The density of information per unit time in videos is always low, so I’ll give my synopsis of Jonathan Leake’s major points:
He expects more problems will come out in WGII reports. He suspects the authors tried to create a ‘too clear and simple a narrative’ for a complex process, and did not scrutinize work as careful as usual in science. Thinks the problem lies in the IPCC process. He thinks the key issue regarding the question of a Pachauri resignation whether he retains credibility not whether he has done anything wrong per se. He probably no longer has credibility and can no longer lead the IPCC through future discussions. He thinks what has happened doesn’t undermine what the basic science tells us about whether ghgs cause global warming.
I tend to agree with all three points. The errors in the WGII are coming to light; I’d bet quatloos we’ll confirm other errors people say they’ve spotted. In discussions of Pachauri’s resignation, lots of people are focusing on whether or not he is guilty of bad things. That’s a worthy discussion in and of itself, but it may not be the most important one with regard to whether he will continue to lead the IPCC. If, owing to a loss of credibility, he can’t lead the IPCC, activists like Andrew Weaver will want him to step down. I also think the errors in the WGII report don’t mean ghgs don’t cause warming. All other things being equal, increased atmosheric ghgs must cause warming. The fact that we have seen warming over the past century is supporting evidence that the impact of human created GHGs has lead to a discernible amount of warming.
All in all Leake view seems pretty balanced.
The fact that there has been some warming over the past century could support a human impact (GHGs or other) but is not evidence of any human impact. All other things cannot be equal so a minor increase in CO2 may not cause any warming. The science says we do not know enough.
“All other things being equal, increased atmospheric ghgs must cause warming”
Ah yes, but are all other things really equal?
Royal–
Yes. The specific information I mention in the post only supports. The case is made stronger by other lines of argument, but in some ways, it rests ultimately on empirical support of what happened in the past century.
But warming, less glacial ice etc. all do support the notion that ghg’s do cause warming, and the radiative physics do say that all other things being equal, we expect warming.
Re: Frank Ch. Eigler (Jan 28 09:44),
Well…. the planet hasn’t moved any closer or further to the sun, has it?
Of course we can look for other explanations. We can then weigh those to see if they seem plausible. If they don’t, we are left with ghgs. That doesn’t mean that it is ghgs. But one can always say they think something is the most likely candidate and explain how confident they are in their assessment.
“I also think the errors in the WGII report don’t mean ghgs don’t cause warming. All other things being equal, increased atmosheric ghgs must cause warming. The fact that we have seen warming over the past century is supporting evidence that the impact of human created GHGs has lead to a discernible amount of warming. ”
I have some agreement with the above statement, and some problems with it as well. Yes, in an isolated lab experiment, ghg’s obviously cause heat retention (warming). The main problem is that the atmosphere is about as far from an isolated lab experiment as it is possible to get. It is essentially an open system with so many variables that we don’t even know what all of the variables actually are yet, much less how all of these variables interact.
Certainly, climate models attempt to account for as many of the known variables as possible, as well as make reasonable estimates of their interactions, but do the models actually do this well yet? I think the jury is still out on that question.
So, I don’t think that we can make any sort of assumtion of “all other things being equal”, simply because even over the course of the last 30 years (the duration of the satellite temperature record), all other things have most certainly NOT been equal, especially things like solar activity, PDO, ENSO, etc.
I think that all we can say for certain is that there was indeed warming from 1979-2001, and while this did happen concurrently with increases in human emissions of ghgs, the exact impact (if any) that the human emissions of ghgs has had on the temperature record has yet to be suitably determined with any real accuracy.
If it turns out that 99.7% of all warming from 1979-2001 was due to solar activity, ocean temperatures, ocean currents, etc. and 0.3% of all warming was due to human emissions of ghgs, the conclusion as to what to do about it becomes much different than if it turns out that human emissions were responsible for 75% of the warming, and natural factors were only responsible for 25%.
No one has yet to scientifically convince me that the human-caused component of the warming has been in any way statistically significant. If I see strong evidence that our contribution as humans to the warming indeed IS statistically significant, then I will be more convinced that some course of action is desireable. However, the statement, “The fact that we have seen warming over the past century is supporting evidence that the impact of human created GHGs has lead to a discernible amount of warming. ” does not sufficiently make the case.
We had warming from 1910-1940 (not much in the way of human ghg emissions), cooling from 1940-1979 (quite a lot of human ghg emissions), and warming from 1979-2001 (quite a lot of human ghg emissions), and now it looks like we MAY be into the start of a cooling trend again, although it is too early to tell that for certain.
So, to sum it up, we seem to know that climate is a never-ending series of warming and cooling trends which seem to last around 30 years (at least from the last century or so of experience), and we need to determine what the exact impact of our emissions of all pollutants (not just ghgs) have on the overall temperature.
I am certainly all for less pollution of all forms, be it ghgs, aerosols, particulates, or whatever. It is important that we don’t completely muck up the planet. However, it is also important that we determine as accurately as possible exactly what effect we are having, and how to best mitigate that effect.
Wow, that got a little long, should probably end that with a /rant off… 🙂
“we seem to know that climate is a never-ending series of warming and cooling trends which seem to last around 30 years (at least from the last century or so of experience)”
Um, which temperature record are you looking at? You realize that basing this entire idea on a single period of stagnant temps (1940-1970) is not the best of ideas…
Every temperature record I have seen most certainly did not show “stagnant” temperatures from 1940-1979. The temperatures during this period were noticeably lower than the temperatures from 1910-1940. Certainly, there was not a “constant decline” going on during the whole period of 1940-1979… there are never discernable “constant” trends one direction or the other as far as I can tell. However, I think your characterization of temperatures during that time-frame as “stagnant” is stretching it a bit….
Somewhat of a silly question which I feel I should throw in. If you find it too silly or OT, feel free to snip the comment. The question I have is as follows: What is the optimal global average surface temperature for the earth, and why? Further, are we currently (on a yearly average basis), above, below, or right at that temperature?
Does anyone have a solid answer to that question?
In the CRU Emails, Trenberth comments that the lack of warming in the last decade is no explainable with current theories and the current state of climate science does not even provide an adequate model of where the energy is going. So perhaps it would be advisable not to overstate the degree to which current scientific theories of climate can create adequate explanations.
This is not a good thing. We are faced with an issue that has the potential of creating very serious difficulties for the world population and we have no adequate scientific theories to guide our decisions on policy. This is the failure of the IPCC. Instead of creating adequate science or indicating the limits of the science that it did produce, it allowed itself to be captured by academic activists. Its output reports are not useless. They are worse than useless.
While there was very slight cooling from 1940-1979, it was pretty insignificant compared to the prior and subsequent rate of warming. Still, one 30 year dip doesn’t necessarily make “a series of never-ending series of warming and cooling trends which seem to last around 30 years”.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1940/to:1979/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1940/to:1979
Why not have future reports be similar to supreme court decisions: i.e., reports written for the majority and minority posisitons?
