Who needs to update the HockeyStick graph – it’s only the fate of the planet at stake?

Two weeks ago on the HockeyStick Update post we discussed the miracle of how the Bristlecones used in HockeyStick graphs had finally (sort of) been updated. I marvelled that 800 year old tree rings were easier to find than ones from 2002. Now 16 years after the MBH98 “seminal” (well, popular) paper was published, Salzer et al had finally found some rare modern trees and updated the temperatures after 1980, but gosh, the tree rings didn’t proxy for the red-hot rising trends of the modern era, instead they recorded a fall. That particular hockeystick collapsed (again).

It took a while, but Greg Laden bravely dropped in here on Thursday to share a link to his post on how skeptics are misunderstanding the update with “mind numbing” arguments.  My reply to him on the old thread may have gone unnoticed. So I’ll repeat it here (with slight edits). Perhaps Greg missed my reply?

Steve McIntyre has also taken Laden to task on his blog.

Greg Laden  December 19, 2014 at 12:54 am

A post on one of the studies you refer to here: http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/12/17/new-research-on-tree-rings-as-indicators-of-past-climate/

—————————————————————–

Joanne Nova  December 19, 2014 at 1:41 am

Greg, thanks for popping in, thumbs up from me. Lets share your arguments with everyone here. Quoting from your link:

“More recently, climate science denialist JoNova took the new paper by Salzer et al to task using equally mind numbing arguments.”

What’s the scientific definition of a “denialist” Greg, or are you just namecalling? [I am still hoping Greg would answer this.]

JoNova notes that “after decades of studying 800 year old tree rings, someone has finally found some trees living as long ago as 2005. These rarest-of-rare tree rings have been difficult to find … The US government may have spent $30 billion on climate research, but that apparently wasn’t enough to find trees on SheepMountain living between the vast treeless years of 1980 to now.”
I’m sure the scientists involved in tree ring research would like to know where their $30 billion dollars went, but that’s another story.

The $30 billion went here. It’s out of date now, the real number is much higher.

I asked Malcolm Hughes about JoNova’s implication that there has been next to zero research on or with bristlecone pines over these many years. He said, “This post makes a big deal about the lack of updating of bristlecone pine chronologies since 1980. This is simply wrong. She fails to acknowledge that in 2009 we published on bristlecone pine growth rates in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) and put tree-ring data from Sheep Mountain out to the year 2005 in a publicly accessible archive.”

OK, so pushing multiple hockey-stick papers, and repeats and iterations in the IPCC reports plus press conferences is equivalent to quietly putting the data in a “publicly accessible archive”. As if listeners of MSNBC are trawling PNAS for loosely connected “growth rate” studies and hunting down the datasets while they drive to work. Good luck with convincing people that climate scientists are working just as hard to update their scary graphs as they did to create them.

JoNova also implies that the lack of tree ring proxy use for periods after 1980 is somehow suspicious, but as detailed at length above, the divergence problem is, well, a problem. Also, further work such as that reported here is likely to revive some of that data and allow it to be used, eventually. At the very least, future work with high altitude/latitude tree ring data will be improved by these methodological and ecological studies.

Yes, the divergence problem is real. Congratulations. And “one day” the data might be improved enough to “allow it to be used”. Or then again, we might turn it into a logo for the IPCC and put it on hats, banners, and posters all over the world instead. What would a scientist do, I wonder?

Climate science denialist Steve McIntyre has also weighed in on Salzer et all’s research. His post is truly mind numbing, as he treats Salzer et al as a climate reconstruction paper, and critiques it as such, but the paper examines the methodology of tree ring proxy use and the ecology of tree rings. McIntyre shows the same figure I show above (Figure 5 from that paper) and critiques the researchers for failing to integrate that figure or its data with Mann et al’s climate reconstructions. But they shouldn’t have. That is not what the paper is about. Another very recent paper by the same team is in fact a climate reconstruction study (published in Climate Dynamics) but McIntyre manages to ignore that.

Of course, Mann et al should not rush to integrate the new data with their 1998 Hockeystick. It’s only been 16 years that it’s been in the headlines, and there are only global agreements, billions of dollars and the fate of the planet at stake. Why hurry?

 This is Green B-lobby science at work.

As I said then:

More important than the details of one proxy, is the message that the modern bureaucratized monopolistic version of “science” doesn’t work. Real scientists, who were really interested in the climate, would have published updates years ago.

The screaming absence of this obvious update for so long is an example of what I call the “rachet effect” in science — where only the right experiments, or the right data, gets published. It’s not that there is a conspiracy, it’s just that no one is paid to find the holes in the theory and the awkward results sit buried at the bottom of a drawer for a decade.

To this evidently Laden, and Malcolm Hughes (of Mann Bradley Hughes fame) who corresponded with Laden about the post had little to say.

9.7 out of 10 based on 140 ratings

225 comments to Who needs to update the HockeyStick graph – it’s only the fate of the planet at stake?

  • #
    Klem

    I haven’t been to Ladens blog for about a year, that’s after I commented several times on one thread and he personally deleted every one of them.

    I noticed that he’s had only 12 comments on the thread that is linked above, with Laden providing two comments himself. Perhaps his visitor numbers are so bad now he has to drop in to Jonovas blog and call her names, to drum up some business.

    I also noticed he still using the Hiroshima metric. Lol!

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  • #

    When the “data” fit the theory, it was published. When it didn’t, the data was ignored. It is “Hide the Decline” then, now, and in between.

    The real “mind numbing arguments” are:

    1. Change the name, you change the thing named.
    2. If you don’t name it, it doesn’t exist.
    3. If you don’t think about it, it won’t hurt you.
    4. If you can get away with it, you are good to go.

    Post Modernism and Post Normal Science in action.

