences between our datasets. But your explanation does not make much sense because our trends went DOWN between V3.2 and V3.3. The difference between 3.2 and 3.3 is that we added data from AQUA, MetopA, and NOAA18. If NOAA15 were the cause of the relative cooling, I would have expected the opposite to occur.

To me, arguing about the differences in trends in GLOBAL averages between our TLT datasets is much ado about nothing and serves to obscure the true differences. There is much more discrepancy between TMT trends, and between TLT trends in the tropics.

Carl
Remote Sensing Systems

metzomagic may be off, but is the choice of RSS data justified?

#116 cosmicomics

No authority whatsoever to speak on that question, but :-)

1/ The surface temperature gridded reconstructions are more reliable than the satellite data and should therefore be used in preference to it.

2/ I think Mears is right to direct attention to the discrepancy between RSS and UAH when it comes to tropical temperature, both TMT and TLT. Let's see how the fairly recent (but undocumented) beta of UAH LT v6.0 shakes out under public scrutiny. It may well be that it... minimises tropical warming at TLT and TMT in ways that do not prove to be robust.

As Mears said all the way back in 2011, *that's* the interesting area of divergence between RSS and UAH. Given that it was Mears (and colleague Frank Wentz) who nailed Christy & Spencer's Big Bork back in 2005, I pay close attention to what he says about UAH.

I also sometimes remind 'sceptics' that - for all their mistrust of the surface data - the only major temperature reconstruction that has ever been withdrawn and subject to major revision was UAH, curated by noted contrarians Christy & Spencer.

BBD #114:

I am sceptical of both sides and that is why I read RealClimate, Greg Laden and Ken Rice (ATTP), in addition to ClimateAudit, Climate Etc. and others.

Because climate change is politicized I treat climate science papers like I would a legal brief. Dr. Mann's papers (for example) are written to present the evidence in the light most favorable to his desired policy actions.

So I have to read climate audit to see the other sides brief.

That is the only way to tease out the truth in an adversarial system (which climate science has become).

Neither side is putting out objective evidence, disclosing all the evidence which they are aware of which detracts from their hypothesis - each side is writing to persuade an audience.

Unfortunate, but true (in my opinion).

I am a lawyer to I deal with this in every case and every dispute. There are always two sides to every story and I like to read both sides.

Even though you probably vehemently disagree with Climate Audit - I recommend you read it to see the "other side" of various climate science papers.

No matter what you ultimately conclude - you will come away from the exercise better informed.

RickA

Neither side is putting out objective evidence, disclosing all the evidence which they are aware of which detracts from their hypothesis – each side is writing to persuade an audience.

That's not true of climate science no matter how often you assert it. Climate science is carried out in the reviewed literature and is about evidence and hypothesis testing.

See, for example, #87. Only Nic Lewis has been tirelessly active on the internet pushing his results as the last word, despite the fact they obviously aren't. We don't see Marvel, Knutti, etc teaming up with the GWPF, do we?

Only contrarians fail to present the full picture and misrepresent their arguments as being more than they actually are Rick.

Now, please respond substantively to #111 and #114 - after reading the links, of course.

What do you think Realclimate is - if not to tirelessly push their point of view on teh internet.

I don't know specifically about Marvel, Knutti etc. but I have to disagree with you.

BBD #119:

I don't have a response to 111 or 114 yet.

I have to do some homework.

All I know is I cited by support for my position and you disagree with it - which is ok.

But at least realize that I have cited support for my position - whether you disagree with it or not.

I find Chris throwing around the "lie" word to be tiresome.

I may turn out to be wrong (backing the wrong horse) - but I am certainly not lying.

Truth hurts RickA, doesn't it? Even if you find it tiresome. If you're going to throw lies around (like climate science "not supported by observations to date") then you have to expect those lies to be pointed out, tiresome or not.

#120 RickA

What do you think Realclimate is – if not to tirelessly push their point of view on teh internet.

That is a blatant misrepresentation. RC reviews and discusses developments in climate science. It does not 'push' its own POV. Except insofar as it presents an accurate picture of the state of the art in climate science.

I don’t know specifically about Marvel, Knutti etc. but I have to disagree with you.

Reflexively and groundlessly, since you admit you don't even know what I am talking about. That would be because (despite repeated urging) you still haven't bothered to RTFRs at #87.

Nic Lewis's wholly unscientific self-promotion is a matter of fact. See eg. here.

Note the *political* claim that the IPCC is engaged in a conspiracy to misrepresent science - itself pretty much a conspiracy theory.

The GWPF is a UK-based political lobby group and promoter of inaccurate information about climate science.

#121 RickA

All I know is I cited by support for my position and you disagree with it – which is ok.

But at least realize that I have cited support for my position – whether you disagree with it or not.

If you read my comments, you would know that not only to I acknowledge your references, but I have explained why they are misleading. See eg. #87 #96 #111 #114. You can't complain that you aren't being listened to, RickA. That would be a travesty.

So realclimate has no point of view, even though it was set up in response to Climate Audit?

I don't remember saying that the IPCC is engaged in a conspiracy to misrepresent science - but it is a political organization.

The summary of each report is certainly a political document.

The lead writers of each chapter do the best job they can - but everybody has biases - that is human nature.

Certain lead writers are advocates and have made statements about trying to keep certain papers out and rush certain papers so they can be in - that is an effort to "spin" the chapter.

I still read realclimate and I still recommend you read ClimateAudit.

They complement each other.

BBD #123:

Ok - I won't complain that I am not being listened to.

I do feel I am the only person on this site representing the skeptical side - so sometimes I feel like I am a bit of an echo chamber and ganged up on.

However, I do enjoy engaging and it is probably good for those who read this site to see at least one person's point of view from the other side of the debate.

RickA continues his attempts to discredit climate science by intentionally confounding scientific processes with political processes.

Call him stupid, but I see it as a crafty, intentional ploy to undermine the work of those who are quantifying and qualifying the effects of AGW in order to confuse the public and politicians who are responsible for setting policy so that they will not act to mitigate the effects we have already started seeing.

He knows he can't dispute the science... So he instead seeks to discredit and undermine the layman's confidence.

He knows he can’t dispute the science

He certainly tries to misrepresent the science, e.g. trying to conclude that an IPCC statement means:

This means that it is NOT very likely that most (> 50%) of the observed increase in global average temperatures BEFORE mid-20th century (before 1950) is caused by humans.

A blatant misrepresentation if ever there was one. Perhaps he thinks a "balanced" representation includes some misrepresentation.

#124 RickA

So realclimate has no point of view, even though it was set up in response to Climate Audit?

RC was set up in response to misinformation about science promoted at CA. RC is - as I have already said - a site that reviews and discusses the science. It does not promote a political position.

I don’t remember saying that the IPCC is engaged in a conspiracy to misrepresent science – but it is a political organization.

At #122 I wrote that Nic Lewis claimed that the IPCC is engaged in a conspiracy to misrepresent science. Not you. I also dispute that the IPCC is political; I strongly dispute that WG1 is political.

The summary of each report is certainly a political document.

The summaries are for policy-makers, but that does not make them political. They are summaries of the reports. It is up to policy-makers to determine public policy.

The lead writers of each chapter do the best job they can – but everybody has biases – that is human nature.

Insinuating that there is a (political) bias that distorts the presentation of science by the IPCC is baseless and false, RickA.

Certain lead writers are advocates and have made statements about trying to keep certain papers out and rush certain papers so they can be in – that is an effort to “spin” the chapter.

This is a distortion of what actually happened which you have picked up from CA and I'm not going to re-fight the Hockey Stick Wars with you.

I still read realclimate and I still recommend you read ClimateAudit.

I do, on occasion, but CA is essentially a sustained distortion of the facts, so it irritates the piss out of me.

They complement each other.

Not really. The point here is that there is the science, and there is misrepresentation of the science. The former stands alone while the latter is usually an expression of a political prior commitment to the status quo ante. You relentlessly pursue the latter while asserting that the science is politicised. It is not. You are projecting.

RickA:

"They complement each other."

In the same sense that Answers in Genesis complements Panda's Thumb ...

Chris #128:

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree - because I think my logic on this issue is correct.

Maybe BBD can explain it to you.

RickA:

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree

So now you're making this into a zombie. You made a claimwhich does not have justification and I pointed out you have no justification. You totally and utterly ignored a long time ago my pointing out that you have no justification and NOW you claim again your logic is correct. I'll repeat pointing out your failure to justify again but no doubt like the pathetic individual you are, you will ignore it again:

No it does not mean that. It just means they (IPCC) do not want to claim that most of the observed increase in global average temperature in the first half of the 20th century is very likely (>90% IPCC definition) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. It just means they are not making any claims about likelihood in that period. That does not mean they are making a claim about proportions in that period. They’re just leaving that open with the proviso that the anthropogenic part is (significantly) greater than zero.

Maybe BBD can explain it to you.

Why would BBD want to explain your misrepresentations? Stop being a clown.

"They complement each other."

Yeah, given that RickA has been knocking around this subject for years, and given his touted professional skills, he sould be way past playing the false balance card, posing indecisively while claiming impartiality, and saying weird things like: "Since we have not taken action, the burden of proof was not met."

OA #132:

What "touted professional skills".