PeterB–
Your question needs to be made more precise. Optimal in what sense?
Obviously, a 2 m rise in sea level is sub-optimal for those who currently live in Florida. They would have to move, which is expensive. If it happened very rapidly, their lives would be disrupted. If it happened over 10,000 years, not really a worry.
For farmers who invest in tractors, and infrastructure to support specific crops, rapid dramatic changes in climate are sub-optimal. So, for example, a wine maker needs mature grape vines. If climate changes rapidlly, he can’t plant varieties that make the best wine.
For people who need water, the unpredictable water sources are sub-optimal. Similar things can probably be said for nature. Plants and animals can adapt, but it takes several generations to see an evolutionary response.
So, in some sense, for humans, detectable climate change that is rapid compared to the time scales of individuals lives is sub-optimal. This is true even if otherwise, one can’t say the avearge surface temperature in the 50s would be objectively better than that during the 30s or the 90s.
If one reads the article and the comments by tamino over at wordpress (a distinct believer in AGW), he clearly states in one of his own comments that he considers the cooling trend of 1940-1970 to be “statistically significant”:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/hottest-year/
So, the argument that is was “insignificant” does not seem to be supported even by someone who is a pretty strident proponent for AGW.
“This is the failure of the IPCC. Instead of creating adequate science or indicating the limits of the science that it did produce, it allowed itself to be captured by academic activists. Its output reports are not useless. They are worse than useless.”
TAG,
Indeed. The three letters AGW have been and are being used to help hide criminal behavior on a large scale. Pretty simple.
Andrew
Lucia,
I think that your response to me serves to prove my point.
Most of the time we see “temperature anomoly” as the measurement of choice, but anomoly from WHAT preciesely?
We seem to be assuming that the temperature in 1850, or the average from 1850-present, or some other honestly rather arbitrary number is the number from which we should be measuring “anomoly”.
This can be highly misleading. Let us assume just for example, that the optimum temperature to produce the most food, support the most animal life, lead to the best overall health of all species on the planet is actually 5 C higher than the line we are currently using to measure “anomoly” from.
Certainly, an abrupt and sudden shift from our current average temperature to the optimal average temperature would likely be catastrophic in the short-term, although it would be highly beneficial in the long-term.
All I am trying to say is that perhaps we should be careful what we wish for unless we actually know the answer to my question. If it turns out that the temperature we are shooting for as a goal is really not the best temperature to support an abundance of plant and animal life on the planet, and some other temperature (whether it be higher or lower) would actually be better for life on the planet, then maybe it would be more appropriate to shoot for that optimal temperature if we truly believe we have any control over what the temperature actually is.
So I guess I am also wondering how best to frame this. Obviously you seem to be saying that “optimal” for the average person alive today means “as little change from what I am accustomed to as possible”; however, I was always under the impression that at least for many, the goal was to make the planet the best place to support an abundant, healthy, and various population of all species of plant and animal life, and not just us humans. So, selfishly, optimal for me is 75F and mostly sunny with a light breeze so I can go play some golf. Whether that bears any resemblance at all to what it truly optimal for the planet as a whole (which I believe to be the important question) I have no idea.
You state, “All other things being equal, increased atmosheric ghgs must cause warming.” However, two German physicists, Gerlich and Tscheuschner, appear to take exception to this view. They recently published a 115-page paper that purports to demolish this notion in the International Journal of Modern Physics.
Link here:
http://www.arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v2.pdf
The Abstract states:
“The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that many authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1861), and Arrhenius (1896), and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist. Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary literature it is taken for granted that such mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific foundation. In this paper the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying physical principles are clarified. By showing that (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric green-house effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 â—¦C is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.”
Being scientifically illiterate myself, I was hoping you or someone here at this blog with more scientific expertise would care to analyze their assertions.
Personally, I’ve long been skeptical of the whole AGW thing, but for mainly unscientific reasons. If these two guys are right, that would seem to be a more deadly blow to the hypothesis than even the damaging stuff that’s been reported here over the last couple of months. On the other hand, if their assertions are correct, why has no one pointed this out before? Or have I just missed it?
Longing for clarification.
PeterB–
There probably is no optimum absolute temperature. So, the only thing we’d see is catastrophic in the short term with adaptation getting us back to our current level. With a warmer planet, orange might grow in North Carolina, but they wouldn’t be better oranges. More people might move to central Alaska, but that doesn’t mean they’d be better off than in more southerly locations.
If it got colder, people could move south.
That said, rapid climate changes are sub-optimal. As there is no corresponding long term benefit, it’s better if we don’t do things that result in rapid changes in climate.
Mike Reed–
That paper is full of errors and problems. I’m not going to waste time discussing it. Eli Rabett has. His writing tends to be scatty but he is correct that that paper is poor.
Starting with (a):
This is a big “so what?” because no-one claims “the greenhouse effect” is similar to what happens in a gardeners greenhouse. It’s unfortunate someone picked this metaphor to describe the effect in the atmosphere, but that doesn’t mean that climate scientists, or any scientists think the greenhouse effect has anything to do with gardener’s greenhouses. So, G&T disprove nothing about ghg’s causing warming by merely pointing out that a bad metaphor was chosen.
There are many similar statements that are flat out wrong in that paper. But I’m not going to assign myself the task of spending a week discuss each because— basically– no one pays attention to that paper!
Lucia,
I agree that rapid changes in climate are sub-optimal. Recent studies which I have seen have shown that glaciation of many parts of the Northern Hemisphere in ice ages may have happened as quickly as over a 100-year time period, rather than over a much longer period as had previously been hypothesized.
However, human activity certainly had no cause/effect relationship in this particular phenomenon, and yet it happened rather rapidly in spite of our total lack of input or control.
Obviously, if we were to become 5C colder (or 5C warmer) on average within the next 100 years, there would be great dislocation and many catastrophic events; however, it seems that this has happened before with absolutely no input from us, so it seems to me that it could well happen again regardless of what we do.
The causal link between human activity and temperature change must be proven and quantified, and measured against normal climate change which would have occurred in the absence of human interference before we really have any plausible idea of what we should be doing.
As I said earlier, I am all for limiting the pollution we cause to the planet. Soiling one’s own nest is always a stupid idea. However, I certainly do not feel that the causal link has even been completely established, much les accurately quantified and measured against any climate change which happened due to purely natural causes. In addition, we must clearly define what is pollution and what is not. Given that CO2 is a perfectly natural gas which we exhale and plants “inhale”, I find it somewhat dubious to call it a “pollutant”.
The biggest problem which I have is that many people seem to be making the assumption that climate would be a “steady-state” without human intervention, and that CLEARLY has never been the case. The only thing “steady-state” about climate is that it has always been changing.
