Spence_UK:
November 4th, 2009 at 5:21 pm

It is worth noting that Rob Wilson, on the "Re-visiting the Yamal Substitution" post, criticises "blog devotees"for complaining about cherry-picking, suggesting (my emphasis)

In fact, the fatal flaw in this blog and what keeps it from being a useful tool for the palaeoclimatic and other communities is its persistent and totally unnecessary negative tone and attitude, and the assumption that our intention is faulty and biased, which keeps real discourse from taking place.

As Steve notes, no intention is necessary to skew the results. This is why (for example) medical trials require double-blind experiments; it is not because the Doctors intentionally wish to skew the trial, it happens entirely unintentionally. Blondlot did not intentionally skew the results of his experiments, nor did those who "independently" confirmed his results; he wasn't even (personally) the one making the erroneous measurements, but the bias still crept in and the results were worthless.

It seems that - rather than learning from the volumes of science history - the dendroclimatologists are determined to circle the wagons and defend bad practices, without truly understanding the criticisms being made.

Planet Gore on National Review Online

Planet Gore on National Review Online

Aerosol forklaring

John Finn (03:43:57) :

Joel Shore (19:05:40) :

Although, I broadly agree with most of your earlier posts, this is is speculative drivel.

The warming from 1910 to 1940 is generally attributed to a variety of factors including some increase in solar irradiance, a lack of major volcanic eruptions, the rise in CO2 and other greenhouse gas levels that was already occurring, and perhaps also some internal variability. The cooling from 1940 to 1970 (which was fairly modest) is generally attributed mostly to an increase in aerosol pollutants (and this is supported by the fact that the cooling was more pronounced in the Northern Hemisphere) with some contribution from volcanic eruptions.

I suspect even you are not convinced since you use the term “generally attributed” twice. Let’s look at factors you cite for the 1910-40 warming

1. “some” solar irradiance

Leif may have something to say about that but whatever there was no decrease in solar irradiance after 1940.

2. a lack of major volcanic eruptions,

Interesting that a lack of something produces such a sustained positive forcing over several decades. However there were major eruptions in 1883 and 1902. There has not been a major eruption for since 1991 (Pinatubo) – is the warming since then related to “a lack of volcanic eruptions”?

3. perhaps also some internal variability

Love it. What does this mean? Is this the ‘catch all’ in case the solar/volcano stuff goes belly up. The IPCC has undertaken rigorous “Attribution and Detection” studies which supposedly show that the late 20th century warming can only be explained by including an increase in ghg concentrations. It now appears that there may also be some “internal variability – perhaps”.

The explanation for the 1940-70 cooling is worse.

1. There was NO increase in aerosol pollutants in the 1940s – show me the data. (**see below)
2. To explain he temperature decline between 1945 and 1951, the aerosol increase would have to be on a phenomenal scale and sustained over many years. Remember the aerosols would not only have to induce a cooling effect they would also need to reverse a strong warming trend. Aerosols are not like CO2. They are short-lived in the atmosphere. Industrial (tropospheric) aerosols are nowhere near as plentiful or effective as volcanic (stratospheric) aerosols.
3. The effect of aerosols is regionally specific. There is some dispersal but they get “rained out” fairly quickly.
4. Between 1940 and 1970 – the Arctic cooled at 4 times the rate of the NH in general. How did this happen? See GISS zonal data. Note that the arctic also warmed at 4 times the rate of the NH in the 1910-40 period (again see GISS zonal data). And guess what happened between 1970 and 2000 ……?
5. Aerosols which do eventually find their way to the arctic actually produce warming due to the arctic haze effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_haze )
6. If aerosols did cool the arctic there should be a strong seasonal signal, i.e. aerosols can only reflect sunlight when the sun is shining. Between Sept and March their effect would be non-existent.

** Re: aerosol data. There is very little before ~1970. However we can probably get a rough estimate of any change in aerosol production from proxy data – namely CO2 emissions. Between 1920 and 1950 global CO2 emissions were broadly flat.

