Warming Then And Now?

[seer]

One of the differences between science and religion is that science deals with uncertainty in a very explicit way. So the first question I have to ask is, what level of uncertainty are you comfortable with?

Well if we can't even know whether the earth's temperature has risen in the past 17 years or not then what is the argument about? And how accurate are our past global temperature records? And would warming really be such a bad thing? For instance, not that many years ago they were predicting that global warming would cause more, and more intense, hurricanes, yet we just went through three of the mildest hurricane season on record. Perhaps the earth's ecosystem has a better ability to adjust than we realize.

[Poor Debater]

Really? So we put out more Co2 than all of nature combined?

Humans are responsible for about 3% of the annual CO2 atmospheric flux, but 100% of the CO2 atmospheric increase. Kind of like a company where one product is responsible for 3% of the revenue but 100% of the profits.

Then why are they making excuses like the warming went into the oceans? If there was no real pause?

Define exactly what you mean by "excuses" and "pause" and I can give you a more exact answer.

It doesn't sound very trust worthy. I mean if they really have no clue whether there was a pause or not these last 17 years that does not speak well to our ability.

The rate of surface temperature increase is less in the past 17 years than in the 17 years prior to that. But the difference is not statistically significant. The surface temperature record is an inherently noisy dataset, which means that it's essentially impossible to determine statistically significant trends (in either direction, up or down) from time periods as short as 17 years in surface temperatures. That's why climatologists use 30 years as a baseline.

However, there are other climatological datasets that are less noisy than surface temperatures. One of those is ocean heat content (which is where 93% of the heat goes anyway). And OHC does show a statistically significant increase over the past 17 years and even over the past 10 years.

Right, and again, why didn't the oceans have the same heat sink effect with the other two warming trends in the last century. What changed. And could the oceans keep being a heat sink going forward and mitigate potential harm?

Len these are the facts, they did fudge the numbers. Whether by design or by accident.

Scientists, unlike the media, always correct mistakes. That's not a bug, it's a feature. If you would prefer the errors, that's your problem.

[Poor Debater]

Well considering what Leonhard said, that we can't even figure out if there was a warming pause or not in the last 17 years, why should we have confidence in any temperature record.

One of the differences between science and religion is that science deals with uncertainty in a very explicit way. So the first question I have to ask is, what level of uncertainty are you comfortable with?

[seer]

I have no idea how much Patrick Moore understands or does not. I do know, however, that the 1910-1940 warming was roughly half solar and half human-caused, while the late 20th century warming has been essentially all human caused. So there is a solid scientific reason the IPCC writes just what it did in just the way it did.

Well considering what Leonhard said, that we can't even figure out if there was a warming pause or not in the last 17 years, why should we have confidence in any temperature record.

[seer]

For the past one hundred years there's been a rapid growth that correlates with human industry. Its far faster than the natural centuries long cycles the earth's history has had. Averaged over a year we're currently pumping out more CO2 than any natural source on the planet.

Really? So we put out more Co2 than all of nature combined?

Yes, at least as far as I know.

Then why are they making excuses like the warming went into the oceans? If there was no real pause?

You're right to point this out. It says something about the uncertainties in the temperature measurements. If you look at HMS_Beagle's post, you notice that the individual temperature points wriggle up and down a lot, this makes it harder to see if there's a trend. Each of those points represent a local history, of measurement stations/satellite records, from various area that have sort of a random distribution of weather. Its like rolling a dice, if you pick a lucky day you might have colder than average weather, if you pick an unlucky day, hotter than average weather. If we had a four times more weather stations, the wriggling would be half as wide, and then seeing trends would be easy.

Because there's this uncertainty, its hard to see when a trend has formed until a few decades has passed unfortunately

.

It doesn't sound very trust worthy. I mean if they really have no clue whether there was a pause or not these last 17 years that does not speak well to our ability.

If the pause is real, and if the oceans are responsible (two ifs, iffy), then there's an explanation for why this is the case. As it is not knowing the answer to this question isn't an argument against the oceans being a heat sink. The oceans are colder than the atmosphere, they're in close proximity to each other, and there's a lot of possibility for unanticipated heat transfers between them, so they're a likely candidate.

Right, and again, why didn't the oceans have the same heat sink effect with the other two warming trends in the last century. What changed. And could the oceans keep being a heat sink going forward and mitigate potential harm?

Speculation and what's with the quote tags? What can you demonstrate? This is starting to veer into conspiracy theory, so I won't comment further on that.

Len these are the facts, they did fudge the numbers. Whether by design or by accident. And now you tell me that they really have no clue about global temperatures over the past 17 years (was there a pause or wasn't there)? I'm sorry this does not inspire confidence.