Lucia:
I don’t think this fully explains it.
I think part of the problem is the science of climate changeimpact is uncertain enough that to accurately characterize it would undermine the narrative for the “need to act now.” In fact, the chairman made it clear in recent comments that he included the misleading statement about the glacial melting as a means to get policy makers to “act now”.
This is as strong of evidence as you need to demonstrate the motive was not simply trying to “create a ‘too clear and simple a narrative’ for a complex process”. They definitely were creating a narrative, IMO, they simply invented some of the facts (like the famous figure from nowhere) to buttress their arguments when a mere recounting of the evidence wouldn’t do.
What puzzles me is why Jonathan Leake and others are focussing on WGII, rather than all the errors, distortions and exaggerations in WG1.
PeterB–
Sure. Natural catastrophes happen all the time. I lived through a major devastating earthquake in El Salvador when I was small. Loads of people died.
Nevertheless, if we are doing something that will result in great dislocation and catastrophe, it would be wise to stop doing it! To make an analogy: Just because natural drought cause suffering is no reason for people to poison all water in wells and create a man-made water shortage.
I’m all for scientists proving and quantifying things. But it is simply false to suggest things need to be entirely proven before we can form any idea of what we should do.
It is possible for people to take precautions because they think something may or is likely to happen. Federal and state agencies often evacuate cities when they think a hurricane may hit. Individuals can chose to cancel vacation travel at even lower levels of risk that hurricanes will hit. Home owners by insurance because one might hit during a period of time.
Individuals and groups can and do make decisions in the face of uncertainty all the time. Climate change is no exception.
The notion that the climate would remain rock solid stable absent humans does not exist in climate science. Everyone recognizes ice ages happened.
There are a lot of arguments against strawmen on both sides of this debate. But deciding you don’t believe “the other side” because you don’t agree with argument the do not advance is not useful.
There are plenty of useful arguments about the magnitude of warming arising from ghg’s, how best to respond and what not without arguing against positions no one advances.
Lucia,
The 3rd issue states “what has happened doesn’t undermine what the basic science tells us about whether ghgs cause global warming.” The actual issue is actually: what portion of the recent period of warming was due to ghgs. While it appears there was some warming (and even the amount is now under significant attack due to faked or just bad early data), and the simple radiative theory supports the basic concept, the degree of feedback is critical. It appears now that the feedback may be negative and limit the CO2 and methane contributions of the warming to a very small level. I don’t see any supporting data that indicates otherwise. If you can tell me of some data that supports a larger portion of the warming, and supports that the warming will reach dangerous levels, please do so rather than just indicating that you support the basic 3rd point.
Leonard–
Of course feedback is critical. The magnitude of the feedback is also uncertain.
What I’m observing– and what I think Leake is saying– is the mistakes in the WGII neither add to nor subtract from the degree of certainty we have regarding the level of feedback. To the extent that was certain or uncertainty before, it still is.
It’s important not to make too much of observations that problems in the WGII don’t undermine the basic science. That statement should not be taken to mean that the mistakes in the WGII mean the high end of predictions or projections in the WGI must be true. The basic science includes the lower end of predictions, projections etc. The mistakes in the WGII haven’t undermined those either!
Lucia,
I realize that my question is perhaps more philosophical than scientific. I also realize that precautionary measures are sometimes appropriate, especially if there is evidence of clear and present (or soon to be present) danger, and we know what the cause or source of that danger is highly likely to be.
In my personal view, science has not demonstrated with sufficient clarity that A:) there is a danger, and B:) we are highly probably the cause of it. Some people certainly seem to be convinced that the science has clearly demonstrated both A and B, but to date, it has not done so to my satisfaction.
This is why I feel that we need at least reasonably reliable answers to the following questions:
How much, and in what direction, would the global temperature be changing currently in the absence of any human input? (I don’t think we have a good answer to that question.)
How much, and in what direction, is the global temperature changing in the presence of human input? (I think we have at least reasonably good answers to that question from observational data.)
What is the difference between the answer to question 1 and question 2? (The answer to this question would provide the true anomoly from what the temperature would NATURALLY be without human intervention at present).
If it turns out that the difference between the answer to question 1 and question 2 is a statistically significant number even with all uncertainties taken into account, then yes, precautionary measures would be appropriate. If it turns out that the difference between question 1 and question 2 is statistically insignificant when all uncertainties are accounted for, then the bulk of current “climate change” would be statistically “natural”, meaning that it would be happening regardless of what we did, in which case precautionary measures would likely have little to no effect.
So for me, this is how we SHOULD be measuring “anomoly”. The anomoly is not from some arbitrary year we select, or the average from some arbitrary year to present. The anomoly should be “what would the average temperature be now absent human input into the system vs. what is the average temperature now WITH human input into the system?” If that anomoly is statistically significant, then yes, we are having a discernable impact on climate and should do something about it. If that anomoly is not statistically significant, then we are not having a discernable impact on climate, and anything we do would likely be futile.
Why are we wasting bandwidth on this thread discussing the conclusions of WG1? The conclusions of WG2 are the real money issue. Whether to mitigate and how much or wait and adapt are far more dependent on the conclusions of WG2 than WG1. It’s very clear that the lead authors of WG2 were quite aware of this. If WG2 is, to put it non-tactfully, total BS, then how much or whether the temperature increases becomes almost irrelevant.
Re: PeterB in Indianapolis (Jan 28 11:34),
You are suggesting we measure an anomaly relative to a theoretical prediction. But the anomaly’s are merely observations. So, they are the difference in two observations. Period. The process of observations is, and must, be separate from any individual theory itself.
If you think it’ important to compare the observed anomalies to some theory of how much temperatures would have changed absent the presence of humans, that’s fine. But in that case, you need to find someone who has a theory or model that tells us how much the temperature would have changed absent the presence of humans.
If you have such a theory, you are welcome to supply it. Then, someone test it and check to see if any differences are statistically significant.
Lucia,
But you see, this is the very problem! We have picked a completely arbitrary temperature line from which to calculate anomoly, and basically stated “this line is optimum” by choosing it as our reference.
If the reality is, indeed, that we have NO IDEA how much climate would be changing and in which direction absent our influence, then we CANNOT measure our influence! In order to actually calculate the influence of man on climate change, you have to at least be able to make a reasonable estimate of which direction it would be changing and by how much ABSENT our influence. If we truly have no idea of the answer to that, then we truly have no idea what effect we are actually having.
PeterB–
How is picking an arbitrary zero point for anomaly a problem? 1F is, technically relative to a baseline in Farenheit, yet the baseline of 0means absolutely nothing. It doesn’t even pretend to mean anything.
There are climate runs where modelers have run simulations to describe how much they think temperatures would have changed without GHGs. You might not accept those, but people have done that. The long term change absent GHG’s is expected to be small.
