Do you? How? Your spreadsheet doesn’t, it calculates one error term and then does a plot. If you iterate outside the spreadsheet until convergence then you’re not plotting or publishing those results.

“It converges instantly.”

Hmmmm. Do you mean without iteration, with one iteration, with two, or what?

“you would know that this is a computation done at JohnV’s request based on a precise quote from the IPCC AR4.”

Sorry, I don’t recall seeing it. Could you give me a specific pointer to the comment with the calculation (and also the AR4 quote), perhaps it will satisfy my curiosity.

“… CO … is an iterative process”
I agree. Why doesn’t your spreadsheet implement it iteratively then?

I iterate manually. It converges instantly.

(And what is your justification for 0.1C of solar forcing over the cycle?)

Had you read the post on the solar cycle, you would know that this is a computation done at JohnV’s request based on a precise quote from the IPCC AR4. He requested that we do a back of the envelop, speculative calculation to see how much difference the solar cycle could possibly make. I did this to show him the answer if we used is value.

You will also find that various people, including me, think that magnitude of effect is dubious. So, even though it has an 11 year periodicity — outside the 84 month band– it does not explain the falsification.

Had you read the posts, you would be aware of this.

“Many of your current questions reflect that you a) have not read the previous blog posts”

I have read them. I am either making specific criticisms of some of those choices, or more pertitently, questioning your implementation rather than your methods.

“… CO … is an iterative process”

I agree. Why doesn’t your spreadsheet implement it iteratively then?

(And what is your justification for 0.1C of solar forcing over the cycle?)

The discussion of the comparison to past 7 year periods will be discussed this week. The comparison will be made to periods known to be unaffected by major stratospheric volcanic eruptions.

I’ve got a couple of questions about the spreadsheet implementation of your model (the one you posted here and Arthur pointed me to)

Sheet: ‘Raw_Temperature’
——————————

Raw_Temperature:B9 contains 0.05 which is described as amplitude, and subsequently used in column J ‘Solar’.

Q1. Is this a representation of the sunspot cycle and variation?

Q2. If so, does it represent variation in the Solar Constant or TSI? Because if it does, it’s too large. TSI variation over the sunspot cycle is 0.001 not 0.05 (ie. 0.1% not 5%). (The solar constant at the earth varies by more (7%) but that’s an annual cycle not 11 years.)

Q3. Or is it a temperature variation with an amplitude of 0.05C? I have some vague memory of a comment on your blog that the solar cycle causes temperature variation at the earth of 0.1C, but I couldn’t find it today. If so, there are two problems:

- your model assumes no thermal inertia, even though it is considerable. A simple COS curve seems to be far too simple a model for solar forcing, no matter what it’s magnitude

- it’s still too large IMHO, because it would imply that the much larger annual variation of 7% in the solar constant should induce an annual cycle between January and July of 7C which would swamp all other monthly anomalies, something that is just not present in the data.

Q4. Given all the above can be corrected (or you can convince me that it’s valid), shouldn’t you use the solar corrected model as the basis for an analysis of underlying trends?

I’d also comment that the lack of this correction for reduction in solar forcing is to pull down the trend towards the end of the your 7 year period – almost monotonically. Your inclusion of a reduction in solar forcing in your main graph is almost entirely responsible for your cooling effect.

Implementation of Cochrane-Orcutt
—————————————-

Sheet: ‘Regress_All’

I have some comments and questions about the implementation of Cochrane-Orcutt here.

Firstly, in column I, you do a simple average of the input anomalies across all series. I’ve commented on this before – it’s not valid as they have different bases.

Q5. Have you noted that a regression on your average has an r2 of only 0.0038? Isn’t that rather small to be drawing conclusions from?

Next you have a circular reference here (which Excel detects as an ‘Inconsistent Formula”)

The remaining residuals in column L are calculated as

=m_co*G8+b_co-H8

But m_co and b_co are calculated as LINEST() of columns G and H in row 113 and therefore feedback into the calculation above.