[Poor Debater]

This is the problem Sylas, you don't think that Dr. Patrick Moore understands this as well or better than you? That he does not understand these possible variables? Yet, his conclusions are quite different. Never mind the data that was fudged about the 90s being the hottest decade in the US and not the 30s.

I have no idea how much Patrick Moore understands or does not. I do know, however, that the 1910-1940 warming was roughly half solar and half human-caused, while the late 20th century warming has been essentially all human caused. So there is a solid scientific reason the IPCC writes just what it did in just the way it did.

[Poor Debater]

The entire thing is a sack of low-grade manure.

'Human-Caused Global Warming' is part of a very evil agenda by Collectivist Elitists.

Hmmm. Is the observed increase in ocean heat content part of the conspiracy? Is the observed rise in sea level part of the conspiracy? Is the observed loss of ice mass in Greenland and Antarctica part of the conspiracy? Is the observed increase in downwelling infrared in the greenhouse gas bands part of the conspiracy? Is the observed decrease in upwelling infrared from the surface to space part of the conspiracy?

That's some big conspiracy you've got there.

Everyone has heard of the intercepted emails and everyone has seen the historical temperature graphs all proving that the whole thing is nothing more than a scam of world-wide proportions.

Nothing I have seen proves that at all. Please enlighten us with the exact nature of your evidence.

Why are there people still pushing this agenda? Obviously, because they are either (1) ignorant of the facts or because, (2) just as with pushing Evolution, abortion or gay rights, it serves their personal agenda.

Or maybe it's just because problems addressed sooner rather than later are easier and cheaper to solve.

In closing, it is funny-as-all-can-be that in the last several years the world has experienced some of the coldest temperatures (winters) in recent history.

Not only is it not funny, it's just not true. Last year, 2013, was the 6th warmest year on record, according to NASA. So it was a top-ten year for warmth. In fact, we've had a top-ten warmest year every single year for the past 28 years in a row. The last time the world had a top-ten coldest year was 1917.

Economists and governments are still talking about the last "awful" winter.

But not climatologists.

Here's the howler: The "global warming" crowd has actually used this as 'proof' that warming is occurring, i.e., that "the global warming is causing colder temperatures"!

That can happen at local levels, which is what they're talking about.

[Leonhard]

First Len, this was not only the US, it also included Iceland and Australia.

Still only a small fraction, however as far as I can see the specific error only for the US. I might be wrong though.

And they did not admit this until they were call out publicly by Stephen Goddard.

Errors usually aren't found until someone else points them out. If you're not aware of an error you can't correct it. And it was Steven McIntyre who pointed out the error not this Stephen Goddard blog, which is actually run by Tony Heller (who used Stephen Goddard as a pseudonym).

So where else are they making this "mistake?"

Speculation and what's with the quote tags? What can you demonstrate? This is starting to veer into conspiracy theory, so I won't comment further on that.

And this is not a small thing Len, this idea that the 1990s was the hottest decade in the US was used to try and drive policy.

I'm not interested in politics seer. I'm sorry but I'm really not. I don't care what slogans Al Gore, Bush or whoever stands to gain or lose stuff are cranking out of whatever results scientists are getting. If they used this result they're poor at understanding science, since local temperatures are not as interesting as the global average is. And the global average is virtually unaffected by this mistake.

[Leonhard]

Really, so there are no dissenting opinions on this?

Not that CO2 gasses in the atmosphere retains heat, at least none that are well thought out and make sense, and doesn't end up denying basic physics on this.

But the real question is how much effect does man made Co2 have.

If I were to be skeptical about the CO2 link, I'd ask questions about how much heat is retained as well before I'd ask question about whether its being retained. However again the physics is fairly simple, we can more or less calculate the joules per square meters per year retained. It turns out that its logarithmically dependent on the CO2 concentration, so there's a saturation effect. Its getting late though so I can't dig out articles without getting irresponsible with my sleeping schedule. It'll have to wait for tomorrow.

Of all the Co2 that is put into the atmosphere what percentage comes from man - and doesn't it make a real difference?

For the past one hundred years there's been a rapid growth that correlates with human industry. Its far faster than the natural centuries long cycles the earth's history has had. Averaged over a year we're currently pumping out more CO2 than any natural source on the planet.

Ok, so we don't know if there was a pause or not?

Yes, at least as far as I know.

What does that say about our ability to accurately know and record global temperatures?