When discussing legal matters I have said I was a patent lawyer - because I am.

I have also said I have a B.S.E.E. (electrical engineering), I think when I was being attacked for using the word baseload (and I am an electrical engineer).

Neither of those makes me a climate scientist.

I am not making any appeal to my authority - just sometimes claiming a passing knowledge of that which I am opining on.

I consider myself a layperson when it comes to climate science - and just read what other people have to say about climate science (and some of the papers).

But my combining burden of proof and action was awkward - I will agree with that.

What I was trying to say is that I think we all agree that nothing has happened legislatively in the USA.

The president has done some stuff via executive order and by rulemaking and vetoed the Canadian oil pipeline.

But no laws have been passed.

So whatever is required to pass a law has not been accomplished.

Even when the democrats controlled both the house and senate and the white house, they still couldn't get an energy bill through. So not enough democrats were convinced to take action to take action, when it would have been much easier than it is today.

That is what I mean.

Your side is going to have to change hearts and minds (in my opinion) in order to get something done.

Just saying the science is right is not a plan and does nothing.

I was just trying to help by pointing out that people like me (the ones your side will have to convince) want to see a plan laid out. Then we want to see a cost benefit analysis to show that it is worth the cost and will not make things worse and that the benefits outweigh the costs.

So far I am not clear on what plan is being proposed to solve the problem, how much it will cost, what the benefits will be, what the unintended consequences might be and so forth.

RickA

Just saying the science is wrong is not a plan and does nothing except distort the public (and so political) discourse about climate change.

BBD #134:

I agree that just saying the science is wrong is not a plan.

However, I have laid out several plans on this site.

My favorite would be replacing each coal power plant with a 4th generation passively cooled nuclear power plant as they reach end of life. This would boost the USA's nuclear from 20% to 60% in about 40 years.

We could also tackle natural gas power, which would get us to 80% (comparable to France).

I would also increase funding for energy research to invent a non-carbon producing energy source which is cheaper than coal, oil and natural gas.

I would also increase funding for grid level power storage research.

That is my plan.

RickA

It's more constructive to discuss energy policy that argue about the science. There really is a debate to be had about the most efficient strategies for decarbonisation.

Why not, from now on, engage only in that debate?

Why not, from now on, engage only in that debate?

He's only interested in that debate if decarbonisation is cheaper anyway or if there is some proof (to him) that decarbonisation is going to be lower net cost.

#138
Please see #99:
"RickA wants “a new non-carbon producing energy source which is CHEAPER than coal, natural gas or oil” and “makes sense on a cost/benefit basis.” He then proposes nuclear power, which he acknowledges is considerably more expensive. In other words, when talking about his preferred option, price no longer matters."

This inconsistency is also politically interesting. RickA's comments lead me to believe that he's a libertarian, yet he prefers the energy source that necessitates more state control than any other. Also, as is the case with space based solar and nuclear fusion, his choice of generation IV reactors indicates a preference for technologies that don't yet exist or aren't commercially viable, and that therefore can't be used to ameliorate our problem now. He pleads for energy plans, but he shows no knowledge of or interest in the plans that show we can transition away from fossil fuels with already existing technologies. This energy "wait and see" is parallel to his view of climate sensitivity: we shouldn't do anything until we have enough data, and we won't have enough data until CO2 is up to 560 ppm. The red thread running through RickA is motivated reasoning to prevent anything from being done that can divert us from our current path.

Sounds as though RickA's actual goal is the destruction of earth's ability to support life as we know it.

That's about the only thing consistent in what he's posted over the last many months.

I am willing to pay something to start working on the problem now.

That is why I am willing to switch coal to nuclear over the next 40 years - which will not be cheaper, but more expensive.

My guess is that once we standardized on a fourth generation model design and started building them in bulk, the costs would come down - and who knows, in time it may be just as cheap to build nuclear as to replace the coal plant with another.

However, it would easiest to switch to a non-carbon producing energy source which was cheaper than coal, oil and natural gas. It would be in everybody's economic interest to do so.

So I also favour research to invent this - plus research for grid level power storage, which is necessary to use higher levels of intermittent power.

Cosmicomics,

I may have explained this way back when I was demonstrating that RickA is not an EE, but since the thread is still going...

You have to understand that terms like "libertarian" and "free market" have been subject to re-definition through a propaganda campaign that started after WWII and has advanced more recently.

Free market does not mean "no government intervention, so corporations are 'free' to create monopolies and cheat consumers".

Au contraire, it means government strongly regulates the markets so that buyers and sellers have roughly equivalent market power. That's where the "magic of the invisible hand" comes from; it's something like evolution, where there's no direction or purpose, but the allocation of resources is optimized. This was elementary HS economics when I was a kid.

RickA supports feudalism, or in modern terms, fascism, where there is a corporate-government partnership to maintain control for elites. But again, the definitions have been distorted-- black is white, up is down, and so on.

An actual free market libertarian like myself would argue that you only need two things with respect to electricity generation, if we begin with the goal of reducing CO2:

1. A cost for generating CO2-- fee and dividend, whatever.
2. A free market, meaning that anyone can buy or sell electricity, and it is delivered by a grid regulated as a common carrier or operated by government. Meaning, you get your electricity picked up and delivered like you do with UPS and packages.

So, it's that simple. N-plants may be built to replace coal plants if they can compete with other reduced CO2 modalities, but people like RickA will have to risk their capital if they think they can make a profit.

How 'bout it guys. Any objections?

zebra

I do wonder if the scale and cost of decarbonisation in developed economies is such that it will require public policy and government initiatives to make it happen fast enough.

I think it is.

And that concerns me greatly.

BBD and Brainstorms,

But a carbon tax or fee and dividend or some such is exactly that public policy you are asking for. If you want it to go faster, make the fee higher.

And it is not inconsistent with free market libertarian thinking that the government would also

1. Transfer all existing FF subsidies to alternatives.
2. For electricity, invest some of the monies collected to bring the grid into compliance; the analogy with the interstates and airlines is pretty clear. It's a natural monopoly.

The point is that it is pointless to argue about which alternative is "best"; that is going to vary by geography and other factors. The market will sort it out.

#140
That's not his intention, but that is the consequence.

zebra

The point is that it is pointless to argue about which alternative is “best”; that is going to vary by geography and other factors.

I do dislike arguments about '100%' this or that, as the rational decarbonisation policy is, as you say, an holistic and pragmatic one.

But I remain unconvinced that fee and dividend alone plus the invisible hand will do the trick.

The market will sort it out.

If such a thing as a free market actually existed, then - perhaps - this might be the case, but since there are no free markets, I wonder if we have the time to create them.

Is there such a thing as 'the grid' in the US? I was under the impression that there was no unified national grid (as in the UK), but this may be mistaken.

The market will sort it out.

That's the part that concerns me. The market will likely either take much too long to correct it, or (more likely) will seek to evade it -- due to too much investment in FF and therefore the ploys to evade losing that investment, hence preserving the status quo, which is not "sorting it out" but perpetuating it. Which is because, as BBD points out, there is no such thing as the mythical, revered "free market".

Ergo, it will require public policy and government initiatives to make it happen fast enough. Which, given the lack of political spine in the world, concerns me greatly.

#142, 143

Kevin Anderson has written a short (2 pages) piece on the shortcomings of the Paris agreement. One of the more interesting passages is this:

"But move away from the cosy tenets of contemporary economics and a suite of alternative opportunities for delivering the deep and early reductions in emissions necessary to stay within 2°C budgets come into focus. Demand-side technologies, behaviours and habits all are amenable to significant and rapid change – and guided by stringent policies could drive emissions down in the near- term. Combine this with an understanding that just 10% of the global population are responsible for around 50% of total emissions and the rate and scope of what is possible if we genuinely thought climate change was an important issue becomes evident.
Imagine the Paris 2°C goal was sacrosanct. A 30% reduction in global emissions could be delivered in under a year, simply by constraining the emissions of that 10% responsible for half of all global CO2 to the level of a typical European. Clearly such a level is far from impoverished, and certainly for 2°C reductions in energy demand would need to go much further and be complemented with a Marshall-style transition to zero- carbon energy supply."
http://kevinanderson.info/blog/the-hidden-agenda-how-veiled-techno-utop…

As you know, Anderson is one of the scientists who, for lack of a better word, has been most "alarmist" in his writings, and as you also know, he doesn't believe that addressing climate change is compatible with an agenda of economic growth. I agree with him.

I also agree with Zebra that some kind of price on carbon is necessary, but I don't think that will be enough. Considering the enormity of the danger and how quickly it has to be dealt with, I believe that a belt, suspenders, and almost anything else that can keep our pants up is required. I don't think "a Marshall-style transition to zero- carbon energy supply" is saying too much, and such a transition cannot be accomplished by market forces alone.

Denmark started reducing oil consumption after the first energy crisis in 1973. Among the initiatives that have been taken are the construction and expansion of a cogeneration network, mandated and or subsidized weatherization, and programs to support new forms of energy. Coal consumption has also gone down, and today more than 40% of our power comes from wind. The EU carbon market that we're part of was established at a historically unfortunate time, the price was too low, the quotas too high, so it hasn't had the desired effect. In any case, the progress we've made has taken us 40 years, we still have a long way to go, and we don't have the luxury of doing things at our convenience.

