* Posts by Evan Jones

63 publicly visible posts • joined 4 May 2008

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NASA's curious climate capers

Evan Jones

MWP Lost (and Found)

You're stuck, Mark, between the the experts of wine and weather.

Another important point not enough address is the interdisciplinary aspects of the problem. The climatologists don't cut it. We also need the physicists, biologists, engineers, archaeologists and historians (inter alia) in on the act, especially regarding the delicate and highly politicized subject of paleoclimate. (And, obviously, classicists and vintners.) The 2003 Harvard-Smithsonian study that recovered the Medieval (and Roman) Warm Period from the IPCC lost-and-found is an example of this.

Making climate the sole prerogative of the climatologists is as foolish and limited as leaving history up to the historians.

Evan Jones

Once Upon A Millennium . . .

"They do."

They don't.

All we get is the raw and adjusted version. Sans any explanations. Bulldog not fed.

"How do you think they got the changes to the US temperatures that changed the warmest year to the second warmest? Guessing???"

How do I think? As it happens, I don't have to. I know.

Story Time!

Here's a condensed version what went down.

The date is July 26, 2007. Anthony Watts is evaluating photos by Don Kostuch of the NOAA Stevenson screen at Detroit Lakes, Michigan. He notes that not only are two nearby air conditioner vents but that it is falling over and sinking into the swamp. (Yes, kids, it is an official USHCN station of record. Daft, what?) He also posts the adjusted climate record and there is a curious disconnect. A gap in the records followed by a strangely high reading. Much commentary ensues as to the possible cause.

Time passes. It is now August. The adjusted data shows that even without April-August, the strange jump remains. Steve McIntyre is now on the case. He is trying to reverse-engineer the problem (without any code and without any of the individual step adjustments). He puts his statistical acumen to work and determines that the difference between raw and adjusted data is too extreme to be attributable to anything but some sort of adjustment glitch. He notifies GISS, which acknowledges the error, asserts it is trivial, and (very grudgingly) thanks Mac by email.

Mac should have been able to go to any given step of the adjustment which would have turned it up in short order (it would have been noted long since). Instead he noticed the problem only serendipitously and had to use the before-and after without the benefit of any steps in between and no hint of how the "before" became the "after" in the first place.

Oh, I almost forgot. GISS did not announce the change of data but simply made it without notice or comment. The old data was simply erased.

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There may be more October hijinks afoot:

A poster on WUWT reports the following:

On CA, Steve Mc found problems with a temperature data file. As the issue was being discussed, NOAA began deleting files.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4395

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¿Que pasa, NASA?

Este Frío Triste Agosto

Este agosto

No me gusto,

Amiga mia

Hace tan fría!

Y menos húmedio

Que el promedio.

Yo lamento

Sin caliento . . .

¿Dónde la puedo

Conseguir ajustedo?

Evan Jones
Stop

Cards on the table, PLEASE

"RealClimate's 18 November posting "Mind the Gap!" shows why there has been an upward trend in the data, and goes into all the gory details that have been omitted here."

Yes, they don't seem to find anything the matter with current SHAP procedure, do they, the poor dears?

"There seems to be a fair few people suggesting that the data should be entered into the models raw. This is not the case, the actual data the you get from monitoring stations needs to be processed before it can become usefull, this is for several reasons, the most significant being that different weather stations in different contries have different measuring procedures, some even measure in different temperatures (C or F) Sometimes one station will give a consistent error in its readings, maybe due to being out of callibration. All this data needs to be processed before it can be usefull."

Oh, I agree. I would go even so far as to say that measuring procedures, calibration, and conversion are the very least of it. However, raw data must needs be archived as well as with data at each stage of adjustment.

The objection, of course, is that adjustment procedures themselves are controversial. SHAP, FILNET, and UHI spring to mind! Not to mention "homogenization" (which somehow seems to involve a bit of pasteurization).

In short, provide raw data, the reasons and ALL methods for adjustment (i.e., logs of station histories, data forms, etc.). And don't expect the public to accept these very necessary adjustments unless all the cards are on the table.

Another problem is there is a margin of error at every stage of adjustment and after a half dozen adjustments things start to become meaningless in a milieu where 0.1C is an important difference. And no, oversampling doesn't feed the bulldog: Because of uneven distribution a lot of the data is based on a tiny number of stations. (I am not criticizing the gridding procedure, here, note.)

Of course the stations should conform in such a fashion that little or no adjustment should be necessary.

The NOAA is beginning to address this through the CRN network. These new stations are to be very well sited and fully automated, thus requiring no adjustment (outside instrument drift). All data to be served raw. Unfortunately this only covers the US and cannot redeem the historical data.

To sum: I don't care about how well it is explained by RC. SO not interested. Neither am I interested in stuff like the meaningless pap on NOAA's page that is supposed to explain the USHCN v2 ajustments (while somehow failing to mention the amounts of the adjustments).

I want to see all data archived at all stages of adjustment, with means of reproducing results at each step.

This would allow scientists from the outside to consider the data properly and maybe even (Shock. Horror.) suggest adjustments of their own. And furthermore I don't see how it is even vaguely possible to object to this.

Evan Jones

Fixes

"Then how about correcting your expansion of FTE? It stands for Full-Time _Equivalent_ not employee."

So noted and logged.

And enshrined in the Comment Record.

"Go check some skeptics"

Not difficult. Skeptics have made mistakes, but operate very much in the open and with cards on the table. Unfortunately we can't say that for the other side. It's discouraging when requests for data series or code are denied (see the Climate Audit record for excruciating detail, including rude refusals by email).

Evan Jones

GreenScam?

"Strange how many people know about the colonisation of Greenland but don't know the result.

It was unsustainable, the result of a short term warming in the area and died out VERY quickly.

Greenland was a scam. Even the name was made to enforce the scam."

That's because it wasn't a scam, as we were taught in school. Settlements lasted for hundreds of years and subsisted on standard agriculture. There were hunting stations as far north as the 70th parallel. The Greenland colony did not die out until after 1400. There are some recent studies that find all sorts of leafy schmutz that dates back a thousand years under what is now solid icesheet.

As for forcings, we have to consider what % of the greenhouse is attributable to vapor and how much to CO2, CH4, SO2, etc. (a topic in wild dispute). And what the diminishing return rate of CO2 really is. Not to mention a 3%+ decrease in arctic albedo due to soot. All in dispute, with wide MoE in play.

From a practical pov it is one heck of a lot easier and cheaper to clean up non-CO2 aspects (esp. soot) than to get rid of the CO2, stipulating there is a severe problem in the first place.

Evan Jones

Landlubbers

"4C warmer takes us into a climate system that has not existed for the period of animals colonising land on the earth."

'WAY off. Climate is c. 14°C today. Proxies indicate that when the creepy-crawlies were emerging it was c. 22°C, and it was that hot for most of the time until the Cenozoic (with a Big Freeze in the late Paleozoic, a recovery, then a cooling slide from the late Mesozoic). No, we wouldn't want to see 22°C again, but that's how warm it was when land surface life evolved.

Evan Jones

LIA MIA?

"So, technically, how deep was this mini ice age in 1880? Because it's a shitload warmer now after that "technically mini ice age" than it was before it."