You may not have noticed this because your sheet appears to stop Excel complaining about this by what appears to be a manual cut and paste of the rho value from J5 to H5. Excel can no longer detect the circularity.

Q6. Have you checked that your calculations are unaffected by this circularity?

Q7. What is your convergence criteria? Why do you iterate only once?

You comment here (http://rankexploits.com/musing.....ne-orcutt/) that OC is iterative and should be carried out until convergence occurs in the error term. Specifically Pold and Pnew.

So you’re looking at the correlation of residuals at each iterative step, but there’s no evidence of convergence there. In J5 and L5 you correlate the new and old residuals and get two values 0.568 and -0.054. Markedly different. Was that your convergence criteria? Shouldn’t you have done it one more time to make sure?

(I tried to check this by cutting and pasting and doing another iteration, but I may have done it wrong – it appeared to me to be diverging rather than converging)

Q8. Have you backtested this model against other 7 year periods?

Do that and you will know that there is absolutely no chance at all that its going to get too warm. There is no evidence for the likelihood of catastrophic warming. You know when you are pounded with this manufactured consensus day after day, world without end, it can make you lose the context. But this planet in its current form displays a one-way bias towards catastrophic cooling, no likelihood of damaging warming, and no seriously bad warming problem for many tens of millions of years. There hasn’t been a warming catastrophe on this planet (if ever) for at least 55 million years.

If you doubt it try producing the evidence. Find me some sort of evidence for the likelihood of catastrophic warming. And for the idea that a little bit of human-induced warming is a BAD thing during a brutal and pulverising ice age. And also for the idea that if human action weren’t in the equation that the temperature would be in some sort of static equilibrium.

You ought never lose sight of the fact that this argument begins with us in a brutal, nasty, ice age which is entirely inimical to terrestrial life, but as it turns out is pretty kind to life in the sea. Where is the evidence even that this industrial-CO2 release will stave off the oscillation down to a cold, dry world where hominid numbers are thinned right down?

We have to keep circling back to the relevant context. Which is not a leftist context but a scientific context.

I think there are risks for people both if it gets too hot or too cold. I sincerely doubt even the most alarmist of warmers want an ice age or even to return to the little ice age. I also doubt even the most stone-cold denialist wants the temperatures to rise 2C in a decade.

For the most part, the disagreements are over how much or little warming GHG’s may cause, how fast it would occur, can it be predicted etc. Ramping this up to “holocaust” is unwise and unhelpful.

Can we vote on that? I’m saying we don’t need another holocaust. The environmentalists want a holocaust and I’m against it. Do we get to vote?

Shouldn’t you be fighting the jihadists somewhere? Please?

So you could say it produced our SPECIES. But you wouldn’t say it produced our civilisation. Its the interglacial that did that. And we don’t need another holocaust in my view.

Can we vote on that? I’m saying we don’t need another holocaust. The environmentalists want a holocaust and I’m against it. Do we get to vote?

In fact, I think this means I’m for more brutal and pulverizing things in general.

This is not true at all. But its worthwhile to see how such an assumption comes about. It comes about because the climate rationalists are better scientists than the climate alarmists. So what happens is this. Immediately the climate rationalists admit that their best estimate is that CO2 is likely to have some warming of some sort. “Thats our best guess…” say the climate rationalists. The CO2 might have a cooling effect. It might have no effect. Or it might have a warming effect. But since it appears most likely that the effect would be a warming effect the climate rationalists immediately admit this. HENCE THE ASSUMPTION IS IMMEDIATELY bipartisan. But the fact is the assumption has not been proven.

So we cannot just lock this assumption in and move on. Yes for sure. My assumption also is that C02 would have some sort of minor warming effect. Thats why the Pat Michaels assumption is so seductive. But the fact is none of this has been proven. And a slight cooling effect cannot be ruled out.