In order for us to be successful, and at this point successful means limiting rather than avoiding catastrophes, our governments will have to work with the market to phase out high energy products and replace them with low energy equivalents, reorganize our communities so that where possible they encourage walking, cycling, and mass transit, adopt low energy building codes, encourage lower meat consumption, guarantee low interest loans for energy reduction and transition projects, support relevant research, etc. Above all, just as WWII meant fewer cars and more tanks and planes, our economies will have to be reprioritized. I would argue that while this would limit our choices as consumers, it's the only way we can preserve our long-term freedom.

#149 cosmicomics

First, I agree with Kevin Anderson - hard not to when average European energy consumption is 125kWh/day/person, average UK energy consumption is 125kWh/day/person and average US energy consumption is 250kWh/day/person (source).

But I share Brainstorm's concerns. Second, since you bring KA's article up, there's the elephant in the room: that 'unquestioned reliance on negative emission technologies' implicit in the Paris goals.

There's a lot to sort out and time is getting short.

cosmicomics (and others)

" such a transition cannot be accomplished by market forces alone"

That's a misinterpretation of what I said.

It isn't up to the market to "accomplish the transition". What I said was that the market would "sort out" or optimize resource allocation among the choices for alternative generation modalities (which would include negawatts or conservation), once you disincentivize CO2 production.

So, if you can keep that distinction clear, your question appears to be how well the disincentive works. A price on CO2 is of course a market force, since it internalizes what used to be an externality. And it seems to work fine, given that Europeans do in fact use half the energy of people in the USA, primarily because energy is more expensive, whether electricity or petrol or ng for heating. Other evidence would be how US auto buying patterns follow the price of gas-- in ways I find insane, but there it is. People buy new cars every few years like buying the latest clothes fashion.

So again, why doesn't increasing the price on CO2 speed up the transition?

#150
"But I share Brainstorm’s concerns."

So do I (Brainstorm's comment was posted while I was writing), and indications thus far have not been good. Anderson's article also contains the following:

"Tentative reflections a fortnight on
Here we are a fortnight or so on from Paris – and the dust has all but settled. Turn on the radio and the BBC is reporting on whether the UK should expand its London airport capacity at Gatwick or Heathrow. No reference to Paris, CO2 emissions or the plight of millions who will suffer the consequences of such decisions, but will only ever see aircraft streaking across the sky 35000 feet above. Next up, the BBC reports on how the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change, its Chief Scientific Advisor and the UK’s Environment Agency all enthusiastically support the development of indigenous shale gas - and yet all forget to mention that the UK Government has just reneged on its support for carbon capture and storage."

My own government, which, by the way, has eliminated poverty by abolishing the poverty line, is intent on squeezing out as much North Sea oil as possible, has cut funding for energy research, reduced Denmark's official energy goal, and is more concerned with its heavy industrial and agricultural constituents than with what needs to be done. It, too, has declared an interest in developing shale gas.

The political impasse in the U.S. is well know, and in the EU we have Poland. Higher aims also require acceptance from Saudi Arabia, Russia, India, etc.

One way to avoid BECCs might be to underline reality by demanding land allocations from different countries. Another might be for the consequences of climate change to hit so many so severely that we finally face up to the reality that fossil fuels must be left in the ground.

#151
"So again, why doesn’t increasing the price on CO2 speed up the transition?"

It would. I don't think anyone is arguing against that.

cosmicomics #152,

But now you are changing the question.

I am saying a very simple thing: "If you have a government that is committed to reducing CO2, this is how it is more likely to succeed." Particularly in the USA.

Telling me that your government is no longer committed is an entirely different topic.

And arguing with trolls like RickA about nuclear vs renewables yadda yadda and so on is moving the conversation away from that critical problem. Which is why they do it.

So again, why doesn’t increasing the price on CO2 speed up the transition?

Unless I've missed something, nobody said it wouldn't.

Nobody said it wouldn't.

Michael Mann on El Niño, COP15, Future Climate Change

gregladen — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 13:40:00 +0000

Michael Mann on El Niño, COP15, Future Climate Change

Despite the devastating storms across the country the last few weeks, NASA is forecasting the worst is yet to come. Michael Mann, author of "Dire Predictions: Understanding Climate Change" joins to discuss.

gregladen Fri, 01/01/2016 - 08:40

Tags

We certainly live in interesting times now, don't we...
If the weather extremes keep making news headlines, will more people wake up to the need to throttle back our burning of fossil fuels? How long will it take for the public to adapt to and take for granted a new climate? Will large scale snowstorms give the snowballists ammunition they can use to further their ambitions to play world class nummies? Buckle up and stay tuned. This promises to be an exciting year ahead!

@SteveP

If a European heat wave killing 70,000 people didn't wake people up to the dangers of ACC, it is difficult to imagine a weather catastrophe that will.

A half-meter of SLR in a decade might do it. Maybe.

Heat wave deaths have strangely little effect on public opinion. I think it has to do with the way people die, and the way we understand the event. It is very different than, say, a flood or tornado outbreak.

#1 SteveP

How long will it take for the public to adapt to and take for granted a new climate?

An interesting question. Here in the UK, the estimated cost of damage from the recent and ongoing flooding is £6bn and counting.

Since insurers raise money by raising premiums and governments raise money (for disaster relief and infrastructure repair) by increasing taxation, I see a problem ahead.

As the frequency and severity of flooding increases, the national ability to pay for the damage (including ever-expanding and very expensive flood protection) will diminish and eventually be overshot altogether. So I don't really see a situation arising where the public will have the chance to adapt to flooding in any meaningful sense.

#4 BBD
The costs of the floods in the US Midwest are comparable to those in the UK, and then there will be the damage to the agricultural sector yet to be tallied. Corn and soybean prices are already soaring as a result. Perhaps the ever rising price of food will alert people to the existence of a climate problem. Or not. These weather disasters are horrendous to the direct participants, but people move on, rebuild and, at least for a little while, get wiser about where they site their homes and businesses if they have any choice in the matter. People have been recovering from floods like this since the Black Sea filled and before. I saw the center of our small city wiped out from flooding in the 1950's, houses floating by and bridges destroyed, and yet normalcy was regained within a year or so. Flood control dams helped prevent a recurrence for the next 60 years. But what it flooding in a particular area becomes more frequent? How much of a strain does the system have to take before it snaps and reassembles into a lower energy level, and before the majority of people recognize the severity of problem, or is it going to be a continual slide with continual adaptation? I suspect that society will keep muddling along, adapting to those changes that it can adapt to, and continuing along until it can't. Necessity will cause all sorts of economic rearrangements.

Ironic sight for the day. Our local river was total ice free today, probably the first ice free January in recorded history. I watched as two people launched their massively overpowered boat into the river, delivered from their large truck and boat trailer. The outboard motor on the boat was one of the largest I've ever seen, and it looked like it weighed more than the boat. Things were really working out fine for these two. By helping fuel global warming, they were helping, in their tiny way, to extend their boating season! Win win! Fun fun!

Heat wave deaths have strangely little effect on public opinion. I think it has to do with the way people die

In addition, many of the people who die from heat waves are elderly, poor, or ailing. These groups tend to be ``out of view'' of the majority of people, which marginalizes news of their deaths.

#2 Adam R
Flooding is a real attention grabber. When Sandy hit our area, the seashore was littered with an incredible amount of debris, as far as you could see. Familiar land was washed away. Many people died. And yet, many people have filed their memories of the disaster as merely random misfortune, and not part of a larger pattern. The weed seeds of misinformation sown by the fossil fuel folks really seem to have taken very firm hold in many minds and probably won't ever be easily dislodged from a lot of them.

Maybe if flooding becomes more frequent, if sea level rise more pronounced as you suggest, maybe then public inertia will change, but if we slide back towards more normal weather after this el Nino, I suspect that we will continue to be battling the climate change deniers for another long round.

Flood control dams helped prevent a recurrence for the next 60 years.

Flood control likely helped particular locations, at the expoense of others... John Russell has a good discussion of the matter:

https://medium.com/@JohnRussell40/flooding-in-the-era-of-global-warming…

And in particular, two of George Monbiot's commentaries are worth a read:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/13/flooding-public-sp…

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/29/deluge-farmers-flo…

# 8 Bernard J.
The flood control dams in my old home town area were typically built in state forests, and were left nearly empty most of the time. In the event of a freak rain storm or hurricane, they were to be plugged up and would prevent rapid flash flooding. They could also contain quite a bit of water for a time.

Flood prone valleys should be left to agriculture in my opinion. Building in the low part of any sort of river or stream valley seems to be a bit like purchasing a lottery ticket to a raffle which entitles you to have your life washed down to the ocean. But streams are picturesque and it is delightful to live near a stream or river, and that is where the commerce and activity tends to happen, and once you've built there, it is hard to pack up and move.
Cheers.

Global Warming In November

gregladen — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 08:15:02 +0000

Global Warming In November

The NASA GISS global temperature anomaly for November has been published.

October's value was originally reported as 104, but has been corrected (it is normal to have small corrections on an ongoing basis) to 106. November's value, just out, is 105.

This is hundreds of a degree C anomaly, the standard number used to report, off of a baseline. The baseline in the case of NASA GISS is 1951-1980, which does not represent pre-industrial levels.