Of course, the models runs might be wrong — but people are comparing the changes to what they think would happen absent ghgs.
Could not have said it better myself. well, I probably could.
Lucia,
“Well…. the planet hasn’t moved any closer or further to the sun, has it?
Of course we can look for other explanations. We can then weigh those to see if they seem plausible. If they don’t, we are left with ghgs. That doesn’t mean that it is ghgs. But one can always say they think something is the most likely candidate and explain how confident they are in their assessment.”
Well put. I like to say that Attributing the change to GHGs is the Best available explanation based on the best available physics to explain the changes we have been seeing. I see a lot of armwaving on the anti GHG side of the debate and the best, the absolute best, of the lot is this: The changes are due to natural variation. Gremlins. Now it may turn out that climate is a process with large natural variations that result from internal forcings. The gremlins may win and understanding climate change and predicting it may just be one of those things we can’t do. Until that time we have the basic science we have, it tells us GHGs will warm the planet, how, how much, where, when, and how well do we really know that.
level of feedback. To the extent that was certain or uncertainty before, it still is.
It’s important not to make too much of observations that problems in the WGII don’t undermine the basic science
What level of basic science is currently available? I parapharsed Trenberth’s CRU Email comments above. How much basic science is available beyond some firm convictions.
Lucia: If indeed there was a global MWP and LIA and CO2 clearly did not play a role ,then what explains these anomalies? I agree that CO2 and other GHG’s are candidates for recent warming,but something caused those previous events (if they were global). This is why the team wanted to get rid of them I think.
“The long term change absent GHG’s is expected to be small.”
Crystal Ball, Dontcha Know? 😉
Andrew
Lucia (and Steve),
Thanks, that further answers my questions. It is good to know that they are running models comparing what they THINK would happen absent human contribution vs. what actually is happening.
I think it is a bit of a flaw to say what would be happening absent human input is “not much”. Over the geological history of the planet, climate has changed, in many cases pretty darn dramatically and in many cases over relatively short (especially geologically speaking) periods of time.
So, is it statistically likely that we could enter a new “medieval warm period” during our lifetimes (do we really know?), or is it statistically likely that we could enter a new ice age during our lifetimes (do we really know?).
From all I have seen, although the graphs tend to be magnified to better show the trend, from 1850 to now, temperature has varied from -0.2C below “normal” to +0.6C above normal, with the general trend certainly being “up” (I don’t dispute that, although it is possible that some of the data has been “played with”, in spite of that I think we can say that the trend has been what I just described there).
So now, my question is, is a 0.8C rise in temperature over a 150 – 160 year period unusual, or have such rises happened in the past, and if so, with what sort of regularity? If such a trend were indeed unusual throughout the history of the earth, then that would lend further creedence to the idea that we were causing the phenomenon. If, however, such trends had occurred in the past on several (or perhaps even many) occasions, then that would lead me to believe that it wasn’t particularly out of the ordinary.
“Gremlins”
Steven Mosher,
This is a rather transparent attempt to equate acknowledging The Unknown (a reality) with a childish belief in monsters.
Tisk, tisk! 😉
Andrew
Oh, and by the way, i realize that my questions are leading away from the original topic of the post, for which I apologize. However, I feel this site does a really good job of analyzing climate from a relatively neutral viewpoint, and I am trying to improve my own understanding by asking these questions. Hopefully in the process I get a few other people to think as well, and to improve their understanding of the issues.
To give you just a bit of background, I am an environmental chemist, and I study air pollution. As a result, I think it is critically important that the science behind climate studies be as good as possible, so that we do choose the right actions (if any) to take.
Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, science is never going to have all of the answers, but hopefully it will lead to a continued better understanding of the universe and how we interact with it and perceive it. So… hopefully you don’t mind all of the questions 🙂
One other thing I feel obligated to point out… “Are we any closer to the sun?”
Well, over the course of the past 160 years, our exact proximity to the sun probably has changed somewhat. I am personally not certain whether we have gotten closer or farther away, but I am relatively sure someone has studied that phenomenon.
Also, other things HAVE changed over the past 50 years, such as solar output, sunspot activity, changes in the magnetic fields of the earth and the sun, and countless other things that could impact climate (some of the GREMLINS of which Steve Mosher speaks, no doubt). To state that the ONLY thing that has changed in the past 50, 100, or even 150 years is the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is simply untrue.
Re: jack mosevich (Jan 28 12:32), I don’t know what if the MWP was global and if it was, I don’t know what caused it. I didn’t know this before we discovered the problems in the WGII and my lack of knowledge persist. All I’m saying is that our ability to answer these questions is neither taken away or added to by the problems in WGII.
PeterB
I recognize that change in the geological record are large. But what do you PeterB, think the changes during the 20th century would have been absent ghgs. Would they have been positive? Negative? Or do you think there is a 50% chance +1 C and 50% chance -1C. If the latter, then in probability, we say the expected value of the change is 0C! (Yep. We say that. We also have things like expected variance etc. )
That’s what all the people looking at tree rings and ice cores are trying to figure out. I don’t know.
Also, you need to ask: Given the current state in the glacial cycle, would a 0.8C rise be probable? We’ve been in a very long interglacial. Should we expect sudden +0.8 C rise? I doubt it– but I’m not going to take off the heads of people who want to explain why they think we would be near the peak temperature in any interglacial but we would expect to go even higher and quickly. I have no idea what’s likely in that regard.
The “flaw” in the IPCC process is that it was never meant to mirror the state of the science but to justify a particular political disposition towards the use and availability of carbon-based fuels.
The authors of the most read parts (summary) were not climate scientists but technical writing consultants answerable to the political appointees who hired them.
Clearly, the scientists also got the clear message that there was a party line on a variety of topics such as increased storm activity, the spread of malaria and the hockey stick version of climate history. Citation by and affiliation with the IPCC was career-enhancing. Disobedience was not.
The “flaw” is not a procedural detail but part of the IPCC design.
Andrew_KY.
It is one thing to attempt to prove , lets say ala Vonk, that the
climate is unknowable. It is another thing merely to litter your arguments to appeals to natural variation. What people mean by the latter is usually variations which we dont yet understand.
Nevertheless even in Vonks world I still have an open question.
the precise state of the process may be unknowable. It may be knowable to a greater or lessor degree. I may not be able to calculate all the future states in time and space, but I may be able to establish trends, boundaries, fundamental properties ( like more GHGs= higher temps) For example, I dont think you will find Vonk or Browning argue that if we made the atmosphere 20% C02 that we could say the average temperature would be higher.
maybe they will. Maybe they will say you cant know that either.
or rather, I dont think you will find them saying that we can say an atomosphere without water vapor will generally result in different temperatures than one with water vapor.