Nature laughs at science-sociology and takes no account of the structure of our debates. A like situation happened back in the 60’s and 70’s. There was an argument between the Steady State and Big Bang folks. The Steady State people admitted that their version of their theory wasn’t as good as the theory that the Big Bang people were spruiking. They did so not because the Big Bang theory was any good. But simply because their own theory was being shown to be bogus and because they were very good scientists. Fred Hoyle and that crowd. From there the Big Bang theory was held to be bipartisan and we are stuck with it though it looks sillier every year.

So neither side of this debate can yet lock in the idea that CO2 has a global warming effect, as reasonable as this assumption seems. Because it has not been proven and its not time to put it in cement. The only thing we know for sure is that this CO2-warming is either so slow-acting or weak that its not yet shown up clearly in the data. And that therefore if its effect is warming it cannot-not be a good thing. It must be a good thing. Its a positive externality that must never be subject to taxation.

We cannot be thinking in this way. For one thing when models that make these assumptions are used to focus on the preindustrial past they never work. Goddard tried to train its computer model on the snowball earth and the computer could not account for it. So Goddard being a refuge for bad scientists, rejected the empirical evidence and reaffirmed their computer model. But a model which was based around strata and heat budgets and not just air and light would easily have been able to mimic the earth freezing over, accumulating heat, melting and freezing over again. I call Goddards problem the curse of the lone paradigm. And whats bad about this controversy is that both climate rationalists and climate alarmists are suffering from it. So we have to keep pushing things back to strata and heat budgets and away from air and light.

Hansen doesn’t have any evidence for this. What is your evidence? 450ppm won’t have an effect even close to that. This is all make-believe. One of you is going to have to make a case. Don’t throw it back onto me when none of you has shown that CO2 can do anything like this globally. If Hansen was right then we would be fine since we would have a convenient thermostat. If Hansen was right we ought to just throw one big street party. But Hansen isn’t right and so lets have some evidence. Hansen thinks a doubling of CO2 will give you a 6 degree increase in temperature. I’m not popping any champagne bottles over that since he doesn’t have any evidence for this. Annan thinks a doubling of CO2 will give you a 3 degrees increase. He has no evidence for this either. But notice between the two of them they cannot get their story straight.

Start from the fact that we are in a brutal and pulverising ice age. Never lose that context. But make your case.

I’ve just had a look at your Excel spreadsheet, and I’d like to give you some advice. Take it as you will.

You’re averaging the raw input anomalies. You should not do that, and you should ignore anyone who makes an argument from calculus.

You are not doing calculus, you are doing numerical methods.

Numerical methods are arithmetic approximations to calculus, but they are not calculus – they rely on arithmetic operations (+-*/) which do *not* work if you have five zeros in your data.

Please try rerunning your spreadsheet on *corrected* anomalies. I think you’ll find you get quite different results.

Another thing. Compare your March and April trendlines. They seem to have moved quite a bit for the addition of one months data, which looks unusually sensitive to me. Particularly as that data has 2 positive anomalies, 2 negative and one at zero. Something’s wrong there.

I also think it would be a good idea to plot the ordinary least squares fit in addition to your other method. Least squares is something we are all familiar with.

Thank you for the link, I’ll have a look

And ignore Graeme, if you don’t you’ll out why soon enough

JM – as I mentioned in my first post on this thread, Lucia *has* posted her spreadsheet on another thread – here’s the link directly:

http://rankexploits.com/musing.....solar2.xls

Some arguments have a middle ground to them. But not this one. This one the alarmists are idiotic in every constituent part to their argument and we must try hard not to compromise with them.

After splitting the protagonists up into climate rationalists and climate alarmists still we find that most people are not starting the argument from the fact that we are in a truly brutal ice age. And in not doing so they are seriously at fault. This must be the starting point to our understanding of what industrial-CO2 release is all about. The sort of silliness that JM gets up to distracts people from the only rational starting point to this issue.

As much as I hate cold weather, and complain through out Chicago lands wretched winters, we are not currently in an ice age. During the Wisconsin glaciation, my house was buried under glaciers. I’m only 30 miles south of Wisconsin. It’s a cool spring, but my tulips are blooming nicely.