You're right to point this out. It says something about the uncertainties in the temperature measurements. If you look at HMS_Beagle's post, you notice that the individual temperature points wriggle up and down a lot, this makes it harder to see if there's a trend. Each of those points represent a local history, of measurement stations/satellite records, from various area that have sort of a random distribution of weather. Its like rolling a dice, if you pick a lucky day you might have colder than average weather, if you pick an unlucky day, hotter than average weather. If we had a four times more weather stations, the wriggling would be half as wide, and then seeing trends would be easy.

Because there's this uncertainty, its hard to see when a trend has formed until a few decades has passed unfortunately.

Well yes, why would the oceans suddenly suck up the heat this time when it didn't with the two warming trends in the last century.

If the pause is real, and if the oceans are responsible (two ifs, iffy), then there's an explanation for why this is the case. As it is not knowing the answer to this question isn't an argument against the oceans being a heatsink. The oceans are colder than the atmosphere, they're in close proximity to each other, and there's a lot of possibility for unanticipated heat transfers between them, so they're a likely candidate.

Well no, did you see my second link?

http://www.geotimes.org/aug07/articl...a081607_2.html

I missed it, so I wrote a second post after I caught that. The American Geological Institute is a much better source that Stephen Goddard's blogpost.

[seer]

I missed this part, sorry about that seer. This is more like it. Stephen Goddard's blog post was a bit iffy on details and he seems to go off on speculation, however here's there's far more information and its by a respectable science news source. I'll read into this.

Basically they're saying what I said, there were corrections applied to correct for things like "differences in the time of day of measurements between stations, and differences between rural stations and urban stations (which tend to be hotter, due to the so-called "urban heat island" effect)".

A flaw was pointed out but again it has nothing to do with computer simulations, and apparently was just a minor error in the dataset. There's also no talk here of scientists fudging data, or even faking data as the typical accusation is going.

And again this was about a US dataset, not the worldwide average. As the US covers only a minute fraction (1.8%) of the world, any adjustment to its temperature record is going to be minute to the global average, and this was a small one.

First Len, this was not only the US, it also included Iceland and Australia. And they did not admit this until they were call out publically by Stephen Goddard. So where else are they making this "mistake?" And this is not a small thing Len, this idea that the 1990s was the hottest decade in the US was used to try and drive policy.

[seer]

No, its based upon modern physics which is extremely well supported. The increase of CO2 closes a window in the infrared spectrum, effectively making the atmosphere black and opaque to that kind of radiation. So rather than this escaping into space, it gets trapped in the atmosphere.

This can't be denied, without denying basic physics, the question that remains is what happens to it. We're retaining heat, it has to go somewhere. It'll either heat up something colder, such as the ocean, or the poles, or it will increase the temperature of the air. You really don't have any other options than this.

Really, so there are no dissenting opinions on this? But the real question is how much effect does man made Co2 have. Of all the Co2 that is put into the atmosphere what percentage comes from man - and doesn't it make a real difference?

First of all I told you that there's a disagreement about whether or not there's a pause, some say hesitantly that there is one, others no. There might be a pause, I haven't denied it, just that its not a safe thing. If there's a pause, then something is being heated which isn't the atmosphere. The ocean is a good candidate.

Ok, so we don't know if there was a pause or not? What does that say about our ability to accurately know and record global temperatures?

Good question, I'd love to hear the answer on that one. Perhaps there's a latency issue in setting up the new convections? Whatever the answer is will be interesting to hear, that is if its the oceans where the heat is being dumped. At the moment I'm not aware of any other candidates other than the poles which are melting.

Well yes, why would the oceans suddenly suck up the heat this time when it didn't with the two warming trends in the last century.

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2...g-the-present/[/QUOTE]

Thank you, this is better seer and easier to figure out than linking to a news article, which links to a blog post, which then finally links to the data.

Having read it however Stephen Goddard says nothing about computer simulations, what he does say is the following

"NOAA does have discussions on obscure web pages describing their thought process behind the alterations, but few people know about this. The alterations are highly subjective, and could just as easily go the other way – making the present cooler due to urban heat island effects."

He tacidly admits up front that they have discussions of the changes they made to the data. And just as I said in one of the prior posts, its likely correcting for biases and adding controls from other datasets. He calls them subjective but doesn't discuss them. I'll see if I can find those discussions tomorrow, however if its his words against them, why do you choose his over theirs seer?

He goes onto accuse them of fraud without demonstrating it.

Well no, did you see my second link?

http://www.geotimes.org/aug07/articl...a081607_2.html

[Leonhard]

And they finally admitted to the "mistake." But only after they got caught with their pants down.

http://www.geotimes.org/aug07/articl...a081607_2.html

I missed this part, sorry about that seer. This is more like it. Stephen Goddard's blog post was a bit iffy on details and he seems to go off on speculation, however here's there's far more information and its by a respectable science news source. I'll read into this.