Depends on what you mean by "before". The Little Ice Age grand minimums are estimated as follows:

Wolf (1280-1340)

Spörer (1415-1534)

Maunder (1645-1715)

Dalton (1790-1840)

So by mid-19th Century we were climbing out of the LIA for real. There were ups and downs all through, but the nadir was around 1700 and we have been (on average) picking up around 1°F per century since (so far as we can tell), including the 20th. You'll also notice we are about due for another grand minimum. All in all, around 250 of the last 1000 years were grand minimum conditions, so yes, it CAN happen here.

The Medieval Warm Period was deleted by the "team", as exemplified by the infamous Dr. Deming quote ("We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period"). Bet he wishes he never said that! The 1995 IPCC graph of the paleo record shows the MWP as a lot warmer than today.

Non-dendro proxy reconstructions do indicate the MWP was somewhat warmer than today, and that is strongly supported by archaeological evidence (and it's in the contemporary literature as is the LIA).

As for the 1880 records, they may well better than today's. The instruments were great, the readings were consistent and conscientious (and politics was not at issue), and the stations were yet to be taken over by urban, suburban, and exurban creep. When the MMTS was introduced starting in the 1980s, they were operated by cable and the result was than a large majority which used to be well sited are now within ten yards (or closer) of the housing containing the instrumentation. Over 50% of all today's US stations surveyed sport CRN4 violations. NOAA's own CRN estimates that such violation biases readings to the warm by 2 or more degrees C (note the lack of decimal point).

What does this mean? We are still trying to find out. But it's obvious that we need more quality control. Fix the dang violations. Then let the data speak for itself; there will be no need for adjustments.

Evan Jones
Stop

D.E.W. Diligence

"How many of the sensors actually stand in places that can give a sensible reference point?"

For GHCN (where NASA/GISS gets its data)? In the US, about one in seven. Sic.

In the rest of the world? Hard to say without better photographic evidence, but the indications are that with the possible exception of Australia (and WITHOUT the exception of Western Europe), the surface stations are much more unreliable and badly sited than in the US.

We do have some cursory shots of some of those "September Siberia" stations (there are around a dozen at or a bit under the 80th parallel) and they are magpie-scandals.

The sensors appear to be attached to heated buildings (any nearby building even without heat is a severe heat sink violation), even on roofs (a ghastly disqualifier--any sensor on a roof is estimated to be running at least 5°C hot, probably worse in winter).

And the many of the sites are in mini-urban areas using district heating (huge steam pipes running all over town) that, even if insulated (and photos show not all are), will create UHI (if 5 degrees warmer than forty-below warrants the letter "H").

And since there are no stations north of there and NASA hates a gap, they estimate the entire Arctic based on the (bad) stations surrounding the Arctic Circle. And the Arctic just happens to be where GISS is finding a very large amount of the warming. We don't know how bad it is, but I contend we need to find out.

Well, you get the idea.

Evan Jones
Coat

"My shoe is off, my foot is cold."

"Feel free to live on in your fantasy world. Out here in the Real One, the effects of climate change on our environment are now trivially easy to see,"

Thank you. Freedom is a beautiful thing. But I am not sure whom you are addressing, here.

The article did not claim climate change is not occurring. Neither did it say word one about probable cause. It did cite two sources that indicate that the warming trend has been exaggerated by around a factor of two. This is accounted for by miscalculation of UHI and a continually increasing trend of site violations (plus potentially bad FILNET and simply inexplicable SHAP).

As for urban effects, if you want to get technical, waste heat is a direct offset, but heat sink effect instead exaggerates a warming trend. And, of course, for a warming trend to be exaggerated, there has to BE a warming trend in the first place to exaggerate.

Note also that heat sink effect "undoes" itself in a cooling trend. So it is likewise possible that the sharp cooling trend of the last two years may be somewhat exaggerated as well.

"and their link to human endeavour is also all too clear. "

Taken at face value, surely. Human endeavor covers a very wide area indeed. it would include land use and "dirty snow", for two. What is not at all clear is how much CO2 affects temperatures.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas and has a positive forcing effect. Two vital factors are at issue:

First is the extent of the saturation effect (and how much "diminishing returns" are diminishing).

Second, and even more important, is that "positive feedback loop" theory (which multiplies the direct CO2 effects many times) has been called into extremely serious question by recent findings of the Aqua Satellite. AquaSat instead strongly indicates negative feedback leading to homeostasis. That would help explain the flat trend over the last decade.

"Oh by the way, we know all about climate cycles. The current change doesn't fit the pattern."

The multidecadal oceanic-atmospheric cycles (the "Big Six" being PDO, IPO, AMO, NAO, AO, and AAO) were unknown at the time Dr. Hansen made his 1988 speech; they were not even discovered until a decade or more later. The severe cooling over the past year and a ahlf has been attributed to a PDO reversal.

The Big Six all flipped, one by one, from cool phase to warm from 1976 through 2001. Temperatures warmed. Then they were "all on warm". Temperatures remained flat. Now PDO has turned cold, and NAO a,d AO may be wavering. Temperatures have cooled. Does anyone see a pattern here? Especially if the initial warming was overestimated in the first place? It certainly correlates better than the CO2 curve. And you can trace the pattern back to the last warming-then-cooling from the 1920's to the mid-70's.

Add in a "Little Ice Age Recovery" underpinning, and anthropogenic effects (land use, soot, and, yes, a bit for CO2 but no positive feedback loops) as a slight underlying trend, and it fits prety well. Certainly better than Dr. Hansen's climate models.

What can we expect? I'm sure I don't know. I'm equally sure you don't know, either.

And the Sun may be saving up spit for another Dalton or even Maunder-type minimum. We don't know about that yet. Normal cycles only vary tempertures by c. 0.1C, and claims that TSI is at a long-time high are in dispute, so I do NOT attribute 20th-Century warming to the sun.

But what if it's the very model of a Modern Maunder Minimum? (We don't yet know.) If that's the case, all bets are off--short-sell your carbon credits and invest in mink farms.

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We are left with many factors, each with a nice, healthy margin of error. There are ten times the number of students majoring in climatology these days, and a lot more attention being paid to the subject. The above and other questions will be answered, probably in another decade. But we don't know now. We simply don't. The only thing we know for sure is how badly the computer models have failed.

So before we dance the Kyoto with Stern and "invest" a third to a half of world growth on a continuing basis (greatest suffering to be borne by the worlds poorest, at a cost of many, many lives), I think we badly need to find out what is actually going on. This ignores the very real possibility that AGW is all too real but a "cheap, quick, dirty, and effective" fix can be found such as, but not limited to, reflective pole-to-pole satellites or a new power storage method. (Mix and match?)

And if we are going to find out what is going on, methods and procedures--on both sides of the debate--need to be conducted in the open. Don't you think?

In the meantime, make mine one of those non-fur, high-tech padded jobs. Poor Tom's a-cold!

Evan Jones

Science is all inthe Method

Please bear in mind that it is understood that everyone has a point of view and that scientists are no exception.

And that is precisely why we have the scientific method in the first place--to protect us from ourselves. Scientific method, based on openness and ability to reproduce results, is a very human thing. If we were not the curious pongids that we are but insted E.E. "Doc" Smith's Arisians, we would not require a scientific method: One Arisian would do.

The issue here is science and presentation, not policy. We know that scientists lift one leg and vote like everyone else.