The huge uptick we saw during the last part of the current year is the result of global warming, which has been pushing temperatures up, and the current El Nino, which probably started to affect these measurements in late September. Over the next few months or so, El Nino proper will start to decline, but the surface temperatures will remain elevated by El Nino (there is a lag). After that, we should see monthly temperature readings being to drop, but the overall trend is likely to continue.

The graphic at the top of the page is the 12 month moving average from the NASA GISS data base, up through November. Notice that since the 1960s there has been a very steady upward trend, with some variation. Most of the big upward spikes you see are El Nino years, and the lower troughs are typically periods with one or more La Nina events. These variations reflect the interaction between surface (air and sea surface) and the ocean, mainly the Pacific.

2015 is currently the warmest year on record, and 2014 is the second warmest year. It is virtually impossible for 2015 to drop below warmest once December values are added in. Likely, the spread between warmest and second warmest year will increase.

November 2015 is the second warmest month-by-anomaly (not actual temperature, but relative to other instances of the same month) and November 2015 is the second warmest. All the other warmest months in the top 10 are from the 90s or 80s, found during El Nino years.

As the effects of the current El Nino peak and decline, we will see the "warmest month" thing fade away until the next El Nino, but the 12 month moving average will continue to rise for quite some time, then level off, then likely decline somewhat. But overall, the trend is expected to be on average upward because, ladies and gentlemen, anthropogenic global warming is real and is happening now.

gregladen Tue, 12/15/2015 - 03:15

Tags

Well gosh, this sucks limes.

Greg said "The huge uptick we saw during the last part of the current year is the result of global warming, which has been pushing temperatures up, and the current El Nino, which probably started to affect these measurements in late September."

I am assuming when you say global warming you mean human caused. How much of the warming was el nino and how much was global warming?

In other words - how much of the warming was natural and how much human?

Secondly - why would the human portion surge like that?

The additional CO2 is pretty linear.

It seems to me (and this is pure speculation) - that the surge in warming is caused by nature and not the human caused portion.

Finally, how much of the increase in warming was caused by adjustments made to GISS over the last year or so?

I vaguely recall that some additional adjustments were made which warmed the present and cooled the past - but cannot recall the magnitude of the adjustments.

Does anybody here recall?

RickA: "I am assuming when you say global warming you mean human caused. How much of the warming was el nino and how much was global warming? In other words – how much of the warming was natural and how much human?"

Er, what the bloody fuck do you care? It's science and reality: things you are politically against.

Rick, El Nino affects how heat is distributed between the atmosphere and the oceans but it doesn't change the total heat in the system. It's a part of natural variability which is why temperatures don't follow a nice linear path like the rise in CO2. Since the heat capacity of ocean water is around 1000 times that of the atmosphere it doesn't take much of a change in the distribution of heat between the oceans and atmosphere to have a large effect on atmospheric temperatures.

So the temperature spike in 2015 is due to the natural variability of El Nino but the fact that 2015 will be the warmest such El Nino year on record is due to anthropogenic global warming.

Dave Werth: "Rick, El Nino affects how heat is distributed between the atmosphere and the oceans but it doesn’t change the total heat in the system."

Exactly so. The "question" itself makes no sense: it is a nonsense "question." It is also utterly pointless for anyone to waste her time explaining how the world works to "RickA:" he doesn't want to know.

Worse than that: "Anthropogenic global warming is real and has been happening for a number of years now."

RickA: "It seems to me (and this is pure speculation) – that the surge in warming is caused by nature and not the human caused portion."

No one cares what it "seems" to you.

Dave Werth:

El Nino affects how heat is distributed between the atmosphere and the oceans but it doesn’t change the total heat in the system. It’s a part of natural variability which is why temperatures don’t follow a nice linear path like the rise in CO2.

Nicely put, Dave. And when the observed timing and strength of ENSO is an input to coupled climate models rather than a state variable, projected GMST matches observed GMST between 1998 and 2013 (the so-called "pause") much more closely. See the 2013 paper in Nature by Kosaka and Xie. It's paywalled, but Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon posted an accessible (in more ways that one) discussion at the time.

AGW-deniers crowed that the pause (which was not a pause at all, merely a temporary slowing of the rate of increase) was a fatal falsification of climate model projections. For climate scientists though, it was an opportunity to refine the models by resolving short-term "noise" to forcings.

I think that there are two things being conflated by deniers when they talk about 'natural variability'. There are natural phenomena that cause droughts, floods, El Nino, hurricanes etc. , but those are not sources of energy variability. They can be influenced by energy inputs, but they don't cause them.
Then there are natural factors that do cause energy input changes to they system (earth), like Milankovitch cycles, volcanoes, changes in the sun's intensity and so on. But just speculating whether current warming is caused by natural variability, is a red herring, unless you can demonstrate or point to the natural forcing that is responsible.
We know that man made increases of Co2 is continuing. We know that Co2 is a greenhouse gas that causes warming. We know that results in an increasing imbalance between energy inputs and out puts to the system (earth again). We also know that that energy gets moved around and exchanged within the system (earth also). Most is taken up by the oceans, but it doesn't stay there forever. They system overall will continues to heat up as long as equilibrium has not been achieved. We also know that there is no known other external natural forcing that can account for the added energy imbalance into the system...you know...earth.

RickA:

Good questions. About 20 percent of the increase over the last two months is from EL Nino, but the strength of the El Nino is certainly enhanced by warm ocean waters, which are warmer because of human effects by about 100%. So, one way to look at this is to go to the graph at the top of the post and notice how the current spike compares to earlier spikes. The difference between the spikes, over time, is the incrementally increased difference in human effects.

A slightly different way to think of it is this. The pure natural El Nino contribution makes up part of the up-down-ness of the graph, the overall trend represents the human contribution.

Greg Laden: "Good questions"

This is why I don't want to have a science blog; the necessity of being polite.

Also, the increase in CO2 is linear, but the effect on surface temperatures is not, because the surfacer temperature is the wagging tail of the dog.

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2013/06/19/the-earth-is-the-dog-atmos…

skeptictmac57: Well put.

Why is it that I don't expect RickA to thank Dave Werth or scepticmac57 for their informative replies?

Why am I not surprised that RickA doesn't mention ENSO's cooling component, La Niña, and that the global warming in La Niña years shows a strong warming trend? (The graph linked to below more or less illustrates this:
http://rabett.blogspot.dk/2014/12/plenty-of-trend-at-bottom.html )

Why am I not surprised that RickA, who claims to be an engineer, doesn't mention the lag time between CO2 emissions and warming. (Or is there something I've misunderstood?)

Why am I not surprised that RickA veers into conspiracy territory by mentioning, while showing no understanding of, surface temperature adjustments? Has he ever casually mentioned the many adjustments that have been made to the UAH satellite data, which tend to bring the satellite data more in line with surface data?

Could it be that RickA isn't interested in learning, but in denying?

In the next-to-last paragraph, you say that November 2015 is the warmest and second-warmest month by anomaly on the record. I assume this is a typo, what is the correct second-warmest month?

What are the temps anomalous of?
From a 1961-1990 average?
Why are the anomalies consistently negative from 1880-1940?

See Noevo, why is it that you make so many claims about climate change but don't know the most basic stuff?

Read the post.

To Greg #17, or anyone out there:

Why are the anomalies consistently negative from 1880-1940?

See Noevo: "Why are the anomalies consistently negative from 1880-1940?"

The baseline was moved "upward:" the data that, um, "stayed behind" therefore moved "downward." The reason the baseline was selected is because it has the highest level of confidence.

Read. The. Post.

To Greg #17 & #19:

I don’t see it.

To anyone else out there:
Why are the anomalies consistently negative from 1880-1940?

See Noevo: "Why are the anomalies consistently negative from 1880-1940?"

Explained above.

A better question, "see what an ignoramus i am", is what difference it makes? Try to make an answer that deals with science rather than your dishonesty.

SN,

Here's an idea; if you can't unravel a mystery, ask better questions.

If you don't want to do that because you have an underhanded agenda, knock it off.

How much of the warming was el nino

The warmest 12 month period in the 1997/98 El Nino was about 0.22℃ above the trend at that time.

I don’t see it.

This is not news for someone who doesn't see anything.

Chris O'Neill: "This is not news for someone who doesn’t see anything."

I see this morning that both Politifact.org and factCheck.org have reported on the same phenomena: the more Republican Party presidential candidates lie, the more popular they are; there is an inverse proportional correlation between poll numbers and telling the truth. Maybe this is the same phenomena that is causing "See Noevo's" confusion: facts makes him unhappy and uncomfortable, therefore he literally cannot see them--- there is recent literature on that subject in a few psychology and sociology journals.

That phenomena also makes me wonder what facts I do not see, for the same reasons.

OK, I'll explain. Normally I would have explained this basic concept right away. I like it when people ask questions, allowing us to have an honest and forward moving conversation. But See Noevo has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of interest in a forward moving, honest conversation. Also, annoyingly, See Noevo is quick to criticize climate science yet demonstrates a lack of basic understanding of the simplest of concepts. I wanted to make sure this was clearly understood, thus my reticence to address the question right away.