In a nutshell. No-one can explain the the early 20th century warming or mid-20th century cooling – and probably not the late 20th century warming either. Internal variability, including ocean oscillations, is probably the most likely candidate for the fluctuations with CO2 a possible candidate for the weak underlying trend.

Comparing the Four Global Temperature Data Sets

19052009

Reposted from Jennifer Marohasy’s website.

THERE are four official global temperature data sets and there has been much debate and discussion as to which best represents change in global temperature.

Tom Quirk has analysed variations within and between these data sets and concludes there is 1. Substantial general agreement between the data sets, 2. Substantial short-term variation in global temperature in all data sets and 3. No data set shows a significant measurable rise in global temperature over the twelve year period since 1997.

Global Temperature Revisited

Article by Tom Quirk

One of the most vexing things about climate change is the endless debate about temperatures. Did they rise, did they fall or were they pushed? At times it seems like a Monty Python sketch of either the Dead Parrot or the 5 or 10 Minute Argument.

However it is possible to see some of the issues by looking at the four temperature series that are advanced from:

GISS – Goddard Institute for Space Studies and home of James Hansen,
Hadley Centre – British Meteorological Office research centre
UAH – The University of Alabama, Huntsville, home of Roy Spencer with his colleagues including John Christy of NASA and
RSS – Remote Sensing Systems in Santa Rosa, California, a company supported by NASA for the analysis of satellite data.

The first two groups use ground based data where possible with a degree of commonality. However since 70% of the surface of the earth is ocean and it is not monitored in a detailed manner, various procedures with possibly heroic assumptions and computer modelling, are followed to fill the ocean gap.

The last two groups use satellite data to probe the atmosphere and with the exception of the Polar Regions which are less than 10% of the globe, they get comprehensive coverage.

One question is of course are the two groups measuring the same temperature? After all the satellite looks down through the atmosphere, while the ground stations are exactly that.

There is an important distinction to be made between measuring the temperature and measuring the change in the temperature. Since the interest is in changing temperatures then what is called the global temperature anomaly is the starting point. The issue of measuring absolute temperatures should be put to one side.

Data from 1997 to 2009 was drawn from the four group websites on the 28 April 2009. When data for 1997 to early 2008 was compared to data acquired in early 2008 differences were found as shown in the first table.

This is evidence of substantial reprocessing and re-evaluation of data. This is not unusual with complicated analysis systems but there is so much interest in the results that adjustments are regarded with great suspicion. This is the fault of those publishing the temperature data as they fail to make the point that monthly and even yearly measurements are about weather and not climate.

The latest series of temperature anomalies are shown in the graph where the monthly data has been averaged into quarters. All statistical analysis that follows is on the monthly data unless stated otherwise.

From inspection, there is substantial agreement over the years 1997 to 2008. This can be statistically measured through correlations. This is a measure of how closely related the series may be. A value of 0 implies independent series while a value of 1 implies complete agreement. The correlation in turn indicates the degree of commonality in the comparison.

This is remarkable agreement given the two very different techniques used.

It is important to note that the two satellite analysis groups draw measurements from the same satellites. So the differences in temperatures are a result of analysis procedures that are not simple. In fact corrections to the data have been the subject of exchanges between the two groups.

The ground based measurements also have a common data base but it is clear and acknowledged that the two groups have different analysis procedures. While the satellite analysis procedures have converged to reduce their differences over the last thirty years, this has not been the case for the ground based procedures.

It is also clear looking at the measurements that there are substantial short-term, say less than 2 years, variations over the period 1997 to 2009. In fact, while the overall monthly variations show a scatter with standard deviation of 0.2⁰C, the month to month variations are 0.1⁰C. This is a measure of features that are clear in the data. The short run sequences of temperature movement are a reflection of variability in the atmosphere from events such as El Ninos (1997-98) and La Ninas.