Note that GW, be it (AGW or NGW) is only indirectly addressed in this article. The point is that with such an immenseamount of money (up to a third-to-a-half of world growth on a continuing basis) and such profound policy issues at stake, it is very important that we get the whole story, "warts and all", as well as we can before acting. Any private commercial venture would demand the same.

As McIntyre has pointed out, any assay provided by a mining company that was anywhere near as unsure and obscure as the data provided by NASA or NOAA would be flatly illegal.

Evan Jones
Alien

An Enigma Wrapped in an Anomaly

"So England and Ireland dropped out of the red zone on the first revised map. Was there some anomaly over Wales then?"

Always. (But we Evan Jonses don't like to talk about that.)

Evan Jones

Dr. Hansen's Angle and Dangle

"One of the things that struck me when I chatted to him on the train back from Kent was his reluctance to resort to sensationalist language - everything he said was very measured and cautious."

Perhaps so. But his web page is another story.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/

(See especially his Presentations and Links section.)

And publicly calling for trials for climate criminals is difficult to describe in other terms than sensationalistic.

Unfortunately Hansen has set himself up as a bit of a pinata stuffed with his methods, codes, etc., which we are very anxious to bring out into the open. And until he does thus bring, he will, perforce, find himself on the business end of the bash.

Evan Jones

Correction Section

Brain sneeze on my part. UAH, which I listed as "University of Alabama at Hambra" is actually "University of Alabama at Huntsville". (Chalk up another "I knew that" moment.)

This is now corrected in the article.

See? Was that so hard? All we want is GISS (etc.) to do the same: Note the error for the record and make the change while "archiving" the old error for future reference.

Evan Jones

All in Perspective

"They map the ENTIRE globe (even at the displayed level of pixellation) with only 90 stations?"

Oh, no. Although they probaly could get by on not many more than that provided that they were well sited, distributed, and maintained (which does not describe the GHCN).

GHCN has thousands of stations. But if you take nearly a hundred and bump them up by up to ten degrees you will increase to bottom line considerably, in climate terms. In this case around a quarter of a degree C (the 1951-1980 anomoly should be on the upper right of each map). That is a very large adjustment as these things go.

What's the cost of global warming?

Evan Jones

Bentime for Bonzo

"I am finding it increasing hard to stomach the alarmists."

The problem is that we NEED these people to sound the alarm in case of real emergency. But it's not as if their problem is a mere happy trigger on the panic button; they have been crying wolf.

They have been dead wrong on almost every largescale environmental/demographic issue since the 1960s, from population to resources. No only wrong (tolerable) but indescribably sanctimonious (infuriating) and utterly unable to acknowledge past mistakes or change course (downright dangerous).

And the solution (deindustrialization) is always the same, no matter what the emergency. It reminds one of a 10-year old kid who has twenty-eleven pressing social, academic, and emotional issues--all of which can be mysteriously solved if he is only allowed to stay up until 11:30.

It's frustrating. There are real wolves out there. And we need legitimate warnings. But when the alarm bell is sounding off twenty-four/seven we can't function day-to-day without shutting it off.

That state of affairs could get us all killed one fine day.

Saying that we want "all these people" to "go away" makes it too easy on them. They are too important.

We need them to buckle down, sober up, and learn to distinguish between phantom and real threats. And come up with SOME other solution that does not involve "shutting down the engine that moves the world". For a damn change.

No, you can't stay up till 11:30, kiddo. Try again.

Evan Jones

Pedantic Antic?

Two corrections are "erratum", then? Hmmm . . .

But I get your valuable life's lesson: Never trust the judgment or conclusions of a scientist who says "data" when (s)he meant "datum" or makes a grammatical error.

(I thought you had "sugned" off?)

Evan Jones
Happy

Sigh . . .

"Did you actually READ the Stern review?"

All 8 PDF files. Another three days of my life I will never get back..

"A tip - when in a hole, stop digging."

Excellent advice. You' seem to be in around ten feet already.

It's the figure Stern uses. Stern also says it does not include climate effects. Here's the full cite.

"We approximate utility from 2200 to infinity based on an assumed, arbitrary rate of per-capita

consumption growth g, which is achieved by all paths, as well as assessing constant population. We use 1.3% per annum, which is the annual average projection from 2001 to 2200 in PAGE2002’s baseline world without climate change."

"Sugning off now, I really do have better things to do with my time."

No doubt.

Evan Jones
Paris Hilton

Pretty weak

Sorry, the assumption of a 1.3% growth in consumption between now and 2200 is absurdly low. Not only that, but that figure assumes no impact whatever from climate.

But we'll always have Paris.

Evan Jones

Errata

"If so, that makes it much more draconian. It means he wants to stabilize at only +80 ppmv carbon overall rather than at +125 ppmv CO2. I stand corrected. And YIKES!"

I did my own sums wrong here. It should be +120 and +165, respectively.

Evan Jones
Coat

Reprise Reply

"Factual error: Stern did NOT use the IPCC worst case, he reported on the effects of a range of possible temperature increases, however for his economic modelling he favours IPCC scenarios A2 and A1F1, which are actually mid range scenarios."

If so, that makes matters worse. If he projects a 1% GDP sacrifice/year to avoid even the moderate IPCC scenarios, lord knows what the projection would be for the worst case.

"Factual error: The 550ppm figure quoted by Stern is CO2 equivalent (CO2e). This is a measure of the effect of all GHGs, with the effects of the non-CO2 gases converted to the equivalent conentration of CO2. Your 385ppm figure is for CO2 only. The current CO2e figure is actually about 430ppm.:

If so, that makes it much more draconian. It means he wants to stabilize at only +80 ppmv carbon overall rather than at +125 ppmv CO2. I stand corrected. And YIKES!

"Factual Error: 1.3% is Stern's figure for the growth in CONSUMPTION, not GDP. (Chapter 6 Page 161)"

That is a distinction with almost no difference. Change wording to consumption, then.

"Misleading and Selective: "Direct benefits from $800bn spent on direct mitigation of global warming would yield only 90 cents' benefit per dollar."

"The report in question considered 4 scenarios, you have quoted only the worst case, mitigation only, that has a negative outcome. Yohe found that a more realistic mix of mitigation. R&D and adaptation yields a return of $2128bn for the $800bn outlay."

The whole idea is to point out the negative benefits of mitigation only as compared with adaptation. It is stated quite clearly that direct mitigation is what is being evaluated. My objection is not to R&D. My objection is to carbon cap-and-trade. In fact, my best guess is that if it turns out there is a real and severe problem, it will be wildcat R&D that will save us, not mitigation.

"Factual Error; Hurricane intensity has increased since the seventies - the number of Cat 4 and Cat 5 storms has nearly doubled."

Total Accumulated Cyclone Energy, however, is down. Cat 4 and 5 storms are (and continue to be) quite rare. The ONLY reasons damage is up over the past are the huge increase in houses built in danger zones and the huge increase over the decades in property value. For example, a house on Fire Island cost $2000 in 1949 (uninflated). They go for a half million a pop, these days. Even with inflation, that's a huge increase in value.

"Factual Error: Stern projects that extreme weather alone will result in an increased loss of several percent of GDP

Where does he? In the exec summary Stern projects a loss by 2050 of 0.5 to 1% GDP."