An anomaly is a difference. In this context, a temperature anomaly is a number that reflects the difference between an arbitrarily set baseline. So, for example, if we expect a value of 1, but a measurement comes out as 1.1, then the anomaly is 0.1. If we expect a value of 1, but a measurement comes out as 0.9, then the anomaly is -0.1.

Anomalies are used mainly for three reasons. One is that different measurement contexts have different scales of variation, or measurements reside in vastly different parts of a scale. So, for example, if I say "my child has a fever" I could easily say "My child has a body temperature of 100.1" and you would know he has a fever. But if I'm a zoo keeper and I say "The aardvark has a temperature of 92.4" you might not know what I mean, you might not know if the aardvark is sick. So I would put it in relative terms and report the anomaly. "The aardvark's measured temperature is 0.8 degrees above the average for normal non-sick aardvarks." Then you know the aardvark has a fever.

Another reason anomalies are used is to allow the use of more temperature measurements. The temperature data are taken from a wide range of sources. It is possible for a thermometer to be off by a fixed amount. The differences in temperature are valid measurements, but the absolute value is not correct. More commonly, not all thermometers are properly placed. So, a properly placed thermometer would give one value, the incorrectly placed thermometer would give a different value. But for measurements taken over decades with that thermometer, the anomaly values (the differences from day to day, not the absolute values) properly track temperature change, even if the values themselves are all off by a degree. It is more accurate, honest, and numerically correct, therefore, to use anomalies rather than absolute values.

Anomalies reflect climatological relativism and relevance. If we are looking at change over time, anomalies are actually what we are looking at.

Finally, there is a statistical phenomenon that gives anomalies another advantage. When measurements are being checked against each other, it is statistically more reliable to compare anomalies than absolute measures.

So, in climatology we use a baseline, and the values that are then uses are measured against that baseline. It has become common in climatology to pick a baseline that is at least a couple of decades long (for long term trends, 30 or 50 years are common). Any time period will do, but for things like TV weather reporting, a recent time period makes more sense. This way the weather reporter can say "it is colder than we normally experience" by reference to a current/recent baseline.

There are two annoying facts in the reporting of global surface temperatures that many of us would like to fix.

1) Different data bases or institutions use different baselines. From a purely scientific, statistical point of view this is of no consequence. Various analyses can use the different baselines exactly because anomaly data are being used, or if the scale matters, it is a simple matter to adjust arithmetically. But when it comes to talking about this stuff to the general public, unnecessary confusion among those who don't know how this all works can arise.

2) Since we are talking about the prospect of global surface temps warming because of, essentially, industrialization, it would be better to settle on a "pre-industrial" value, but that is generally not done.

I report the NASA GISS data exactly as it is developed by NASA GISS. I have considered adding or switching to a pre-industrial baseline scale. And, if we were involved in an honest, forward moving conversation, I would not hesitate to do that .But we are not. We are involved in a conversation where one "side," the scientists, are trying to have an honest forward moving conversation, and the other "side," the deiners of science, those with a nefarious political agenda, or who just are not that smart, or whatever, would use a baseline decision such as this (picking a pre-industrial value) as an accusation of manipulating the date, or some other such thing.

NASA GISS uses, as stated in the post, of 1951-1980. All the values used to make the chart above are compared to the average across those years. Global warming was well underway prior to that period of time. Therefore many of the values, especially those in the first part of the series of values, will be negative.

From the article:

The baseline in the case of NASA GISS is 1951-1980, which does not represent pre-industrial levels.

I'm sorry Greg, we crossed there. Rather spectacularly :-)

#27
Thanks for a very helpful description.

#2
"In other words – how much of the warming was natural and how much human?"

"Why is 2015 so hot? A recent analysis by Climate Central makes clear that virtually all of the warming — some 95 percent — is due to human activity. The rest is due to the small, short-term boost to global temperatures from our current El Niño, along with some other natural factors."
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/12/15/3732080/nasa-2015-hottest-y…

"Based on the analysis described in the Methodology section below, we estimate the 2015 global temperature anomaly to be 1.05ºC (1.89ºF) above the 1850–1900 average that the IPCC takes to be “pre-industrial.” The year 2015 is therefore likely to be remembered as the first year that two symbolic thresholds were set: the 1ºC (1.8ºF) temperature anomaly threshold and the 400 parts per million (ppm) CO2 threshold.

Of that 1.05ºC temperature departure from pre-industrial, roughly 1.0ºC is due to the anthropogenic forcing, about 0.05ºC (0.09ºF) to 0.1ºC (0.18ºF) is due to El Niño and about 0.02ºC (0.04ºF) is due to higher solar activity. The remainder is well within the range of variations due to random weather, especially winter weather in Siberia and Canada. Volcanoes contribute very little at this time."
http://www.climatecentral.org/2015-global-temp-record

This is the unambiguous answer to RickA's question. It would, however, be inconvenient for him to accept that answer.

"OK, I’ll explain. Normally I would have explained this basic concept right away. I like it when people ask questions, allowing us to have an honest and forward moving conversation. But See Noevo has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of interest in a forward moving, honest conversation. Also, annoyingly, See Noevo is quick to criticize climate science yet demonstrates a lack of basic understanding of the simplest of concepts."

Your patience is amazing.

cosmicomics #31:

Thank you for your response.

I note that the climate central method compared the observation data to simulated global mean temperature rise from 1850-1900:

"In addition the observational data was compared with simulated global mean temperature rise from 1850–1900 in the CMIP5 models (Figure 2)."

I would be very interested in what an analysis would conclude if they compared observations with "simulated global mean temperature rise from 1900 - 1950, instead.

The reason I would be interested in this period is that it includes a larger temperature rise than 1850-1900, which I believe to be largely unexplained by an increase in CO2 due to humans.

Most scientists and analysis indicate that most of the warming (i.e. more than 50%) after 1950 is due to human causes - which (to me anyway) implies that less than 50% of the warming before 1950 was caused by humans. In other words - the warming from 1900 - 1950 was mostly non-human caused (> 50% natural).

Or put another way - if 95% of the warming is due to human emitted CO2 - what explains the warming from 1900 - 1950?

I cannot help but speculate that a fair amount of this warming was natural (more than 50% anyway) - and not caused by human CO2 emissions.

And if that is the case - than would the percentage of warming due to humans drop from 95% to a lower number if the comparison was shifted from 1850-1900 to 1900 - 1950?

Now you may think this is not a relevant question.

What do you think?

sorry - I had meant to delete the "Now you may think this is not a relevant question" before I hit post.

RickA

Or put another way – if 95% of the warming is due to human emitted CO2 – what explains the warming from 1900 – 1950?

The general view is that it was a combination of sparse volcanism (low sulphate aerosol loading = reduced aerosol negative forcing) and some increase in solar output.

Neither applies to warming since ~1940.

There was plenty of fossil fuel use before some magical date deniers assume to be the start of it. Coal was being burned for well over a century prior to 1900.

A huge proportion of the African rain forest was removed before 1930 or so. Other forests were cut. Other land use effects that contribute to global warming by releasing CO2 or damaging sinks were well underway before 1930.

And yes, there was reduced negative forcing in particular around the late 20s through the 30s.

That time period, by the way, is like a miniature Global Warming 1.0. Climate changes at that time are not well enough studied, but around 1860-1880 or so we saw an uptick in the rate of CO2 being added to the atmosphere, and this moderate but meaningful rate continued until about 1960. During the middle of that time, as noted, aerosols reduced, so you get an uptick in warming. That uptick in warming happened around the same time as a period of very severe tropical storms, all sorts of odd weather, and a healthy dose of desertification. There were also a lot of forest fires, and some of that was way worse because of bad lumbering practices (and lumbering-sparking locomotives running around among the slash).

The implied idea that warming and warming related effects before the magical date (which moves around between 1960 and 1980) was a period of global warming looking stuff with no actual AGW is, simply, wrong.

around 1860-1880 or so we saw an uptick in the rate of CO2 being added to the atmosphere, and this moderate but meaningful rate continued until about 1960

It continued to about 1940 and actually went down during World War 2. Reading the data is highly informative, amazingly enough.

So world wars are great for the greenhouse problem, not so great for humanity.

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-b…

RickA:

"Or put another way – if 95% of the warming is due to human emitted CO2 – what explains the warming from 1900 – 1950?"

In a very real sense the answer is irrelevant. If the physics tells us what's causing the warming in recent years, it doesn't really matter if we've figured out which of the various possible external forcings caused warming or cooling in the past. If our knowledge of previous solar cycles didn't exist at all, for instance, that wouldn't change our understanding of solar output over the last few decades.

Let us imagine we're very uncertain of what caused people to die before guns were invented. Your position is equivalent to saying "yeah, there's a body there with a gunshot wound to the head, but we don't know how Sir Joe Blow III died in 1215, therefore we can't say with certainty that the gunshot wound caused this modern death".

"Let us imagine we’re very uncertain of what caused people to die before guns were invented. Your position is equivalent to saying “yeah, there’s a body there with a gunshot wound to the head, but we don’t know how Sir Joe Blow III died in 1215, therefore we can’t say with certainty that the gunshot wound caused this modern death”."

Yeah, I was thinking of a similar analogy too, but didn't develop it. Thanks for doing that!

Greg Laden

The implied idea that warming and warming related effects before the magical date (which moves around between 1960 and 1980) was a period of global warming looking stuff with no actual AGW is, simply, wrong.