I’ve yet to see that claim. Absent that claim I think there is interesting work in quantifying what we can know and how well we can know it. It may be that “natural variation” swamps the
S/N. that’s an open question and not a logical or mathematical necessity. Until that is shown, it makes sense to try to understand the variation we see with the best tools we have.
I take it as a given that by mere existence man effects the planet (globally). Although I currently am not convinced that man has had a statistically significant effect on the climate I am receptive to better arguments. The comments above blame ghg and not changes in albedo (for example) from deforestation, soot, paving , etc. There has been 20 years of attention and money thrown at ghg with nothing more than it is the “most likely candidateâ€. Is that because ghg is a greater threat or we just know more about it? I wonder if 20 years of money had been thrown at albedo would it be the “most likely candidate?â€
In my opinion the mistakes found in the IPCC work fundamentally undermine ‘the science’ and undermines it to the point where it is totally nonsensical to say otherwise. Look, a group of people have put together a series of papers to form a document on the current state of knowledge of, well what? Current Climatic conditions? climatic knowledge? Whatever. In putting this knowledge together they did it carelessly badly, deliberately badly? What do think? Because what you think determines the validity of this whole document. Me, following all the other information that have accumulated not in the last 10yrs, 20yrs but 40 yrs, I know that this was done deliberately and to that end this document is worthless. Pedantically, you cannot change physics. Physics is physics. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. No-one has explained fully the physics of our climate so does the fact that this document is corrupted in parts negate the rest? Yes it dmn well does. Stop speculating that GHG MUST change the climate and prove it.
Lucia,
You have accurately described another piece of the puzzle. Do we know what the peak temperature in this interglacial is likely to actually be? If it was truly warmer during the “medieval warm period” than it is now, then THAT would be the current “peak”. If it is actually warmer now than it was then, THIS would be the current peak.
I have seen research that seems to show a correlation between sunspots/solar activities and sudden warming (I have also seen reasearch that attempts to debunk this). However, from what I have seen, during solar minima it certainly seems to tend to get cold (“the little ice age”) and during solar maxima it certainly seems to tend to get warm (the 1990-2005 period?). If this is the case, then an argument could be made that solar activity is a good candidate for “climate driver”.
In my opinion, we certainly haven’t ruled out every other possible source for the observed warming other than CO2. I am fairly certain that there are many primary climate drivers, as well as many secondary drivers- hence why there are so many variables which need to be accounted for as well as humanly possible. I know that this is supposedly what the modelers are trying to do, but with a lot of the revelations we have seen lately, I am not sure that they are really doing so to the best of their ability in all cases.
PeterB–
All other things begin equal, increased solar intensity also has to result in a warmer planet.
When I say the best explanation is GHG’s, that’s not the same as claiming we’ve ruled everything else out. These aren’t either /or propositions. It can simultaneously be the case that we haven’t ruled out all other possible explanatins, but ghg’s is the best one we have.
I suspect many climate modelers are doing the best of their abilities. Modelers are people and like everyone limited in their abilities.
While I can’t put an upper bound on the ideal earth temperature, I can on the lower bound. The lowest optimal temperature is the temperature just above where an ice age occurs.
An ice age is demonstrably destructive to the bio-sphere, especially in the Northern hemisphere. As a large proportion of Mankind’s food is grown in the Northern Hemisphere, and inside of the glacier’s extent, it can safely be assumed that a future glaciation would cause a massive die off, in many species, including Homo Sapiens.
In response to Steven Richards,
I think that there is a lot of proof that “greenhouse gasses” do indeed influence the climate. The problem is, most of the research that I have seen show CO2 to be one of the least potent ghgs in the whole mix of chemicals that fall into the class “ghg”, and the amount of CO2 contributed to the atmosphere by humans that actually STAYS in the atmosphere for a discernable lenghth of time may or may not be statistically significant in the whole process of climate change.
So yes, all of the research which appears to be tainted which attempted to prove that the human contribution to atmospheric CO2 and the direct impact on the climate of that specific portion of all CO2 in the atmosphere is… (in my opinion) some pretty questionable stuff. I have no problem personally with more research on human CO2 emissions and whether or not they have any noticeable impact on the climate, provided such research is indeed sound science and we can place some sort of trust in the results. Certainly, if we ARE doing things which are harmful to ourselves and the planet, we want to know about it and know if there are indeed things we can do to correct the situation. Unfortunately, alot of recent developments have cast doubt on the existing research in this field, which is a shame.
Lucia,
I agree that there are probably many modelers attempting to do the best that they can to the best of their abilities. Unfortunately, it also appears that there have been at least some modelers willing to design their models or mess with their imput in order to get the output that they desired, and even reasonable suspicion that that has happened casts doubt on the whole process, in spite of the fact that a lot of them may have honestly been trying to do “good science”. It is basically the case of a few bad apples spoiling the whole bunch. Now we are probably going to start seeing models by some people that show that everything can be attributed to variations in natural phenomena, and we are going to continue to see models by other people that show that only increasing CO2 is responsible for any observed climate changes, and natural phenomena were negligible. As a scientist, I would already have a hard time believing either of those propositions completely. For people who are not scientists, I am surprised that they have any idea what to believe (unless they simply believe what one particular source or another tells them to believe). This is why I feel it is fundamentally important to go back to honest peer review, honest and open construction of models and experiments, and rigorous testing of many of these things by independent sources. That seems to me to be how science is supposed to work.
@ Les Johnson
The upper bound is the temperature at which it becomes too uncomfortable to play golf after noon. Of course, in many places we already surpass that upper bound on far too many summer days 🙂
In case none of you have seen it here is a report of some recent research germane to this discussion: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100127134721.htm
It is being discussed by Lubos at his site and at WUWT
Also a new piece by Roy Spencer discussing natural variability vs the assumptions of sensitivity in the models:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
I find it interesting that such discussions about the basics are still ongoing. I thought there was a consencus.
Hi Jack,
Check the SI on the nature piece. Looks like it references mann03,08
a juckes study, briffa.
That means the senstivity could be even lower.
However, everybody should hold their horses till the full audit is done.
Question: do little errors in mann and briffa and Juckes… add up to bigger errors when they are used in a study.
Its One reason I dont like this “indpendent lines” argument.
You show an error in study A. Say a .05C error. It doesnt matter.
“other studies show” and the error goes uncorrected. the team moves on.
Years latter somebody in 2010 picks up mann03 data and just runs with it.
This unwillingness to correct small errors, admit mistakes and correct them
is a problem. But hey, its climate science
Steven: I have wondered about the compounding of small errors too. .05 here and .05 there, all with the same sign, can maybe be significant considering the alarm over 2 or 3 degrees C over one century. In Finance its called the miracle of compounding.
HA: the .05’s are weather. But exp(.05+.05+.05…) is climate.