I did not say by 2050. Stern estimates to 2200. His estimates are MUCH higher at the end (and are the whole point of the Stern Review). Otherwise, he is not much more than an echo of Kyoto. And, as I point out, assuming such costs after two centuries of technology are not realistic.

Happy to answer.

Make mine polar bear fur. It's going to be a cold one and I want to pick on a species in no material danger that has tripled in number over the last fifty years. in spite of hundred per year still being hunted out by Inuits in Canada. (And no, while I wear leather, I do not wear real fur. I live the greenest lifestyle I know of for someone who does not actually believe in it.)

Evan Jones

Hocking the Future

"Presuming that tomorrow will be like yesterday might be all well and good for a model, but it beggars reality. Presuming that today's tech will still be used 100 years from now-- or even that humans are similar to humans now-- is an unrealistic modelling scenario. Why bother wasting the energy on the futile exercise?

"The worst part is, bureaucrats are trying to use the bogus models to stifle development to accomplish a goal that only works if technological advance is also crushed. Hopefully, the meek shall inherit the Earth while the rest of us inherit the Universe!"

I totally agree.

And that is why Malthus was wrong (within his own lifetime). And that is partially why the Club of Rome was wrong (though they made far more fundamental errors).

Longterm-projections-plus-utter-lack-of-vision is the weakest part of the Stern Review. And as it's what the Review is all about in the first place . . .

Evan Jones

Target unmarked

"The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years."

That doesn't confirm the hockey stick. It refutes it. 1000 AD is exactly the time period we are talking about. If 1000 AD was as warm as today, you can dumper the hockey stick then and there.

Furthermore, the Mann et al (MBH) 1998 graph says no such thing. It has the temps a thousand years back flattened out into the hockey stick with the MWP a mere (minor) blip.

I don't see how he can keep flogging this dead horse in light of the historical, archaeological , and literary record, though. Even if his data was right and true, which I doubt, he is contracted by the eyewitnesses. And by God, if the Cathedrals are any evidence.

And if you are a liberal atheist like me, you can instead take the word of the Emperor's cherry trees (Harvard-Smithsonian study, 2003), the Greenland digs, or the schmutz under the ice up there.

"Mann updated the Hockey Stick study just this year and released every last scrap of data and code that supports it. Oh, and even his critics concede that changing the PCA centring has negligible impact on the conclusions."

In that case I'll be reading all about it in the funny papers. But unless something has changed in the last two days, it's more of the same. "Filtering" out data that disagreed and "weighting" that which agrees. And if Briffa has released what he has refused to release for eight years, I will be more than a little surprised.

And the last critics I read had all sorts of nasty stuff to say about "Mannian PCA" and its effect. (But I'll check to see if they have retracted any of it.)

I hope you are right about a full release, though. It will be lots of fun running red noise through the algorithm again. The last time, random data produced a hockey stick every time (I'm sure you've seen the embarrassing results).

"Nope."

Yup.

The water has gone to low-level cloud cover not ambient vapor. That does not enhance the greenhouse effect, it increases albedo. And only at the lowest altitudes. At all other altitudes, the atmosphere has actually become drier.

That would explain the flat temperatures since 1998. (That plus the fact that the "big six" were all in warm phase and have nowhere to go but cool.) Even the triple Los Ninos that followed on failed to hit the 1998 level. (GISS being the outlier again.)

"You shouldn't believe everything you read in The Australian."

Nope, that's Spencer's conclusion (merely quoted by Marohasy). So far he has not been refuted. We'll see.

So that's no factual errors.

But I digress. For the purpose of this article I stipulate that the IPCC is correct, has been correct, and will be correct. The article is not about the alleged strengths and/or shortcoming of the IPCC AR4. It is about what to do if AR4 has it right.

Furthermore, I have no editorial power here and I have no idea what you are talking about regarding any failure to "release my earlier little critique". I never saw it and do not know what it said.

I will add though, that any decision not to allow commentary has NO similarity WHATEVER with a scientist refusing to release data and methods. The former may be termed "censorship". But the latter must be termed "alchemy".

As I may wind up taking a closer, more technical look at Mann Overboard (v. 2008), I will refrain from further commentary on the subject for now. I don't want to use up all my spit at once. Later, maybe. #B^1

Evan Jones

Kits vs. Bulldogs

"ANd if the surface station record is exaggerated, why does it correspond so closely with the satellites ... http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/4way.jpg ?"

See :

Ross R. McKitrick, Patrick J. Michaels , JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES, DECEMBER 2007, Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data

(No abstract) http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/jgr07/M&M.JGR07-background.pdf

Abstract only: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007JD008465.shtml

Yes, I know your opinion of Kit is about the equivalent of what mine is of tamino (or "Hansen's Bulldog", as he styles himself).

Evan Jones

"Poor Tom's a-cold!"

"In any case, Lawson's claim of gradual change is simply an artifact of the model he has chosen to use."

The model I prefer is the observed record. And, for that matter, those observations appear to have been exaggerated by surface station site violations by, perhaps, a factor of two.

"It's unlikely to be the case "in reality"."

Why is it any more unlikely than not?

"I would have expected the author of the article, as a critic of the IPCC, to have understood the actual weaknesses of the IPCC model more clearly."

I do not address the IPCC model in the article except to stipulate that it is accurate and point out that it is more conservative than the Stern Review.

"Since he evidently doesn't,"

Oh, I do, I do. But not the way you think I should. It has a number of glaring weaknesses, now that you mention it.

First, they grossly overestimated sea level rise (both ice melt and thermal expansion). Not because of their model or their input, but because they had done their sums wrong. This was pointed out, and they made the correction via supplement, but it's still in the AR4 body that makes all the rounds.

Second, they still cling to the hockey stick, in spite of all statistical problems and contrary historical record. The neo-version is now under discussion, but it appears to be making the same basic errors as the last one did. (The polite term is "data filtering". There are less polite terms. Not to mention the ubiquitous PCA issues.)

Third, the Aqua Satellite indicates (so far) that they are grossly overestimating the positive feedback number, and in fact the feedbacks are negative. That would help explain the slight decline in world temperatures since 2001. The entire AGW theory rests on that positive feedback number. Without it, forcing would be hugely reduced.

Fourth, they do not properly account for the "big six" multidecadal oscillations (PDO, IPO, AMO, NAO, AO, AAO). All six flipped from cool phase to warm (on schedule) from 1976 to 2001. A half a degree rise in surface temperatures would be not only normal, but entirely expected. And at the end of last year the PDO went cold, with the NAO and the AO wavering, and, yes, global temperatures have dropped sharply. These cycles were not even discovered by science until 1998, or over ten years after the genesis of modern AGW theory.

Fifth, they refuse to archive and make available their data and methods for independent review. (Peer review does NOT cut it.) That calls their conclusions into--very--serious question. In fact, it puts them quite out of court.

Not to mention the structural problems regarding data vs. conclusions or the review issues (read "scandals").

"I'm pretty much dismissing this article as yet another rich person in a prolifigate nation trying to wriggle out of their responsibility to live more humbly."

Well, your prejudices would be misplaced. I am desperately poor. I actually earned less than the personal exemption rate last year. I live in a slum built a hundred and twenty years ago, one of the poorest buildings in the city. I drive no car; I have no license. I use mass transit exclusively. I eat little meat (I like it, but I can't afford it) and actually miss meals for lack of funds. I recycle. I do not use much power.