Looking for a simple trend by fitting curves through a highly variable series is both a problem and a courageous exercise. The results on an annual rather than a monthly basis are given in the third table. The problem of dealing with real short term variations was resolved by ignoring them.

So for twelve years there has been a rise 0.1⁰C with a 140% error, in other words, no significant measureable temperature rise. You can play with the data. If you omit 1998 then you can double the change. But 1998 was an El Nino year followed in 1999 by a La Nina. If we omit both years then the results are unchanged.

However the lesson from this is to look at the detail.

There is so much variability within the 12 year period that seeking a trend that might raise the temperature by 2⁰C over 100 years would not be detectable. On the other hand there are clearly fluctuations on a monthly and yearly scale that will have nothing to do with the predicted effects of anthropogenic CO2.

The twelve year temperature changes from the data of the four analysis centres reveal some possible differences. Since there is a high degree of commonality amongst the results, any differences may be systematic. Both the GISS and Hadley series show a larger temperature increase then the satellite measurements. This may be due to urban heat island effects.

Finally, if you are looking for temperature increases from CO2 in the atmosphere, then you should choose the satellite approach of measuring temperatures in the atmosphere!

Short term, less than thirty years, temperature series are not the place to seek evidence of human induced global warming.

**************************

Tom Quirk lives in Melbourne, Australia.

Fred: 
August 6th, 2009 at 8:10 am

It seems one of the core operating principals of Climate Science is to save the planet, at any cost. The means justify their ends.

"-”On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.” – Stephen Schneider, lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Discover magazine, October 1989

Buoy Meets Gore
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Wednesday, March 26, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Global Warming: Computer models used by environmentalists predict imminent and disastrous climate change. But actual temperature measurements by high-tech equipment show something completely different.
Read More: Global Warming
An early scene in the sci-fi disaster flick "The Day After Tomorrow," showing what allegedly will happen to the planet if we continue to ignore Al Gore's warnings on global warming, shows three of the film's secondary characters at some kind of scientific station in Scotland. They're watching as automated data buoys in the Atlantic Ocean report sudden drops in water temperature resulting from melting Arctic ice stopping the Gulf Stream, which warms the Northern Hemisphere.
"I don't understand what's supposed to be going on," says one of the three, an oceanographer.
Apparently neither do the film's creators, Gore or any of his climate-change cultists. For actual measurements of actual oceans by actual instruments have thrown cold water on the theory that such a scenario could ever occur or is in fact occurring now.
As Lorne Gunter reported Monday in Canada's National Post, the first of 3,000 new automated ocean buoys were deployed in 2003. They amounted to a significant improvement over earlier buoys that took their measurements mostly at the ocean's surface.
The new buoys, known as Argos, drift along the oceans at a depth of about 6,000 feet constantly monitoring the temperature, salinity and speed of ocean currents. Every 10 days or so a bladder inflates, bringing to the surface readings taken at various depths. Once on the surface, they transmit their readings to satellites that retransmit them to land-based computers.
The Argos buoys have disappointed the global warm-mongers in that they have failed to detect any signs of imminent climate change. As Dr. Josh Willis, who works for NASA in its Jet Propulsion Laboratory, noted in an interview with National Public Radio, "there has been a very slight cooling" over the buoys' five years of observation, but that drop was "not anything really significant." Certainly not enough to shut down the Gulf Stream.
Climate-change promoters also are perplexed by the observations of NASA's eight weather satellites. In contrast to some 7,000 land-based stations, they take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily over the surface of the Earth. In 30 years of operation, the satellites have recorded a warming trend of just 0.14C — well within the range of normal variations.
In January 2007, folks at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration trumpeted the "fact" that 2006 was the warmest year ever recorded in the continental U.S. This was based on daily readings gathered by NOAA's climate data center and the 1,221 or so weather observation stations it monitors around the country.
As we've reported, the locations of some of these land-based stations are suspect. One in Forest Grove, Ore., stands just 10 feet from an air-conditioning exhaust vent. Another in Roseburg, Ore., is on a rooftop near an air-conditioning unit. In Tahoe, Calif., one is near a drum where trash is burned.
If the Argos buoys and satellites had confirmed the greenie computer models and Gore hype instead of natural temperature variations, it would have been big news. The silence speaks volumes.