Basically they're saying what I said, there were corrections applied to correct for things like "differences in the time of day of measurements between stations, and differences between rural stations and urban stations (which tend to be hotter, due to the so-called "urban heat island" effect)".

A flaw was pointed out but again it has nothing to do with computer simulations, and apparently was just a minor error in the dataset. There's also no talk here of scientists fudging data, or even faking data as the typical accusation is going.

And again this was about a US dataset, not the worldwide average. As the US covers only a minute fraction (1.8%) of the world, any adjustment to its temperature record is going to be minute to the global average, and this was a small one.

[Leonhard]

Why do I need a reference, you agree with me. And I did read it.

You're making a claim that goes counter to my experience, so its your word against mine.

But isn't that begging the question?

No, its based upon modern physics which is extremely well supported. The increase of CO2 closes a window in the infrared spectrum, effectively making the atmosphere black and opaque to that kind of radiation. So rather than this escaping into space, it gets trapped in the atmosphere.

This can't be denied, without denying basic physics, the question that remains is what happens to it. We're retaining heat, it has to go somewhere. It'll either heat up something colder, such as the ocean, or the poles, or it will increase the temperature of the air. You really don't have any other options than this.

It hasn't been heating up the last 17 years. So the heat doesn't have to go any where.

First of all I told you that there's a disagreement about whether or not there's a pause, some say hesitantly that there is one, others no. There might be a pause, I haven't denied it, just that its not a safe thing. If there's a pause, then something is being heated which isn't the atmosphere. The ocean is a good candidate.

Well obviously we are misunderstanding something quite important and relevant. And Len, why didn't the heat from the 1970-2000 warming trend also find its way into the deep ocean?

Good question, I'd love to hear the answer on that one. Perhaps there's a latency issue in setting up the new convections? Whatever the answer is will be interesting to hear, that is if its the oceans where the heat is being dumped. At the moment I'm not aware of any other candidates other than the poles which are melting.

No Len, they did fudge the numbers. They use computer models instead of actual data. My link also references the archived data.

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2...g-the-present/[/QUOTE]

Thank you, this is better seer and easier to figure out than linking to a news article, which links to a blog post, which then finally links to the data.

Having read it however Stephen Goddard says nothing about computer simulations, what he does say is the following

"NOAA does have discussions on obscure web pages describing their thought process behind the alterations, but few people know about this. The alterations are highly subjective, and could just as easily go the other way – making the present cooler due to urban heat island effects."

He tacidly admits up front that they have discussions of the changes they made to the data. And just as I said in one of the prior posts, its likely correcting for biases and adding controls from other datasets. He calls them subjective but doesn't discuss them. I'll see if I can find those discussions tomorrow, however if its his words against them, why do you choose his over theirs seer?

He goes onto accuse them of fraud without demonstrating it.

[Leonhard]

None of this is particularly unusual or surprising to climatologists but sadly it provided ammo to the climate change denier cranks.

I don't think seer is a crank, and I don't think the majority of conservatives caught up with this are cranks either. There are some cranks out there, however most of them are motivated out of a concern that politically interested lobby groups have infiltrated and perverted the process of science for nefarious purposes. This gives them reasons to feel at the very least suspicious.

I can sympathise, however beyond the climate change having politically important results, I don't think there's any indication of something like that. Unfortunately that message is hard to convey once the accusation is made that something is politically motivated.

As it is I don't think conservatives have anything to lose with admitting that there's man-made global warming. At most it would just give a boost to the solar, wind and nuclear power energy, electric car sector etc... which is something we should be moving into anyway as we're running out of cheap oil.

[HMS_Beagle]

First Len, then why have the global temperature been relatively flat the last 17 years, especially in light of the fact of the greater increase of Co2. Saying that is a fluke is saying nothing. Second, we know that they did fudge the numbers for the US, claiming that the 90s was the warmest decade of the last century when it was in fact the 30s. What other numbers are they fudging?

The phenomenon of flat temperatures over the last 17 years is what is known as regression to the mean. That's a mathematical term for when when a long term average experiences short term fluctuations that sometimes cause a short term reversal of the trend. If you look at the data what really happened is that for 1997-2005 the temperature was considerably above the long term average predictions. Then in the last seven years it has experience a 'correction' as is coming back in line with the long term trend.



The red line is the long term predicted average. The blue line from 1997 is what we would have seen if the temperatures really were flat the last 17 years. Notice that as of 2014 we are almost exactly on the long term predictions.

A full explanation of the phenomenon is here.

None of this is particularly unusual or surprising to climatologists but sadly it provided ammo to the climate change denier cranks.