In fact, according to that scandalous Australian "carbon pig" meter, I "deserve" to live to a ripe old age.

Unless I am much mistaken, I can out-humble your lifestyle five to one.

However, I have every hope that things will improve and I will be able join the less humble ranks of those whom you apparently despise. Wish me luck! #B^1

Evan Jones

Full Steam Ahead is the best bet

"I also value modernity and technology but I fear that it's the industry, or some rich capitalists that hold the strings."

One must, however, keep in mind that it is capitalist-generated wealth that is the lifeblood of technological advance. Remember, wealth is actually created by these rich capitalists, they don't steal it from the poor. When they create and/or acquire wealth, they either hire more people, invest in those who do, bank it (and the banks invest it), or spend it. They do not pile it into a great heap and sleep on it for a bed.

So we may or may not like 'em, but they create the wealth that drives both modernity and technology.

Further note: The richer a place gets, the lower the birthrates (just look at Western Europe). Why? Because we cross the line where kids are an essential (and profitable) asset to kids being a VERY expensive "luxury item"!

"The writer seems to take the line that somehow non human induced climate change is somehow preferable to human induced climate change. Surely it would be preferable if we are causing the climate change because then we have the option of changing our actions to mitigate it."

That is not my intent. I was not making a value judgment here. And, in fact, I do not disagree with your point. What is, is. The question is where we go from here. And to answer that we need at least to consider the cost-benefit question.

@Anon. C.:

I assume you refer to Tesla?

The last time we know of that there was a truly radical change was roughly 12,000 years back. But being in a permanent state of battened-down hatches would probably cost more in lost production than the damage event would cause.

I think the best idea is to create as much real wealth as quickly as possible (never forgetting that environmental damage must be deducted from the wealth factor). That will give man the greatest ability to react quickly and effectively to whatever nature throws at us.

Evan Jones

Dear Disappointed II

"I want an article that attacks that which isn't talked about. We keep going on and on about whether or not global warming will happen (or worse, bitching about whether it has), and rarely stop to actually question if it's something to unabatedly fear. Or if it's all just airy hype."

But my dear fellow, there are scads and scads of articles on those very subjects. (Consensus OFF! Debate ON!) My esteemed editor [insert various ritualistic motions of obeisance] saw fit to head me off from those issues for that very reason.

What this article does is stipulate global warming but nonetheless challenge the UN "solution" as inefficient, ineffective, intrusive, and in-etc..

Evan Jones

"And the skies are not cloudy all day."

"Your argument is that it's OK to get away with something terrible, as long as the press doesn't get wind of the fact that what you're doing may be as bad as what you are avoiding. i.e. Poisoning the planet, even though it may not contribute to Global Warming is not acceptable and using "profitable production" makes it sound like that's OK."

I do not intend to make that argument. I am not addressing conventional pollution such as particulates.

That sort of pollution is relatively cheap and easy to clean up. Every developed nation in the world has done so on its own, without international intervention.

China and India will clean up their particulate act on their own volition the very instant poverty becomes less of a killer than pollution--i.e., same as the industrial West did, and for the same reasons. (Give it two or three decades.)

According to Mark Twain (i.e., heavy caveat), in 1840 St. Louis, thanks to raw coal smoke, you could not see the sun at noon.

But carbon dioxide, unlike other industrial effluence, is VERY EXPENSIVE to get rid of. I do not intend to argue against "conventional" industrial anti-pollution measures. I AM arguing that before we reduce CO2 output to little positive effect at a cost of up to half of world economic growth that we need to consider the cost-benefit questions involved.

GW may affect the lives of millions of poor in a century (or not). But what does one suppose the effect on the poor of this world will be if a third or more of economic growth is legislated away? Look at the terrible impact on the poor of the ethanol program + one harsh winter.

Evan Jones

Slumming it

"Cynically all the people life's you saved will further pollute the environment.

"If we want the environment to sustain more people we have to live 'cleaner'.

"But why would people do that if they can't see an immediatte effect?

"In my opinion this article is missing the point."

No! I strenuously object to the godawful concept that more people automatically means more pollution. Modernity and technology are the drivers. New York with eight million people in it is FAR cleaner (and with less crowded living conditions) than New York when it had one million people. Back in those days, the city was knee deep in garbage and manure, choked with rancid smoke and swirling dried manure particles, and half its population were crowded into slums, six (or more) to a (small) room.

Mere numbers of people are a factor, but they are NOT the primary factor.

And if we weren't concerned with more than immediate effects, GW wouldn't even be an issue in the first place.

Evan Jones

"Dear Disappointed . . ."

Costs of Kyoto (Molinari Inst. estimates):

Germany: 0.8 per cent reduction of GDP (18.5 billion Euros), job loss: c. 200,000

UK: 1.1 (or more) per cent reduction of GDP (22 billion Euros), job loss: c. 200,000

Italy 2.1 reduction of GDP (27 billion Euros), job loss: c. 200,000

Spain: 3.1 per cent reduction of GDP (26 billion Euros), job loss: c. 600,000

For all four countries, average cost increases of Electricity: +26 per cent, Natural Gas: +41 per cent

Stern proposes 1% of World GDP (the bulk to be assumed by the more affluent countries which would pay 1.8%.)

Here is the cost-benefit relationship as estimated by Copenhagen for alternative solutions:

BCR: Benefit/Cost Ratio

DALY: Disability Adjusted Life Year

The proposed interventions, with indicative benefit-cost ratios, are:

1. Tuberculosis: 1 million adult deaths, 30 million DALYs averted; BCR 30:1

2. Heart attacks (AMI): 300,000 heart attack deaths averted, 7.5 million DALYs; BCR 25:1

3. Malaria: 500,000 deaths averted, 7.5 million DALYs; BCR 20:1

4. Childhood diseases: 1 million child deaths averted, 20 million DALYs; BCR 20:1

5. Cancer, heart disease, other: 1 million adult deaths averted, 20 million DALYs; BCR 20:1

6. HIV: 2 million HIV infections averted, 22 million DALYs; BCR 12:1

7. Injury, difficult childbirth, other: 30 million "surgical" DALYs averted, about 20% of DALYs; BCR 10:1

Evan Jones

Who Decides?

"I've got a degree or two in this stuff, but right now I'm not spending a large chunk of my life analysing the problem in collaboration with people who actually know what they are talking about, so, I'm going to have to trust the experts."

I don't buy it. This is not brain surgery. It's not even climatology, as I am stipulating AGW on the IPCC model.

And there are many levels. You would willingly trust a mechanic to rip your car apart and put it back together again--but would you trust him to design it? I don't think so!

This is demographics, plain and simple.

It was, for example, a mere MA in physics (named Herman Kahn) who utterly smashed the Club of Rome "consensus".

As for designating the decisionmaking process to experts, I have already made observations on this topic; in case anyone is interested:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/08/who-decides/

Evan Jones

jelly vs. jam

I must disagree. The developed countries have done and continue to do a great deal to try to alleviate suffering in the third and fourth worlds.

When I was a kid, India and China were starving. In terms of numbers involved, Africa was the least of the problem.

So while we are despairing over Africa (as well we may), let us also consider the incredible improvement in the lives of most Southern Asians. And even in Africa, as bad as things are, starvation is no longer the problem it was forty years ago.

I'll add that the world is not running out of any important resource whatever (even including, I would argue, oil). And that's certainly NOT what we have been (or are being) taught in our schools or hearing from the media.