Terry (12:32:36) :
This cannot be. We’ve had runaway global warming since at least 1988 (when we were first warned about it) and are nearing the tipping point. Instead of your lying eyes, you need to trust the peer reviewed scientific literature. These are the gold standard (and only true measure) of truth, along with The Models.
Everything that has happened is exactly what They expected, and the models have foretold.
Also – Rahmstorf know statistics, Schmidt is not afraid to debate, and Hansen is not crazy.
As it is written, so shall it be done.

Sune et al/on soapboxMy present understanding and opinion is the satellite data is the new "open" data source for air temperature. I have not read any accounts of Dr. Spencer hiding his algorithms or data.It has coverage that you can't possibly get with a ground based network. Ground based stations with the long term accuracy, stability, and durability are very expensive - and will always be subjected to changes in the local environment. You are also dealing with thousands of ground based sensors to monitor and maintain versus a satellite (or a dozen) with one sensor to maintain which is used for land and ocean temps. Whatever error band the satellite has is consistent for all measurements - unlike the ground/sea based network.
There are - as extremely well documented on this site - issues with proxy based reconstructions of past temperature as well as the present ground/ocean network. While it is "fun" to consider what climate was like in the past thousand years, it appears to me that the reconstructions do not have the accuracy or resolution required for more than general statements. Trying to extract more precision out of them with statistical algorithms is something I do not believe is possible. If "smart" folks with Phd's can only get "reasonably" looking global temperature reconstructions by picking out a particular tree ring on a mountain range in the western USA and giving it several hundred times the weight of the other proxies in the reconstruction (and that is just plain silly IMHO), then I don't think it can be done. While Steve has never said it is not possible, he has pointed out the flaws in the reconstructions used by IPCC.
The present ground network was not designed for the the purpose of monitoring climate change. The stations do well what they were designed to do - monitor local weather conditions for (mostly) agricultural purposes - not climate. Again - trying to extract a small climate signal out of them by creating models to "correct" the readings is not consistent or reasonable with their purpose and design. I think it is wishful "thinking" to claim that a small climate signal can be extracted with precision. Too many variables - too little measurement precision. Again, Steve has never claimed it cannot be done, but he also has never claimed that it is possible, either.My opinion./off soapbox -->

Allan M R MacRae (22:41:23) :
Here in the West we are freezing our Royal Canadian butts off.
Temperatures are projected to drop below freezing this weekend, and it is bloody well June! Let’s hope our gardens and crops survive.
There are no words strong enough to express our deep disappointment with this LACK of global warming. This winter has been SO long and SOOO cold!
It is truly regrettable that increased atmospheric CO2 does NOT cause significant global warming. If it did, by now most Canadians would run out and buy an even bigger SUV! I’d drive a Greyhound bus if it would help.
I suppose burning warmists at the stake would be a bit extreme, and is unsupported by climate science, but at least we could all huddle around the bonfire to get warm.
Drop another chunk of coal on the fire please luv, and join me under the blankets. And bring some nice hot tea – two lumps luv, with lemon. Ta!
:^)

Andrew_FL (Comment#13556) May 13th, 2009 at 9:30 am

“The moment one has offered an original explanation for a phenomenon which seems satisfactory, that moment affection for his intellectual child springs into existence, and as the explanation grows into a definite theory his parental affections cluster about his offspring and it grows more dear to him…As this parental affection takes possession of the mind, there is a rapid passage to the adoption of the theory. There is an unconscious selection and magnifying of phenomena that fall into harmony with the theory and support it, and an unconscious neglect of those that fail of coincidence…