Yes, and I was oversimplifying above. To be fair, I did point out to RickA that there was an anthro effect before mid-C20th but I can't find the comment here - it may have been at ATTP's.

BBD #36 - So that would natural, not human caused (lack of volcanoes and sun). As I indicated - humans caused some warming 1900 - 1950 - but less than 1/2 (50%).

dhogaza #39 - I disagree. If the comparison shows 95% human caused now - but the comparison only shows 70% human caused (I made that up) when comparing two warm periods (comparing to 1900 - 1950 instead of the pretty flat 1850 to 1900) that makes a pretty big difference to me.

Greg - I don't deny there was an anthro effect prior to 1950 - it is just that it is less than 50% of the warming is due to anthro prior to 1950.

What I have trouble reconciling in my mind is going from anthro being less than 50% of the cause of warming pre-1950 and then jumping to more than 100% after 1950 - no gradual ramp up - just a giant step right at 1950. It makes no sense to me.

If the comparison I suggested (two warm periods) showed instead of 95% human, 70% human (or whatever it shows) I could understand it better.

Even with the el nino number being 5% of the warming - at least we are acknowledging that el nino is natural and not human caused - and are not saying humans caused 110% of the warming (which is the part I have trouble with). I just wonder if it is really smaller - like 70% or something - if the comparison is between a warm period (now) and another warm period (1900 - 1950).

RickA:

it is just that it is less than 50% of the warming is due to anthro prior to 1950

It has been pointed out to you before that you have no justification for making this claim. The fact that you repeat it demonstrates that you are dishonest (which is not a name-call by the way, merely a statement of fact).

Even with the el nino number being 5% of the warming

If you want to be silly about this then we could say that anthropogenic warming is (say) 105% of the warming in a la nina year and (say) 95% of the warming in an el nino year.

But that would be silly since it's the average over enough years that matters.

From what I've seen though, RickA just wants to be silly and dishonest (statements of fact, not name-calling).

RickA-"Even with the el nino number being 5% of the warming – at least we are acknowledging that el nino is natural and not human caused "
What makes you think that warming from an El Nino event cannot have a human caused component? Does El Nino generate energy on it's own?

skeptictmac57: RickA-“Even with the el nino number being 5% of the warming - at least we are acknowledging that el nino is natural and not human caused ”

What makes you think that warming from an El Nino event cannot have a human caused component? Does El Nino generate energy on it’s own?"

The jury is still "out" on if ENSO has been modified by humans. ININO5 sums to +1.12c from year 1856 to 2014--- close enough to the human-caused signal to suggest no change when the signal is removed.

RickA said "Even with the el nino number being 5% of the warming – at least we are acknowledging that el nino is natural and not human caused – and are not saying humans caused 110% of the warming (which is the part I have trouble with)."

Again, El Nino does not cause any warming, it merely shifts some of the warming from the oceans to the atmosphere. When you look at all the known natural causes of climate change there should actually be a slight cooling trend. That's why it's possible to say humans have caused 110% of recent warming. The only other option is that there is some large unknown natural cause of climate change. That's possible but with the attention climate science has received over the last 30 years it seems extremely unlikely.

RickA “Even with the el nino number being 5% of the warming – at least we are acknowledging that el nino is natural and not human caused – and are not saying humans caused 110% of the warming (which is the part I have trouble with).”

No scientist has ever stated humans have caused more than 100% of the anomalous warming of Earth; claiming a scientist has said so is asinine and dishonest.

The evidence shows, and therefore most scientists agree, that humans have caused about 110% of the observed warming of Earth. We know with very high confidence how much energy human activities have added to Earth: about 10% of that energy is still not observed.

RickA

If you average the natural forcing change (solar and volcanism) over the C20th there is no trend.

So some other physical mechanism is required to explain the centennial warming trend.

The climate system isn't powered by unicorn flatulence.

BBD:

"The climate system isn’t powered by unicorn flatulence."

At least that would be an external forcing! :)

Maybe it would be helpful if somebody could post or point to a shaded graph of warming over the expected cooling trend that carefully explains all the elements. People often do better with visuals. Combine that with built-in prejudice against climate scientists, and you have an extra high communications hurdle that the usual shorthand may not surmount.

Obstreperous Applesauce: "Maybe it would be helpful if somebody could post or point to a shaded graph of warming over the expected cooling trend that carefully explains all the elements. People often do better with visuals. Combine that with built-in prejudice against climate scientists, and you have an extra high communications hurdle that the usual shorthand may not surmount."

Such a graph exists on many thousands of places; the WikiPedia article on global warming attribution has many good visuals on the subject, with error bars, with values in watt*meters^2

To Greg #27:

Thanks for your response.
It was almost twice as long as your article!
But I still have some issues.

When I originally asked “What are the temps anomalous of?”, I was thinking they *might* be the *difference* in average temperature *changes*. For example, say the average temp from 1951-1980 was 58.0 F, but the average annual change in that time period was +0.1 F. Then say the average temp from 1880 to 1881 changed by -0.2 F. The “anomaly” under this scenario would be -0.3 F.

But I THINK you’re saying that the anomaly in your blog article is just the difference in absolute temps
(“a temperature anomaly is a number that reflects the difference between an arbitrarily set baseline.”).
That is, the difference from the average temp of 1951-1980.

*I’m not sure that’s what you mean, though,* because then you seem to be implying the anomaly is not of absolute temps but rather of temp changes (“It is possible for a thermometer to be off by a fixed amount. The differences in temperature are valid measurements, but the absolute value is not correct… But for measurements taken over decades with that thermometer, the anomaly values (the differences from day to day, not the absolute values) properly track temperature change, even if the values themselves are all off by a degree.”).

I think my version of “anomaly” might possibly be more valuable. It mitigates the effect of possible inaccuracies or biases in *absolute* temperature measurements taken over a hundred years ago. Because, as I think you say, as long as the *absolutes* are off consistently, the *differences/changes* in the absolutes could still be meaningful.

And because I was thinking the anomalies represented *differences* from the 1951-1980 average temperature *changes*, I kept asking why the 1880-1940 anomalies were consistently negative.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change

Desertphile- "The jury is still “out” on if ENSO has been modified by humans. ININO5 sums to +1.12c from year 1856 to 2014— close enough to the human-caused signal to suggest no change when the signal is removed."
I see. I will take that into consideration.
I was thinking along the lines of this:
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-could-make-super-el-n…

It seems very plausible that dumping more energy into the deep oceans could intensify an El Nino event when the conditions are optimal. But I will concede that it still falls in to the 'yet to be confirmed' category.

skeptictmac57: "It seems very plausible that dumping more energy into the deep oceans could intensify an El Nino event when the conditions are optimal. But I will concede that it still falls in to the ‘yet to be confirmed’ category."

Alas, I only know what my Excel Spreadsheet tells me. :-) A few months ago I asked Dr. Mann the same question you asked here; Dr. Mann said, and has often said, that the time span where ENSO data have been collected appears far too short to show any pattern at all. That is a good and a bad thing: if we suddenly see a change over the span of a decade or so, in the near future, it suggests human-caused warming is the reason--- but with little or no confidence.

ININO5 data are here:

http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/inino5.dat

Current value for November is almost +3c

Indeed. But inspired by Greg's comment at #27, I was thinking more of an unsophisticated illustration of the underlying idea...
Meh...

Obstreperous Applesauce: "Indeed. But inspired by Greg’s comment at #27, I was thinking more of an unsophisticated illustration of the underlying idea…Meh"

If the target audience is denialists, then no amount of "dumbing down" will work, alas. Not even a line in Crayon.

For everyone else, Dr. Mann's DIRE PREDICTIONS is crammed full of visuals, graphics, graphs, maps, and simple explanations for complex ideas. So simple even I understood some of them.

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/

The anomaly values are not absolute temperatures. The relative values (that results in negative or positive) reflects the fact that the number used in the graph is on a scale where the specified baseline is zero. Putting this yet another way, the specified baseline is the average of those years anomaly values. Very simple. If you add together all the anomaly values for the baseline period, the result will be zero, plus or minus rounding errors.

Greg Laden: " Very simple. If you add together all the anomaly values for the baseline period, the result will be zero, plus or minus rounding errors."

Explaining high school math to someone who has insisted all of the world's geophysicists are wrong. Maybe you could have a go at the Flat Earth believers that, inexplicably, appear to be increasing in numbers on various Internet forums (such as YouTube).

Perhaps Greg Laden could also write a blog entry about the "point of diminishing returns" when it comes to explaining reality, over and over and over and over again, to the same person or people who reject reality. What is the upper limit for attempts before giving up? I mean "the social contract" mentioned by Kant and others--- how much do sane people owe in time and effort to try and educate someone who has no interest at all in being educated, yet insists (many times) that everyone educate him (and some times her)?

Thirty years ago, in FidoNet's HOLYSMOKE echo (message forum) people encountered Young Earth Creationists for the first time, and these people tried very hard, at great length, expending vast amounts of time and effort, to educate the Creationists. The Creationists had no interest at all in the answers to their "questions," almost all of which were falsehoods stated under the pretense of asking questions. Day after day, for a decade, dozens of people explained reality to the same individual Creationists, and it was all, without exception, of no value at all to the Creationists: they didn't want to learn.