Evan Jones

ils ne passerant pas

"Seriously, why not try? If he says feck off then we all know where we stand..."

Many have. You can read some of his "feck off" letters at the dreaded Climate Audit. He did do a code dump last year (archaic FORTRAN, no instructions or manuals) that Mac & crew have been trying to de-reconstruct.

It is interesting to note that both NASA/GISS and HadCRUT get their raw data from NOAA/GHCN. GISS takes the adjusted data and adjusts it further. No one knows what HadCRUT does, they shroud it in alchemic mystery. Yet the two series do not coincide.

If you want to play it safe, go with UAH and UAH (lower troposphere). At least one avoids the numerous, obvious, serious (and a few less complimentary -ouses) issues with the surface stations. For sea temps, go with ARGOS.

Evan Jones

You Can Get Anything You Want . . .

"Do you apply your political correctness test generally?" (@Julian)

You sign in, you get , PROspected, PROjected, PROtected, COnnected, and COrrected . . .

Evan Jones

Made in the Shade

"so who gets to have night in the day?"

It doesn't come to that. And everybody gets it. Think multiple satellites (possibly supporting a mylar-type shield(s) in solarcentric (or not), pole-to-pole orbit.

Of course, the cost would be enormous--perhaps about two years' worth of Kyoto/Stern!

Evan Jones

"It's in there"

"Where is the other side of the equation ? The lengthened growing season, the fewer winter deaths ? Never mind, answer already known......"

Page 2 ...

Evan Jones

What grows? Who pays?

"agriculture benefits from warmer temperatures" - nice blanket statement - tell that to African farmers. "

Well, there's a paper out that world biomass over the last seventeen years has increased by 6% (close to the amount of CO2 increase, by the bye), and that increase has occurred primarily in the tropical rain forests.

The problem with African farmers is African farming. Modernity can (and doubtless will) fix that in a (historical) jiffy.

"Should be the rich countries and especially the rich in them (those who didn't lose their shirts last week, ha). That's not going to happen,"

Yes and Yes. And it has already been happening for a number of decades, to varying effect. The question is not "who", but "how". (And the Kyoto/Stern approach ain't it.)

Evan Jones

"Thanks for the thoughtful comments"

For some reason the post entitled as such is credited to "Anonymous Coward", but in fact it was posted by me. (P.S., I am NOT the AC.)

Evan Jones

Why not indeed?

"Why not simply chuck up some form of solar shade and vary the temperature when we feel like it ?"

Funny you should say that. Like so totally. (Actually, I mentioned this in the original submitted version of the article). A one-time $trillion+ expense beat 1% of GWP per year. It's also a lot less risky than futsing with the atmosphere, because once done, that cannot be undone. And that sort of tech pays off in all sorts of indirect ways (cf the moon shot).

Evan Jones

Stipulations

"Let us assume global warming is wrong:"

Only too glad to! #B^1

(But that's extra.)

Point is that EVEN if it's NOT wrong, the Kyoto/Stern cure amounts to:

Patient: "Doctor, it hurts when I do that. "

Doctor: "So don't do that."

Painting by numbers: NASA's peculiar thermometer

Evan Jones

"Thnk! (Or thwim.)"

WW: Well, if the world promises to commit economic suicide to no environmental benefit whatever, we should at least find it in our liberal hearts to encourage India and China to break that promise . . .

Evan Jones

"She's hot and cold. She's heart and soul. She's got it all."

"Uh, have you looked at the temperature graph?"

<sarcasm mode>Oh, twice or once.</sarcasm mode>

"In the past it went up, it went down, it went up, it went down, it went up, it went down, it went up."

And I thought it was all about trends . . . #B^j

"Now which way is it going?"

Down. Over the last decade, slightly. In spite of a triple El Nino, NOT counting the monster in 1998. Over the last year, down precipitously. At this exact moment, we stand right around the 20th century mean. (Well, a little below, actually.) And yes, it bounces around all the time over the short run. It's been up and then down since January.

""recovery" sounds like it's getting back to where it used to be, doesn't it? Well, the 30 year average before the LIA is lower than it is now."

Actually, there is every evidence that the Medieval Warm Period was warmer in the Northern hemisphere than today. All sorts of 900-year old ex-greenery showing up under the Greenland ice. Archaeological digs in Greenland show Viking settlements as far north as the 70th parallel. And there is growing evidence that it was a global phenomenon as well (but since there is less settlement it's harder to tell.

The Roman period is believed to have been warmer than the MWP.

It is highly doubtful that we have "recovered" to those levels. Remember, the "hockey stick" has been thoroughly buzz-sawed (by non-climatologists, I might add). It has even quietly disappeared from the IPCC reports.

"can't really see much difference"

There isn't much. But there is a difference. And that difference represents a hefty percentage of the warming trend, which there isn't much of, either.

"It can be simultaneously true that the world is warming, and that the world is in a 20 year cooling trend."

True, actually. There could be an underlying warming trend under the cyclic fluctuations. In fact, that is what has been going on since the pit of the Maunder Minimum: Heating and cooling periods with an underlying warming trend.

The question is whether that is happening now. I think it may well be. But (without positive CO2 feedback loops) at a MUCH lower rate than the alarmists project.

And all it takes is one spin of the DeVries cycle to plunge us back in the icebox of the Little Ice Age major minimums. A spin that is showing every symptom of beginning right now. (It may be; it may not be. But it looks very ominous.) Remember, 25% of the last millennium has been spent under major solar minimum conditions.

"- isn't that just because the satellite measures show a much bigger peak in 1998 ?"

Fair question again. That's why many prefer to take it from 2002 (post the 1998-2001 El Nino/La Nina bumps). But the trend from 2002 on shows a slight cooling according to the satellites and ocean buoys, and a warming according to NASA.

"HADCru (and the satellite reconstructions) effectively ignore some of the polar regions whereas GISS extends the temperature gradient from the equator towards the poles and extrapolates it over the poles."

It's a push, though: Antarctica is cooling slightly and the arctic warming slightly. And the area not covered is a small fraction of 1% of the globe, so it would have to be a whopping differential to account for the divergence.

And the warming in the north is due to ice melt and the resulting reduction in albedo. And the ice melt is due to:

a.) Dirty Snow (which is anthropogenic and has a BIG effect), and

b.) Anomalies with the AO and ocean currents, which have carried the ice out of the Bering Strait into warm water, where it melts. (I.e., a lot of the melting is not occurring in the Arctic areas).

Both a. and b., according to NASA.

Dirty snow is a phenomenon that will disappear in the "natural" course of development in two to three decades, without any drastic international "solutions". Particulates are a cinch to eliminate compared with CO2 emissions.

Evan Jones

Reasonable question.

"I have read the various CA posts and the thing I still don't understand is, if any of these objections are significant, why wouldn't there we see some divergence of GISS from the other temperature measurements over time - I can see different size peaks and troughs between the temperature series but overall they seems to follow the same track - if what you say is happening was true I would expect GISS to be start off significantly cooler and end up significantly warmer"

A fair consideration. Some comments.

First, tamino has only the 30-year trend (this same graph is also on Watts, IIRC), and CA was dealing with the 120-year trend (GISS vs. NOAA). The primo gripe is with the 1880-1980 record. (Note also that the graph has no NOAA stats.)