When these biasing tendencies set in, the mind rapidly degenerates into the partiality of paternalism. The search for facts, the observation of phenomena and their interpretation, are all dominated by affection for the favored theory until it appears to its author or its advocate to have been overwhelmingly established. The theory then rapidly rises to the ruling position, and investigation, observation, and interpretation are controlled and directed by it. From an unduly favored child, it readily becomes master, and leads its author whithersoever it will…

When the last stage has been reached, unless the theory happens, perchance, to be the true one, all hope of the best results is gone.” ~ T C Chamberlain

When one is wedded to the hypothesis of dangerous warming, you naturally want to use only the hypothesis tests which will fail to reject it. So the confidence intervals today are ginormous. In other matters they maybe narrower, whatever suits the need.

Granted, this doesn’t mean that Gavin or his hypothesis is wrong, but it is one explanation for why he likes the tests of models he is doing.

Nasif Nahle (16:36:47) :
Jeremy (11:09:53):
I fear that bogus research is unfortunately becoming all too common everywhere (not just Climate science). Many professors publish as many as five papers a year.
Yes, you’re right, although climate science is under beholder scrutiny due to its constant violations to the scientific methodology. Paleontologists, geologists, physicists, astronomers, biologists, etc., are suffering also of “viral modelitis”.
Almost all arguments on biodiversity’s depletion are coming from models, not from nature.
Corals bleach, honeybees’ colony collapse disorder (CCD) and frogs’ population collapse, for example. When a scientist in his/her five senses have assessed the problems, that scientist immediately finds the misguiding side of modelitis. On honeybees’ CCD, for example, biomodelers said it was a problem derived of anthropogenic global warming; when investigated consciously the problem, biologists found it was a quite common acute paralysis virus disease which caused a pandemic. This kind of pandemic among honeybees’ colonies has been happened many times before humans drove cars.

Thomas Jefferson

Mike Ramsey (16:30:25) :
I have been wondering where all the scientist are hiding. I was taught that scientist should be skeptical. For example, triple check that you don’t have a systemic error in your own experimental setup. Don’t believe results until independently replicated by others.
When I look at published scientific papers on climate, I don’t see scientist as much as I see apparatchiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparatchik).
Has the education of our scientist totally collapsed?
When I look at what the press (e.g. BBC) publishes on climate, I am reminded of what Thomas Jefferson wrote long ago.
“The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers… [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper.” –Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785. (*) ME 5:181, Papers 8:632
I wonder if the main stream press has been concentrated into too few hands and that those hands have lost their regard for “truth or to what should be like truth”.

‘Sources and Sinks of Carbon Dioxide’, by Tom Quirk, Energy and Environment, Volume 20, pages 103-119. http://www.multi-science.co.uk/ee.htm
The abstract reads:
THE conventional representation of the impact on the atmosphere of the use of fossil fuels is to state that the annual increases in concentration of CO2 come from fossil fuels and the balance of some 50% of fossil fuel CO2 is absorbed in the oceans or on land by physical and chemical processes. An examination of the data from: i) measurements of the fractionation of CO2 by way of Carbon-12 and Carbon-13 isotopes; ii) the seasonal variations of the concentration of CO2 in the Northern Hemisphere; and iii) the time delay between Northern and Southern Hemisphere variations in CO2, raises questions about the conventional explanation of the source of increased atmospheric CO2. The results suggest that El Nino and the Southern Oscillation events produce major changes in the carbon isotope ratio in the atmosphere. This does not favour the continuous increase of CO2 from the use of fossil fuels as the source of isotope ratio changes. The constancy of seasonal variations in CO2 and the lack of time delays between the hemispheres suggest that fossil fuel derived CO2 is almost totally absorbed locally in the year it is emitted. This implies that natural variability of the climate is the prime cause of increasing CO2, not the emissions of CO2 from the use of fossil fuels.
Data drawn from the website http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/contents.htm .
Tom Quirk has a Master of Science from the University of Melbourne and Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Oxford. His early career was spent in the UK and USA as an experimental research physicist, a University Lecturer and Fellow of three Oxford Colleges.