The exact same process is occurring with deniers of the evidence for human-caused climate change. Greg Laden here is wasting his time (which of course as a non-Scientology customer he is free do so) explaining basic math to someone who has been conditioned to reject explanations about how the world works.

Why bother, when it is already known and understand that the person asking questions has no desire to learn? When does the "social contract" expire?

To Greg #58:

“The anomaly values are not absolute temperatures… Very simple. If you add together all the anomaly values for the baseline period, the result will be zero, plus or minus rounding errors.”

I was already aware the anomaly values were not absolute temperatures.

But, very simply, the anomaly values represent differences BETWEEN absolute temperatures - in this case, A (the average absolute temperature for a given year) minus B (the average absolute temperature for 1951-1980).

And as I said, such anomalies are only as reliable as the absolute temperature measurements themselves, which, as you noted, may not be reliable.

I think my version of “anomaly” would possibly be more reliable, and valuable.

No you weren't, because you are not smart enough to play that dumb.

As explained, it is not true that anomalies are only as good as the absolute temperatures. Again, you have misunderstood.

What I have trouble reconciling in my mind is going from anthro being less than 50% of the cause of warming pre-1950 and then jumping to more than 100% after 1950 – no gradual ramp up – just a giant step right at 1950. It makes no sense to me.

The root cause is cognitive bias. It's a rich and complex field of conditions - see if you can pick which one(s) fit(s) your symptomology.

Bernard J.: "The root cause is cognitive bias. It’s a rich and complex field of conditions – see if you can pick which one(s) fit(s) your symptomology."

Thank you for the link. I had no idea there were so many to choose from.

It's not a step change, it is a progression.

http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/figures/WGI_AR5_Fig8-18.jpg

#43
"What I have trouble reconciling in my mind is going from anthro being less than 50% of the cause of warming pre-1950 and then jumping to more than 100% after 1950 – no gradual ramp up – just a giant step right at 1950. It makes no sense to me."

It doesn't make sense to anyone. (See #65.) Unless you can find a reasonable explanation for your giant step, you're left with wizardry or divine intervention. Is that what you're claiming?

RickA: "“What I have trouble reconciling in my mind is going from anthro being less than 50% of the cause of warming pre-1950 and then jumping to more than 100% after 1950 – no gradual ramp up – just a giant step right at 1950. It makes no sense to me.”"

Where does anyone say that?

RickA: “What I have trouble reconciling in my mind is going from anthro being less than 50% of the cause of warming pre-1950 and then jumping to more than 100% after 1950 – no gradual ramp up – just a giant step right at 1950. It makes no sense to me.”

Golly, that does not make any sense to me, either. "RickA" is asserting that scientists claim humans are responsible for more than 100% of human-caused warming. Gosh.

Hey, "RickA!" Here's a Crayola Brand diagram, so simple even Ted Cruz can understand:

1) Humans are not the cause of more than 100% of Earth's anomalous warming;

2) No scientist has ever said we are the cause of more than 100% of Earth's anomalous warming.

3) Most scientists working in the related science venues have stated that humans are the cause of more than 100% of Earth's measured warming.

4) The scientific consensus, reviewed and reported about by the IPCC, is that humans are:

4a) ... more than 95% likely to have been the cause all warming since year 1950, and

4b) ... more than 95% likely to have been the cause of more than 100% of the measured warming since year 1880.

5) Claiming scientists have said that which they have not is a sign that you have no valid criticism.

6) When you pretend to be an idiot, you run the risk of people believing it is so.

7) No scientist has ever said we are the cause of more than 100% of Earth's anomalous warming.

8) No scientist has ever said we are the cause of more than 100% of Earth's anomalous warming.

9) No scientist has ever said we are the cause of more than 100% of Earth's anomalous warming.

10) No scientist has ever said we are the cause of more than 100% of Earth's anomalous warming.

11) No scientist has ever said we are the cause of more than 100% of Earth's anomalous warming.

12) No scientist has ever said we are the cause of more than 100% of Earth's anomalous warming.

BBD:

Checkmate, alarmists!

Source: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/10/the-evolution-of-…

Hardy har-har. And all too horribly true. Look at the error bars on 'The Natural Cycle' :-)

Greg #68:

IPCC 5 Chapter 10 - Executive summary (pg. 869):

"More than half of the observed increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) from 1951 to 2010 is very likely due to the observed anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations."

Now I read this statement as saying that it is not very likely that more than 1/2 of the warming before 1950 is anthropogenic.

If evidence of this existed - they would have pushed the date back - i.e. 1930 to 2010 or 1900 to 2010 - etc.

So that takes care of the pre-1950 portion of my argument. There is not enough evidence to support saying more than 1/2 of pre-1950 warming is caused by humans - which supports my opinion that less than 1/2 of the warming pre-1950 is caused by humans.

As to the post-1950 warming - many people on this blog have argued in the past that but for human aerosols, which have a cooling effect, it would be even warmer - and attribute 110% of the warming post 1950 to humans.

Ricka: "As to the post-1950 warming – many people on this blog have argued in the past that but for human aerosols, which have a cooling effect, it would be even warmer – and attribute 110% of the warming post 1950 to humans."

Name just one person, here or anywhere else on the planet, who has said humans have caused 110% of the warming ("post 1950" or otherwise).

To Greg #62:

“As explained, it is not true that anomalies are only as good as the absolute temperatures. Again, you have misunderstood.”

But if the absolute temps are lower than the baseline’s AND are significantly under-stated for some reason, then the anomalies will be both negative and significantly *over*-stated.

To illustrate, I’ve made up a simple and *fictitious* example:

Accurate temps baseline 1951-1954: Average 58.0 F. [Sequence: 58.1, 57.8, 57.9, 58.3; Average increase +0.1.]

INaccurate temps for 1900-1903: 54.0, 54.5, 53.8, 54.1.
INaccurate anomalies: -4.0, -3.5, -4.2, -3.9.
Vs.
Accurate temps for 1900-1903: 58.0, 58.5, 57.8, 58.1.
Accurate anomalies: 0.0, +0.5, -0.2, +0.1.
……
Then, using MY version of “anomalies” (difference in temp *changes*),
you get +0.4, -0.8, +0.2,
regardless whether you use the inaccurate comparative temps or the accurate comparative temps.

No, they wouldn't be for several reasons. First, the baseline is used to get a starting point from the anomalies, not the absolute temperatures. So there is no relationship between problems in temperature measures and the baseline. They are not uses to make the baseline.Second, there is no reason to assume that temperatures are biased in one direction or another. Third the use of anomalies obviates any bias in the temperature measure errors. Forth, studies have been done to look at biases and they have not come up with anything interesting.

It may be that "your version" of the anomalies is the version of the anomalies that is used, because your objection to the way anomalies are used are obviated by the way they are used.

Desertphile #71:

Gavin says the best guess is 110%:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/08/ipcc-attribution-…

He is a climate scientist.

Are you sure about your statement?

RickA:"Gavin says the best guess is 110%: He is a climate scientist. Are you sure about your statement?"

110% of the measured warming. 100% of the warming. Read the page you cited.

RickA

So that takes care of the pre-1950 portion of my argument. There is not enough evidence to support saying more than 1/2 of pre-1950 warming is caused by humans – which supports my opinion that less than 1/2 of the warming pre-1950 is caused by humans.

This is the very definition of a strawman argument. Nobody claims otherwise.

For improved clarity on this issue, all you have to do is look at the evolution of major forcings over the C20th - something also handily documented in AR5. Reading to learn, rather than to quote-mine, would have a dramatic effect on your topic knowledge.

Here is the relevant figure to get you started.

And Rick, remember that if you average volcanic aerosol forcing and solar forcing across the whole century the trend is flat. Natural variability tends to cancel out over multidecadal timescales.

So to explain the centennial warming trend as a whole you need to look at the longer-term, ongoing changes in net forcing. When you do, you see that there is a net increase, becoming substantial post-1970, and that it is predominantly driven by anthropogenic emissions of GHGs.

2016 set to be hottest year on record globally
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/17/2016-set-to-be-hotte…

RickA, what Gavin Schmidt is saying in that RC post is that if it wasn't for cooling factors, mostly aerosols, the warming would be 110% of what it actually has been.

The figure from AR5-WG1 that BBD linked shows it at a glance.

To Greg #74:

Two points:
1)
“First, the baseline is used to get a starting point from the anomalies, not the absolute temperatures.”

I’d say the baseline is used to get a starting point FOR (not “from”) the anomalies,
and the baseline DOES use the absolute temperatures. Without absolute temperatures, how would you calculate anomalies from the baseline?

2)
“Second, there is no reason to assume that temperatures are biased in one direction or another. Third the use of anomalies obviates any bias in the temperature measure errors. Forth, studies have been done to look at biases and they have not come up with anything interesting.”

If the absolute temperature measurements, even from long ago, are NOT biased in one direction or another, and are NOT in error, then why not use the absolute temperature measurements?

But as I said, they ARE using the absolute temps anyway; their calculated anomalies are simply the difference between measured absolute temps.

The data for which a baseline (period of years decades long) is selected, from which the mean baseline value is calculated are anomalies. The raw temperatures are converted to anomalies at the the thermometer.