PeterB
“For people who are not scientists, I am surprised that they have any idea what to believe”
As a non-scientist I have learned to rely on my BS protectors over the years. We ‘non-scientists’ manage to negotiate our way thru used car lots and various other hazards of life in the normal course of life.
The IPCC got caught telling ‘tall tales’. They are finished as a vehicle whose purpose was to instill public confidence in scientific conclusions. They’ll try throwing someone sufficiently high up under the bus to regain their credibility, but I don’t think people will buy it. Between the IPCC and Al Gore people have been told some pretty tall tales.
We don’t need to know whether the theory of greenhouse gas is real.
We go by whether an organization is a proven habitual liar.
The glaciers was a tall tale, sea levels rising 20 meters was a tall tale, the polar bears dieing was a tall tale, more hurricanes was a tall tale.
PeterB/Steve/Lucia,
An interesting and civil discussion. My 2 cents — well I think there has been a tendency to concentrate research on something the researchers believe we (people) can effect eg CO2 — this tendency means that most published work covers anthro CO2 effect and the shear weight of this research vis-a-vie other work leaves the impression that CO2 is the “only” (or at least “most only”) cause. If the cause is natural then adaption is the only reaction and there will be plenty of pain. As I understand it this is Lomborg’s view — stopping anthro CO2 rise is impractical and there are many more pressing problems
Who takes Mr Leake seriously besides himself? He doesn’t even know how long the IPCC has been established..’what,15 years now?’ he ventures. He hasn’t looked at WG1 yet. Why? It’s all been on the table for three years!
His comment that a mistake of WG2 is that it tries to present ‘..too clear and simple a narrative from what is a very complicated subject’ very much applies to his struggling efforts to get across his new area of interest.
Mr Leake has serious questions regarding his own credibility. In his Times article “Climate Change Data Dumped” of 11.29.09,he claimed that UEA scientists,FOLLOWING the CRUhack, ‘admitted throwing away’ raw temperature data. They made no such admission: there is no media release from UEA CRU to that effect in response to the email theft.
How did Leake confect his ‘admission’? He took material from UEA CRU’s data availability page posted at least three months earlier and pretended that it was made AFTER the event. This material was not an ‘admission’,it was a statement of historical fact. Leake has simply re-written the timeline to ‘sex up ‘ his story.
It is clear in the published record of many journalists that their handling of sources doesn’t even approach the standards required for WG2. Yet they are being lauded as credible investigators in the service of public interest.
“He hasn’t looked at WG1 yet. Why? It’s all been on the table for three years!”
Perhaps this has been discussed already, but does anyone know why this avalanche of mistakes have been spotted so long after the IPCC reports were published? I recall reading a discussion between warmers talking about how 2035 was a mistake/typo in WG2 over a year ago. Does it have something to do with skeptics wanting to keep the attention of the MSM after the CRU hack by throwing enormous heaps of mud? Why not point out the mistakes in 2007?
Carrick: ” In fact, the chairman made it clear in recent comments that he included the misleading statement about the glacial melting as a means to get policy makers to “act nowâ€.”
Are you sure the chairman has said this? I think you are referring to a Dr Lal who supposedly admitted this in an interview with David Rose from the Daily Mail. However, according to Joe Romm – who personally called Dr Lal – this appears not to be said by Dr Lal. It’s Rose’s word against that of an outraged Lal. Rose however doesn’t seem to have such a great track record (tweaking the quotes of Mojib Latif not too long ago).
I couldn’t care less as I’d be happy to see Pachauri go either way. He isn’t the right man for the job, if only for the fact that the Bush administration pushed his appointment. But the “misleading statement about the glacial melting as a means to get policy makers to “act now— could very well be based on a concoction of a sensationalist journalist.
Nick (Comment#31398) January 28th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
One of the things that makes the history of CRU difficult is the various FOIA and the various contradictory responses that CRU have given out. by being too clever in how they tried to avoid responses they left a wealth of confusion. The first indication
that CRU could not supply the data was here:
“I have contacted Dr. Jones and can update you on our efforts to resolve this matter.
We cannot produce a simple list with this format and with the information you described in your note of 14 April. Firstly, we do not have a list consisting solely of the sites we currently use. Our list is larger, as it includes data not used due to incomplete reference periods, for example. Additionally, even if we were able to create such a list we would not be able to link the sites with sources of data. The station database has evolved over time and the Climate Research Unit was not able to keep multiple versions of it as stations were added, amended and deleted. This was a consequence of a lack of data storage in the 1980s and early 1990s compared to what we have at our disposal currently. It is also likely that quite a few stations consist of a mixture of sources.”
This quote early on was perpetuated for a long time. CRu added to the difficulty by also saying they had lost agreements.
In one of the mails Jones tries to straighten out the confusion by saying that he hasnt “lost” the data but he could rebuild it if he had to.
basically his database was a mess. The IPCC in discussing the importance, vital importance of this data, stressed the importance of accurate record keeping.
Andrew K.
Yes. One of the problems with funding science is that it changes the questions you ask. it doesnt make the answers necessarily wrong, it just changes the trajectory of the science. For example All the duplicate funding on GCMs. look everybody here in this conversations knows that 17 different models is a joke. But you wont find a single believer in AGW ( except maybe me and Lucia) saying that this approach is wrong and wasteful.
And its really shocking that you have three agencies doing something as simply as the Global index, and GISS only spends a
1/4 man year on the job. CRU spends very little time on it.
Turn that task over to statistics group. Fully audited, verified, validated, open. Its not that hard. Sorry phil Jones cant keep track of data and GISS is made for better things as in NOAA.
Its a fricking accounting task.
lucia (Comment#31342)
1F is, technically relative to a baseline in Farenheit, yet the baseline of 0means absolutely nothing. It doesn’t even pretend to mean anything.
I believe Fahrenheit chose 0F as the lowest temp that he could achieve in his lab, with alcohol and ice. 100F was his estimate of blood temp.
steven mosher (Comment#31435)
And its really shocking that you have three agencies doing something as simply as the Global index, and GISS only spends a
1/4 man year on the job. CRU spends very little time on it.
Turn that task over to statistics group. Fully audited, verified, validated, open. Its not that hard.
I agree. GISS and CRU are small outfits. All it takes is for someone to do what they did – scrounge data from the various Met offices around the world, do the data processing, and produce the results. You could have several groups. There’s no exclusivity needed.
GISS, CRU and NOAA are the only ones who so far have stepped forward to do it. Any other stats dept etc could do it. What’s stopping them?
Steven Mosher,I can accept that Jones was unco-operative and had to deal with a decades old amalgamation of data from multiple sources that may not have been in the most friendly shape,but that has nothing to do with,and does not justify, Leake’s simple and stunning sleight of hand. This has simply been part of the enabling and feeding of a ludicrous and destructive campaign that many will regret.