But if you look closely t the tamino offering, you'll see that GISS sarts out lower than RSS and winds up a bit higher. It doesn't look like much (in fact it isn't much), just 1.5C or so, but that makes a lot of difference considering the entire trend is under .4C.

There are a couple of other important considerations. First, according to AGW theory, troposphere warms at a faster rate than surface temps. So if surface and troposphere do match it implies that either the tropospheric has to low a trend or the surface has too high a trend. As it is, the troposphere actually has a slightly lower warming trend, the opposite of what one would expect..

In fact, since 1998 (or 2002), RSS and UAH show a bit of a cooling trend while GISS definitely trends warmer. Again, there differences aren't big, but the changes they are being compared with aren't big, either. Steve Goddard points this out a couple posts prior.

This fits in well with McKitrick [2007] and LaDochy [Dec. 2007] (who calculate that heat sink and other site violations have exaggerated the post 1979 warming trend by around double, i.e., by a bit less than 0.2C. LeRoy [1999] (cited by NOAA/CRN) and Yilmaz [2008] definitely show that temps taken over concrete are a LOT warmer than those taken over grass.

Undocumented exurban creep has sneaked into the surface record since 1980, especially since the MMTS equipment switchover brought many of the stations right next to structures (thanks to serious cable issues).

So while it looks pretty close, and they definitely follow much the same track, the differences are still pretty significant.

"The sun isn't getting hotter enough." There is all this CO2 in the air..."

There has been a long, slow, steady recovery from the depths of the Little Ice Age. No surprises here.

And the Aqua Satellite has, so far, has directly contradicted the CO2 positive feedback loop theory. CO2 increase, assuming no positive water vapor feedback loops, is insignificant.

OTOH, all the major ocean-atmospheric cycles have switched to warm phase since 1979. Now that just one of them (the PDO) has gone into a cool cycle (probably for at least 20 years), the temperatures have trended down. The other cycles will go cool before long, as well.

AMO/PDO warm-cool-warm cycles clearly correspond with temperatures better than the CO2 delta.

And, P.S., the DeVries Cycle makes us just about due for a major solar minimum (Dalton or even Maunder style), and the AWOL Solar Cycle 24 makes this an ominous possibility. 25% of the last 1000 years have been major minimum years. And we're due.

"Maybe NOT putting all that CO2 out would be a good idea until we know what's going on, eh?"

If that option were not so terribly expensive in human life and human misery (and treasure) I would agree. But unfortunately, Pascal's Wager does NOT apply here. Ignoring the demographic implications would be inhuman.

After the atmospheric and ocean cooling over the last decade, a wait-and-see attitude is far more advisable. (As we study the hell out of the problem.) It is not a do-or-die situation and we can afford to act with deliberation.

Evan Jones

Scratching the Surface Stations

"Could the warming trend actually be due to an improvement in temperature devices"

No. Ironically, the MMTS switchover has caused a massive number of CRN-4 site violations. The ASOS HO83 systems have been plagued with false (exaggerated) TMax readings. Give me a properly sited, good old Stevenson Screen any day of the week.

"OR that the measuring stations are now closer to large cities (usually airports) and their "concrete" heat sinks that hold the heat of the day longer?"

YES.

Although the truth of it is more that it is the mountain which has come to Mohamed, not the other way around. Very many of the surface stations have been subsumed by urban, suburban, and exurban creep. And the so-called "Lights=" urban "adjustment" is laughable (for a number of reasons).

Evan Jones

NOAA's Arc

"The adjustment is not arbituary. The biggest reason for the adjustment by NASA or anyone else in temperature is simple: Rain!"

There is no rain adjustment so far as I am aware.

NOAA adjusts the data, which is what NASA stats out with (and adjusts it further).

There's removal of outliers, TOBS (Time of Observation Bias), SHAP (Station History Adjustment), FILENET (fill-in of missing data), UHI (Urban Heat Island), and what they are pleased to refer to as "homogenization". They then grid the data points to determine proper "weight". (For the world record, the most dubious stations tend to get the most weight. This is unavoidable, but it makes the results much less reliable.)

There are severe problems with these procedures (esp., SHAP, FILENET, and UHI), and no proper account is made for "site violation creep" which has corrupted many of the stations since 1980.

All of these adjustments are upwards, except UHI (which is a risibly small -0.1F [sic] to the trend over a century). Total USHCN-1 adustment is +0.3C to 20th Century trend, so they say.

Total USHCN-2 adjustment is a whopping +0.42 to trend. I am still trying to untangle it. The NOAA adjustment page is FAR less clear for ver. 2 than for ver. 1. But then, the "mark 1" adjustment page/graphs is one of the most cited NOAA pages by skeptics. They no longer say how much they adjust for each step, or even overall. (One is led to wonder why!) For the overall adjustment figure, you actually have to go to their graph setup and enter the inquiry, which takes time, trouble and knowhow.

NASA takes the NCDC/USHCN (and GHCN) metadata as its "raw" data and adjusts it further (making the past a bit cooler) and applying an even worse UHI procedure (where we are introduced to the novel concept of "Urban Cooling Effect" in over a third of the cases).

I kid you not.

Evan Jones

"Poor Tom's a-cold!"

"So artic ice melts more when the temperature gets cooler then?"

It can. All you need to do is "add black salt to the driveway" ("dirty snow") or use a snowblower (AO currents). Even NASA concedes this.

The first cause is purely anthropogenic. It will persist until China (and to a lesser extent, India) become affluent enough to have a primary motivation to clean up their particulate emissions. This will occur in about two to three decades, in the same manner and for the same motivations the cleanup occurred in the west.

The second cause is natural and cyclical.

Care to reconcile this statement with NASA's study showing accelerating ice loss from the Antarctic?

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg

(This is NOT a skeptic's site.)

Perhaps NASA's study only considers accelerated loss but does not consider accelerated gain?

"Moreover, I'm sure you won't mind me reminding readers that increasing ice mass doesn't disprove global warming anyway."

Not at all. True enough. It has more to do with precipitation than with temperature. It's a homeostasis effect. The AAO is in a warm phase at the moment. But check the temperature map in Steve Goddard's article and you will see an overall cooling trend.

What seems to disprove global warming (so far) is the Aqua Satellite, which (so far) contradicts CO2 positive feedback loops (and shows negative feedback), and the Argo Buoys, which show a slight ocean cooling (at all depths). Both of these were deployed in 2002, so this is all very recent data. (Therefore I think we should wait for further results before pushing the panic button. It could go either way.)

"Unfortunately, on the blogosphere, you have equal voice to anyone with the time and energy to yell."

It is true that those (from either side, including "kooks") who wish to express their views on the internet have the freedom to do so and cannot be shut up. I fail to regard this as unfortunate, however. Being a liberal, I am pleased to think of it as "the free exchange of ideas". YMMV!

"Actually, Mark, acid rain is caused by nitrous oxide and sulphur dioxide, not CO2."

This is true. The result is trace amounts of Sulfuric acid. (The former is the #3 Greenhouse gas and the latter is the #1 Icehouse gas.) Carbonic acid is a very, very weak acid.

Evan Jones

Do the Odds Justify the Ends?

"There are several cyclic temperature fluctuations that have to be factored into analysis of the long-term trends. Scientists know this. The global warming deniers hope you don't."