The reason to not use the absolute temperature measures is that anomalies are an accurate reflection of change, and because anomalies are statistically better behaved and allow the identification of bad data, etc.

The anomalies are differences between absolute temperatures at a particular thermometer. Go back to the zookeeper analogy.

BBD:

I think you are talking about intrinsic natural variability.

I am talking about all non-human forcings.

If the sun gets more active for a century, than it will get warmer - and it will not cancel out (necessarily).

The warming from 1900 - 1950 gets blamed by a lot of people on the sun being in an active period.

That is not intrinsic natural variability - that is nature.

Intrinsic natural variability (at least my understanding) is when heat slops around from the ocean to the atmosphere or visa versa. Moving the heat around - but not new heat.

Nature is intrinsic plus all the other non-human forcings - whether they are orbital and act over 1000's of years or the sun and act over centuries or a volcano and act over 2 years.

Just to make sure we are on the same page - do you agree that intrinsic natural variability is not the same thing as all natural focings?

If not - why not?

Mal Adapted #81:

I understand that.

But Gavin is saying that the best guess is that humans caused 100% of the net warming (after the cooling is subtracted from the warming) - from 1950 to today.

That is that all the warming we have measured from 1950 to today is caused by our human emissions.

Zero caused by el nino.

Or am I misunderstanding you and Gavin?

Zero caused by el nino.

Of course el nino causes warming in the year or so when it's actually happening. The point is that 100% of the warming after you filter out the temporary effects of el nino/la nina is human caused.

Or am I misunderstanding you and Gavin?

I think we all know the answer to that question.

RickA

Just to make sure we are on the same page – do you agree that intrinsic natural variability is not the same thing as all natural focings?

If not – why not?

This is all natural variability. The distinction you are making is between internal variability and total natural variability. It sounds like you are actually talking about unforced internal variability.

If the sun gets more active for a century, than it will get warmer – and it will not cancel out (necessarily).

Sure, but that isn't what happened, as I have explained.

See Noevo

If you want to play around with baselines and get a sense of what is going on, you can experiment with the data visualisation tools provided at WoodForTrees.

Here is a quick example where GISTEMP, HADCRUT4 and RSS are rebaselined to the UAH 1981 - 2010 period for ease of comparison.

I think you guys are mixing stuff up.

The IPCC statement I quoted above is that more than 1/2 the warming is from anthropogenic increase in GHG concentrations.

Gavins statement is:

"The bottom line is that multiple studies indicate with very strong confidence that human activity is the dominant component in the warming of the last 50 to 60 years, and that our best estimates are that pretty much all of the rise is anthropogenic."

And Gavin goes on to show the center of the bell curve on 110%.

Now you guys are netting Anthro increases of GHGs with all the non-anthro stuff (sun, volcano, etc.).

BBD - that chart shows Anthro and non-Anthro.

I have no problem with the IPCC version because more than half can be 51%, which still allows for netting with the sun or whatever other non-human forcings there are.

It is when people start to sloppily say 110% of the observed warming is Anthro that I have trouble - because it doesn't read as netting out the non-Anthro.

RickA:

There is not enough evidence to support saying more than 1/2 of pre-1950 warming is caused by humans – which supports my opinion that less than 1/2 of the warming pre-1950 is caused by humans.

No. Lack of evidence for something is not evidence for the opposite.

And you call yourself a lawyer. Sheesh.

Now you guys are netting Anthro increases of GHGs with all the non-anthro stuff (sun, volcano, etc.).

The non-Anthro forcings (sun, volcano) are zero or negative since 1950.

So what is your point?

From:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/08/ipcc-attribution-…

forrest curo says:
27 Aug 2014 at 9:56 AM

Um, I’m getting a little confused about an attribution greater-than 100%. Does this mean that the trend without human influences would have been ‘cooling’, ie that the human effects are offsetting influences that would have (before we destablizing the system) gone the opposite direction?

[Response: exactly. – gavin ]

#84, #85
As you yourself put it in #84:
"Intrinsic natural variability (at least my understanding) is when heat slops around from the ocean to the atmosphere or visa versa. Moving the heat around – but not new heat."

So yes, "Zero caused by el nino." El Niño, as you suggested, redistributes heat from the ocean to the surface. In La Niña years the redistribution goes the other way, but La Niña years still show a warming trend.
http://rabett.blogspot.dk/2014/12/plenty-of-trend-at-bottom.html
https://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=67

The modern warming trend is caused by human activity. It's primarily the result of cumulative CO2 emissions, so you won't find jumps much bigger than the jump from 2014 to 2015. Other causes have been looked into, and they've been found wanting.

RickA

BBD – that chart shows Anthro and non-Anthro.

Yes, so it shows how anthropogenic forcing has increased relative to natural forcing.

I have no problem with the IPCC version because more than half can be 51%, which still allows for netting with the sun or whatever other non-human forcings there are.

The pretty picture from AR5 shows the relative contributions from all major forcings. Only anthropogenic forcings have increased sufficiently to account for observed modern warming.

It is when people start to sloppily say 110% of the observed warming is Anthro that I have trouble – because it doesn’t read as netting out the non-Anthro.

Look at the figure from AR5. Burning fossil fuels produces a cooling haze of aerosols as well as a warming infusion of CO2. Gavin and others are correct to suggest that we might be warmer still right now if not for those aerosols.

#89
Re. the 110% figure, Mal Adapted's explanation #81 could hardly be clearer. Desertphile #71 has made the same point.

So why do you then write, "It is when people start to sloppily say 110% of the observed warming is Anthro that I have trouble." This is a blog with a comment thread, not a peer-reviewed paper. There are people commenting here who are scientifically well-founded, and there may be some, like me, who aren't. In any case, some inaccuracies and instances of sloppiness can be expected, but instead of focusing on the essential, you make an effort not to understand by insisting on inaccuracies, even after the proper explanation has been presented. You show no interest in learning.

Part of the problem here is calibrating to a moving target.

If you look at surface temperature estimates from proxies from the last several centuries, the temperature wiggles up and down. That wiggling started to include an unnatural upward trend some time in the recent past. Before around 1900 it is probably very hard to see that, but it is very likely there. During the first half of the 20th century, you can see it. During the last half of the 20th century it is the dominant signal. Etc.

Moving from an up and down squiggle in a certain area to a squiggle sitting on an upward trend is a 100% human effect.

Let's give RickA the benefit of the doubt for the moment, and assume that he's correct. Now let's see where that leads us:

Ninety-nine percent (99%) is truly "more than half", so we have no contradiction...

Then, to continue RickA's logic in #72, "... it is not very likely that more than 99% of the warming before 1950 is anthropogenic."

Hence, if RickA is correct, he is pointing out that only 1% of the warming before 1950 is likely to be other than human-caused...

Ergo, per RickA, it is overwhelmingly probable that nearly all the warming before 1950 is caused by human activity.

Good job, RickA. You seem to be making progress. Finally.

Brainstorms: "Ergo, per RickA, it is overwhelmingly probable that nearly all the warming before 1950 is caused by human activity."

By gods, "RickA" deserves a hearty "Well done, Lass!" (or Lad, as the case may be).

RickA:

That is that all the warming we have measured from 1950 to today is caused by our human emissions.
Zero caused by el nino.

Or am I misunderstanding you and Gavin?

What you apparently haven't understood is that el nino (actually, all quasi-periodic oceanic oscillations) only moves heat around in the global system. The accumulation of heat, whether in the atmosphere, the land or the ocean, is due to external radiative forcing. Since solar output has been effectively constant during the period of interest, that means more heat is being retained in the global system. That's due to the increasing amount of Tyndall gasses in the atmosphere, and the only source of those is anthropogenic. By the same token, anthropogenic aerosols have reduced radiative forcing to varying extents by increasing albedo, causing more incoming solar radiation to be reflected.

BTW, I've also noticed that RickA seems to be making a genuine effort to overcome his initially apparent cognitive bias. He should be encouraged as long as he continues to show the effort.

Just had a record breaking December heatwave here in my home town.

Four days in a row over forty degrees Celsius.

Port Augusta, a town not too far to my north was the hottest town on the planet just last week with temperatures hitting 47.2 Celsius

http://www.pressreader.com/australia/sunday-mail/20151220/2814792753717…

Or 117 degrees Fahrenheit whilst on that day my home city reached 43.2 or 109.76 F.

Oh and there's this to look forward to over the next few days :

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-23/sa-in-for-worst-christmas-day-fir…

After I start work early tomorrow because I'm working outside in 39 degree Celsius (102 F) heat.

After struggling to keep my garden of native plants alive after a poor nights sleep by spending hours soaking the ground in water as rainfall is well below average.

Damn right I take Denialist bullshit personally.

Oh & don't tell me that Adelaide and Australia generally is always hot in summer. That we always fear bushfires and swelter, scorch and wilt in extreme heat.

Gee, I know.

I have, after all, lived here for most of my life. So yeah. I know we get hot and I also can durn well recognise a trend and unusual conditions for my location when I feel them on my skin and experience them more often and worse than I ever have before thankyou.

When we have our longest heatwave on record one year and the hottest the next and now the earliest now all in very quick succession; how stupid do you have to be to think that's just purely coincidence especially given all of, well, the science?

https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/angry-summer