Nick Stokes (Comment#31438) January 29th, 2010 at 12:46 am
Quite. To date, the scientific method has not involved trawling through someones work and using it as a means to publicly humiliate them, it has been to get off your **** and do the the hard yards yourself and demonstrate how to do it right. The process of ‘auditing’ as a means of creating personal attacks on individuals is anathema to creating scientific community that progresses science. Instead, you find that what has been created is the current situation where the pigs are happy that everyone is now covered in mud.
I agree. GISS and CRU are small outfits.
No I’m saying that both apply little or no funding to it, despite its
importance. For example, have you read the mail about hadcrut4?
and their plans for it. Giss put a very tiny budget to it and the code and documentation shows that.
“GISS, CRU and NOAA are the only ones who so far have stepped forward to do it. Any other stats dept etc could do it. What’s stopping them?”
Funding. Jones got funding from DOE to do his initial work
after that its just a maintenance job and one not carried out very well. As jones notes he has 25 years of work in it so its no small task. But its a task that needs to be done right and put to bed.
Leake’s simple and stunning sleight of hand.
Well, detail that for me so I can make a fair assessment. Further I think you need to be a bit more honest about Jones and his work.
Look, its quite simple to say that Jones doesnt appear to have the right skills for the job. It doesnt make him a bad person, bad scientist, it just makes him a sloppy professor. We all have experience with those guys. Now from reading his reviews of people’s papers he does have a good critical eye for sharpening up an argument and cleaning up a text. But record keeping and archiving is not his skill. Look I’ve worked with all types. Each has there place and keeping records and organizing data is not in phil jones bag of skills. Spelling is not in my bag.
steven mosher,
So Jones isn’t a bad person, but he wants global warming to happen to prove the science correct and is willing to do anything it takes to make that happen? 😉
Neven,
People have been pointing out the mistakes in the IPCC AR4 report since immediately the first part of it came out in February 2007. But it is only now (post-climategate) that the media are starting to take notice. Now, of course, more people are reading the report much more carefully and critically, so many more examples are coming to light. So far we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.
“So far we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.”
Okay, let’s see what happens then. Even though I’m a warmist, I have to admit that I don’t like it when I read that the WWF and Greenpeace supply material for IPCC workgroup reports. I dislike denialists, but I dislike a lot of environmentalists too. A lot of them also have narcissistic, ideological or financial motives. For a warmist such as I am it is frustrating to see AGW being hijacked, as it will only acerbate the problem, for example by providing denialists with fodder they can use to prolong their inactivism.
Nick Stokes-
“All it takes is for someone to do what they did – scrounge data from the various Met offices around the world, do the data processing, and produce the results.”
If ‘it’ was that easy, why haven’t you done it, Nick? You could have done ‘it’ already and shown us how smart you really are. 😉
We don’t even know what ‘it’ is supposed to be.
What data should be included that would be considered the ‘right’ data?
When you say ‘do the data processing’… what processing would be the correct data processing?
And as far producing the results, what results to you mean? How would a person know if the ‘results’ are correct?
Andrew
FYI – I finished Chapter 2 of Climategate last night.
Having followed the Global Warming Scam for a few years, it definately provides a clearer picture. Very interesting.
Andrew
Re: Nick Stokes (Jan 29 00:35)
lucia (January 28 12:04)
Fahrenheit thought body temp was 96. If had had considered regional climate variances he may have found that Prussian armpit temperatures trend low.
My high school physics teacher claimed that Fahrenheit used the rectal temperature of cows in Westphalia to establish the 100 degree mark. Since cows today average 101.5 degrees F, either Fahrenheit used abnormally cool cows or the entire species has warmed 1.5 degrees,
presumablyno doubt in response to higher CO2.Because Fahrenheit rejiggered his entire scale to make the intervals between arbitrary points easier to subdivide, he is also the father of aesthetic temperature adjustment, a tradition still thriving today.
Re: Nick Stokes (Jan 29 00:46),
Funding. Potential for publication. Duh.
People like to propose sexy projects that get funded. Even if things result in duplicate effort, the fact that many people can converse about picky little things can make publication easier, not harder. It can also make getting funding easier, not harder because you create a batch of peers all of whom think a picky little thing needs to be resolved form their specific sub-sub-sub area. In contrast, some important areas can get starved.
This is a general problem in science funding not limited to climate science. How to really distribute money effectively to meet any particular goals is not something we only know how to do imperfectly.
Thanks for the schooling, lucia. I shall steer clear of German physicists in the future.
Re: PeterB in Indianapolis (Jan 28 14:07),
Then you haven’t looked in the right place. If you look at the planetary IR emission spectrum, the single largest feature is the dip in emission from the 667 cm-1 CO2 band. You can calculate emission spectra that look very much like observed spectra at David Archer’s MODTRAN page and see for yourself the change caused by changing CO2 concentration. The total effect of CO2 is almost as large as for water vapor.
As for humans being the source of the increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last 150 years, Ferdinand Englebeen has an excellent summary of the evidence.
“While giving a speech designed to show America that he is not out of touch, Obama delivered a real howler of a line that ultimately caused his audience, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and even Obama himself to laugh. It’s taken him a year to understand that what concerns Americans the most is the economy.
It remains to be seen how long it will take President Obama to realize that the manufactured evidence embraced by climate change alarmists has been crumbling for some time. The only thing overwhelming about it is the outrage one feels after learning the truth.”
http://www.prisonplanet.com/obama-laughed-at-after-calling-climate-change-evidence-overwhelming.html
Andrew
Andrew_KY (Comment#31461) January 29th, 2010 at 8:15 am
Thanks Andrew.
DeWitt Payne,
If the CO2 band is almost as large as the water vapor one, and CO2 has increased over 25% over the period from 1940, and yet water vapor has increased little if at all in that period (especially at higher altitudes), how do you get the large positive feedback, since the CO2 itself is many times as strong a greenhouse gas per quantity? CO2 alone is admitted to only be able to increase temperature about 1C to 1.5C per doubling. Please note that while water vapor has not been measured back to 1940 that well, neither has CO2 (Mauna Loa data started 1958).
Lucia,
There is presently NOT a strong reason to select CO2 as the main candidate for AGW. It is true that it has been increasing significantly, but over the period from 1850 to the present, the temperature has been going down about as often as up, even though the net level has been slowly going up. The correlation with Solar activity/Sunspots is a far better correlation. The long period large ocean cycles also give a better correlation. The historical large cycle Holocene variations (about 1000 to 1500 years show average variation cycles lasting hundreds of years that are as large or larger, and which occured as fast or faster as the present variation (to the best degree that we can tell). CO2 was selected as the main candidate when temperature was rapidly rising from 1975 to about 2000, and CO2 was also rising rapidly. There seemed to be cause and effect. Once the historical variations were found to be reasonably supportable, and when the temperature rise slowed and seems to be reversing the last few years, the supporting arguments evaporated (why do you think the hockey stick was so important). There is no justification to hold on to preconceived ideas when the information changes.