Ahem! In case you hadn't noticed, "the global warming deniers" have been banging on about "cyclic temperature fluctuations that have to be factored into analysis of the long-term trends" until they are blue in the fingers!

"The point of peer review is to vet the fiddling."

Agreed. Unfortunately, since that has failed dismally, we must fall back on independent review. Unfortunately ONE side of the debate is known for routine refusal to release data and methods, publish code and operating manuals and archive findings. (I won't say which side. I'll just point to the left and whistle. Too-wit! Too-woo!)

I'm easy. Just open the dang books (without a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit this time, pretty please?) and let the scientific chips fall where they may!

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the theory of global warming, but I'm not for it either. There's not enough data out there, and even the data being shown is being shown wrong."

A healthy attitude. And now that ten times as many students are enrolled in climatology (and all of them looking for a neato, iconoclastic thesis), we are going to learn a lot more a lot quicker than we ever have. Those multidecadal cycles noted above (PDO, AMO, NAO, AO, AAO, ETC.) hadn't even been discovered and described when the IPCC made its first climate model!

"How has the number of hurricanes changed?"

On the whole, down steadily since reliable satellite records. Both frequency and Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) per season.

"Why don't you look for an explanation, rather than just pretending that they are making it up?"

I did. Step by step. My crude estimation is that they are totally out to lunch. The SHAP, FILENET, and UHI "adjustments" of the USHCN are a scandal for the jaybirds. (Let me put it this way: if they were your chiropractor, your back would look like a pretzel.)

"Living in Alaska, and having done so for only 10 years, I can tell you that temperatures have steadily risen during that time."

Yes. The Arctic Oscillation (AO) has been in a maximum warm phase (that started in 1995). It will (probably) be on the cool side again within a decade. The tropics, OTOH, have cooled considerably during the last decade.

"Since Earth's ice has been melting"

A very large percent of NH ice melt is due to dirty snow (which not only seriously decreases albedo and heat absorption, but also acts like salt on your driveway). Another large chunk is a result of the AO. Not only is it running warm, but it blows the ice into currents which carry it out of the Bering Strait into warm water where it melts. NASA admits all this, and reports it (without fanfare) on an obscure section of their website.

Antarctic ice is accumulating (both sea and land) like crazy, except in the west where there is a huge chain of undersea volcanoes and hot spots (including one smack under Larsen-B). Antarctic ice is at record levels.

Even the most recent IPCC AR-4 supplement projects very little sea level rise directly due to melt. (Most of it they expect from thermal expansion. But as the oceans have actually been cooling over the last decade, all bets are off.)

Evan Jones

Food for thought.

Steve Goddard shoots. He scores.

"Regardless of what the humans think something warmer is happening."

There has been a mild temperature increase since 1980 (which was the nadir of the PDO/AMO cooling phase). How much is very debatable. McKitrick et al. (2007) and LaDochy et al. (2007) show how the surface record trend (which includes HAD & the Cru) has been exaggerated by a factor of two. This is supported by Watts' surface station observations (ongoing), LeRoy et al. (1999, which is used by NOAA/CRN) and Yilmaz et al. (2008).

"This conforms more closely to the satellite data. Id should also be noted that lower troposphere warms more rapidly than the surface, so surface measurements should show LESS of a warming trend than the satellites.

"We don't know if there's a point to life.

"Doesn't stop us pretending there is one."

For once we agree.

"We don't know how much the earth will heat. At least to your definition of "know". We do know it will heat the earth."

We do have the Aqua Satellite findings, which (so far) seriously dispute the IPCC positive feedback formula. Without positive feedback loops, CO2 warming, per se, is insignificant.

"So since the difference between going into a glacial period and not going in is only about three degrees, not a lot of change is needed to make the climate flip."

That is a LOT of change. (The Little Ice Age wasn't even that cold. ) With Solar Cycle 24 MIA, however, we could be tooling for a cooling.

"We know we won't survive at our present level of population if the climate changes."

And we disagree again. We do not know that at all. And I seriously doubt it. Even if the temperatures drop sharply (much more devastating than an equivalent increase) that is probably not true. I disagree with most skeptics on this point.

"We know our technology is much more fragile than our technology at other times when climate changed."

Demonstrably untrue. Agricultural tech gets more fragile the further back one goes. Ireland starved for decades as a result of the wrong sort of potato. That would never happen today. Out INCREDIBLY robust and adaptive technology (and wealth) would never allow it.

"Ho Ho. Not so much Apples and Oranges as Apple with half an Apple. The US NCDC found March the second warmest on record: . . . Can we expect a Register article on this sinister organisation soon ;-)"

I should darn well hope so! The NCDC is NOAA. As is the USHCN and GHCN, which NASA reheats. In human language that means the NCDC is where NASA is getting its data.

I have dissected the NCDC/USHCN method of adjusting data step by step. From what I can tell, one of those 1903 sausage factories produced less dubious results.

As for using the US data, the foreign surface stations are in much worse shape. The US surface system is the crown jewel of the world. And even the US system is invalid for a number of reasons (and the adjustment regime makes it worse)..

God makes you stupid, researchers claim

Evan Jones

Judgement Day

I am an atheist.

But I doubt I'd ever vote for one.

Is the earth getting warmer, or cooler?

Evan Jones

'Elp! 'Elp! Ahm Bein' Repressed!

Yes, life would be so much easier for you if only those rich bastards vanished off the face of the earth. They don't create wealth, buy lots of stuff made by poorer people, employ poorer people, or invest their money and grow the economy. They just steal it from you, heap it into a big pile and sleep on it for a bed. After all, when was the last time a CEO ever had to work hard? <Insert smiley-face indicating mordant sarcasm>

Evan Jones

CO2 Argument / Site Violations &. Adjustments

The main IPCC argument is not with CO2-as-a-blanket. A common misconception.

The IPCC argues that CO2 acts as the driver of secondary forcing (mainly water vapor) which leads to loss of ice (decreased albedo) and to irreversible warming.

The IPCC concedes that CO2 effect alone is minimal. It ONLY matters if it leads to positive reinforcement. The IPCC argues that there is a huge amount of positive reinforecement.

But since there is recent strong evidence (theoretical as well as observatonal) that CO2 does NOT lead to positive reinforcement, an increase of CO2 warming, in and of itself, doesn't add up to half a tinker's damn.

As for RSS and UAH, they became aware of the orbital drift error and made the necessary corrections. Warming corrections, as it turns out.

But when NASA and NOAA are made strikingly aware of the grotesque (to the point of high humor) site violations of the HCN ground network, they do NOT make the necessary corrections. IF If it weren't for the pristine CRN network being set up by the NOAA, I would write them off as hopeless. But NOAA, unlike NASA, shows promise. And I will wager that NASA will continue to base its measurements on the old NOAA system and not off NOAA/CRN.

If anyone questions how a heat sink violation ruins a ground station regarding BOTH warming offset AND warming trend, see,

Yimaz, et al (2008) [for spurious increase in warming offset]

http://www.ejournal.unam.mx/atm/Vol21-2/ATM002100202.pdf

And,

LaDochy, Pazlet, et al (Dec. 2007) [for spurious increase in warming trend]

http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/cr/v33/n2/p159-169/

The CRN is quite aware of all this, of course, which accounts for their spanking new and vastly improved ground network (to go on line this Fall).

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