Neven (Comment#31457) January 29th, 2010 at 7:40 am
“So far we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.â€
Okay, let’s see what happens then. Even though I’m a warmist, I have to admit that I don’t like it when I read that the WWF and Greenpeace supply material for IPCC workgroup reports. I dislike denialists, but I dislike a lot of environmentalists too. A lot of them also have narcissistic, ideological or financial motives. For a warmist such as I am it is frustrating to see AGW being hijacked,
**********************************************
Tom Fuller and I agree. In due course more on this.
For me the gig was really up when warmists started to argue that the IPCC document was a conservative document. Hansen did this and the tactic was transparent. First argue that we have consensus, then argue that a consenus is a conservative solution. hey we all met in the middle but we know the truth is out here on the left. I really have been blind to the activists since I generally just focus on 2 issues, but their is a pattern there that is troubling. Especially the influence of certain industry that is poised to benefit from shifts in investment.
If we decide to expend dollars now to benefit the generations to come that money spent today WILL be dispensed inequitably. WILL. and the harm in the future WILL be suffered inequitably.
and the benefits that acrue in the future will acrue inequitably.
Smart bunnies are lining their purses and placing their bets and loading the dice.
David Gould (Comment#31446) January 29th, 2010 at 4:51 am
steven mosher,
So Jones isn’t a bad person, but he wants global warming to happen to prove the science correct and is willing to do anything it takes to make that happen?
hehe.
If you read that whole mail IN CONTEXT you can get a sense for what is going on. Jones is writing Christy, a skeptic, telling him to get his papers published in time since there are these deadlines. I dont think that just a curtosy. I think that’s an ass covering. Like “sorry your paper didnt make it in John, but I warned you.” Then you have Jones complaining about the deadlines. The science will go on its silly to have a deadline, we should be able to decide whats important or not.
What jones is identifying here is a fundamental flaw in the IPCC process. Overpeck as well understands the issue. As does Briffa.
The Lead authors were charged with summarizing or compiling or synthesizing the accepted science. Thats hard when they have an interest in it. Damn hard, so hard that briffa ships his comments off to Wahl to check his own objectivity. Weird, but you kinda want to praise briffa for breaking the rules. Now its easy to say that lead authors with an interest cannot fairly write a survey that include their own work. If not them, then who? Tough problem. But you dont make that problem ANY easier by fiddling with the rules cause you know better.
Anyways, jones knows this is a problem and knows that his decisions about what science to consider will be seen as political. So he just denies to christy that he is political ( absurd)
and makes a more absurd claim, Its all about me proving my science right.
The systems set up ( checks and balances) to reign in wayward authors were easily hacked. If you look at the disposition of reviewer comments ( some are simply ignored or dismissed for false reasons) you can see part of the problem.
I can’t imagine being Briffa, with a cast of dozens proofing and challenging what I write. Oh wait, thats like blogging kinda.
The constraints I thought were silly, page limit etc. Chapter 6 needed more scope more pages more charts not less.
Re: Leonard Weinstein (Jan 29 12:18),
That’s a really good question and I don’t have the answer. Perhaps if anyone ever fulfills Steve McIntyre’s request for an engineering quality report on how you get from a radiative transfer calculated forcing of ~4 W/m2 for doubling CO2 to a climate sensitivity of 3 +/- 1.5 C for that doubling, we’ll all find out. Or if we get a few more years of flat average temperature, maybe the modelers will be forced to question their assumptions and we’ll find out that, as many of us suspect now, there isn’t a large positive feedback.
Steve Mosher: “Now its easy to say that lead authors with an interest cannot fairly write a survey that include their own work. If not them, then who? Tough problem.”
Why, Steve McIntyre and Anthony Watts of course. They have no interests and after all their constructive efforts they should be rewarded. 😉
Re: DeWitt Payne (Jan 29 12:42),
One part of the positive feedback cycle looks to have been reduced in a recent paper in Nature discussed at Motl’s blog. Apparently in spite of the obvious lag in CO2 compared to temperature in the ice core record, an increase of temperature of 1 C has ben supposed to increase atmospheric CO2 by as much as 40 ppm on a time scale of years or decades at most. This has been called into question and it looks like the short term rate is more like 8 ppm/degree with a range of from 1.7 to 21 ppm.
Then there’s the paper on the drop in stratospheric water vapor over the last decade published in Science the other day. This may explain the flattening of the temperature curve, but it just moves the problem back one step to why the water vapor concentration dropped when it was supposed to increase. Have real temperatures in the tropics been flat to down instead of increasing?
Re: DeWitt Payne (Jan 29 21:50), 40 ppm/C? I’ve seen that bandied around, but no real source. I haven’t found such a figure in the AR4. What I did find – 7.3.4.3 – was
“A 1°C increase in sea surface temperature produces an increase in pCO2 of 6.9 to 10.2 ppm after 100 to 1,000 years (Heinze et al., 2003; see also Broecker and Peng, 1986; Plattner et al., 2001). “
which is not so far from these supposed new results.
BUT CO2 feedback was always going to be minor in AGW. On that AR4 max figure of 10ppm/C, that’s about 7 ppm for the current post-industrial warming. Two or three years CO2 from burning.
Re: Nick Stokes (Jan 29 23:39),
On the 40 ppm/degree thing, I just sent a reply to someone on another subject (the health care outcomes statistics supposedly from Investor’s Business Daily) where I pointed out that data with no provenance isn’t really data. I should take my own advice more often.
While global temperature did rise in the last century by about 0.7 deg C, half of this occurred by 1940; our greenhouse emissions did not rise significantly till around midcentury. So at least half the rise must be natural. When our CO2 emissions did start to rise in mid-century, global temperature fell by about 0.2 deg C till the mid-1970s. (Smog is invoked by some to explain this non-conformity with greenhouse orthodoxy.) The global temperature did rise from about 1977-1998 and this is the nearest thing to solid evidence for strong AGW that I know. However, the rise has paused for a decade or so. The case for strong AGW is therefore debatable. Computer predictions do not convince me – the system is too complex. Even the 1977-1998 rise might be due to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO); or it might have played some part. Basic theory does predict a rise of about 1 deg C from doubling CO2, but this is not a huge figure. This warming is supposed to lead to enhanced evaporation of water vapour, a greenhouse gas which could boost warming. But what if the water vapour forms clouds? Their effects are complex but include gooling the earth. Again the strong AGW argument is debatable. In any case, attempts at reducing emissions via gatherings like Kyoto and Copenhagen have not been notably successful, and may remain so unless nuclear power is widely adopted – a conclusion which the Green lobby is unlikely to welcome.