    Their real complaint is that they can’t get away with it anymore.

    794

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Their real complaint is that they can’t get away with it anymore.

      I’ll bet that every last MSNBC anchor or at least all of them who can spell “global” and “warming” believe they’ve not only gotten away with it but that there never was anything to “get away with” in the first place because it was all gospel truth.

      But the real tragedy is that so many who have the intellect to have looked at this and all the controversy surrounding it and discovered the truth, still prattle on about the possibility of manmade climate change.

      I won’t name names but I suspect everyone can name a few without stressing so much as one brain cell.

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      I think its much simpler than all that – they were getting belted around the cricket pitch, so they decided to use two bowlers at once instead of one. Its just not cricket….

      Or put another way, when we put out the first fire, they started another one to distract us, then ran off….

      Its like dealing with poorly behaved kids, seriously….

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      • #
        Jon

        “I think its much simpler than all that – they were getting belted around the cricket pitch, so they decided to use two bowlers at once instead of one. Its just not cricket….”

        They did not like the real world bowler so they made a virtual bowler in a computer game, sorry, model they can control 100%.
        It’s called predictive science? Or policy based science?

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  • #
    Pathway

    Once they use the word denialist we know it’s not about the science.

    763

    • #
      Harry Passfield

      Pathway: What is so pathetic is that Laden thinks that McIntyre is a ‘denialist’!! So much for his reading comprehension. I do hope he gets above level three before his paymasters figure out he’s not worth his salt.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      The word, “denialist” is not even a proper word. The suffix “-ist” only applies to words with a Greek origin.

      The word, “deny” has a Latin root, so the correct noun formation is “denier”, as was previously used as an epithet.

      It is interesting though, that the antonym of “denier”, in relation to climate change, would be “catastrophist”, which does have a Greek origin.

      So I think that labeling the vaporous hand-ringers, over climate armageddon, as “catastrophists”, in juxtaposition to “denier”, would be entirely appropriate.

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      • #
        GoWest

        Only active climate scammers use the word “denialist” – needless to say they continue to deny that they have exaggerated big time and joe public thinks they are waste of space scammers.

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  • #
    George Applegate

    Environmentalists and climate scientists are panicking. Not because they are worried we’ll all roast if we don’t do something about CO2 emissions. They’re panicking that time is running out for governments to pass legislation supporting their social agenda (and their own funding) before the mounting data falsifies the CAGW theory. They hope that once CO2 cuts are made, they can take credit for (rather than denying) the lack of warming.

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    • #
      CC Reader

      I would suggest that they are worried about a PHD in dendroclimatology having to learn to say, “Would you like “Solanum tuberosum L” with that, Sir?” at their next job interview.

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      • #
        CriddleDog

        Besides a ‘thumbs up’ and ‘thumbs down’, I reckon we need a ‘question mark’! 🙂

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        • #
          the Griss

          A PhD in dendro or Arts/lit is a step above an Arts degree.

          Therefore you get to be a waiter/waitress/barista in a more upper-class establishment. 🙂

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          • #
            the Griss

            ie….. Do you want fries with that ?

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            • #
              GregS

              For an upper class establishment surely it would be pommel frites?

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              • #
                GregS

                pommes frites

                Darn Autocorrect!

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              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                Rather than being autocratic, it is autocorrectic?

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              • #
                Mark A

                There used to be a bad joke about the Schwaben in Germany, mainly told in der Schweiz, it goes like this; the young bloke goes to a restaurant for the first time in his life and when asked what he’d like to order he looks at the menu and seeing the words “pomme frites” and never having heard of it before orders it. When questioned, what he would like with it, he answers, potatoes of course!
                PS, the original had a maiden as the ignorant character but now we are PC, the Swiss are a cruel lot. Of course this could be told about many other nationalities fond of the apple of the earth.

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    • #
      Manfred

      ….before the mounting data falsifies the CAGW theory

      Dr. Phil Jones – CRU emails – 5th July, 2005
      
“The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has but it is only 7 years of data and it isn’t statistically significant….”

      Dr. Phil Jones – CRU emails – 7th May, 2009

      ‘Bottom line: the ‘no upward trend’ has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.’

      The CAGW ‘hypothesis’ is scientifically ‘falsified’. However, the theory persists and continues to provide a useful political stalking horse.
      The null hypothesis (if there ever was one) was that anthropogenically added CO2 would not result in escalating, runaway global temperature rise. This is correct, so the null hypothesis is not disproved. Instead, we have experienced a statistically trendless global temperature interval for 19 years (http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojs.2014.47050).

      However, given the current inclination toward bureaucratic totalitarianism, the mindless political obsession with saving the planet and a bizarre state of chronic fear about almost everything (are we not blessed to live too comfortably?), we have a near ideal setting for a perfect socio-political storm.

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      • #
        Philip Shehan

        [This comment is 594 words that are not on topic apart from three last paras which are apologist blather for scientists using a “trick” to “hide” how useless their proxy is. Deception. Phil please snip yourself. Go to unthreadeds for long irrelevant discussions. – Jo]

        UAH satellite data for the last 15 years shows the trend to be the same as that for the entire satellite record.

        There is a reduction in the trend if you go back 16 years to start at the el nino year of 1998.

        No (atmospheric) warming for 16 years but warming as usual for 15 years is a logical nonsense based on a misinterpretation of the data.

        Sixteen years ago there was an exceptionally hot year. That is all.

        Yesterday, Mr Bolt made the claim of no warming for 16 years (again) yet his quotations yielded the information that Judith Curry had made no such claim, and understands the concept of statistical significance, even if Mr Bolt does not:

        ‘In fact: Met Office data for 2013 show no statistically significant rise in atmospheric temperatures for at least 16 years. Climate scientist Professor Judith Curry told the US Congress this year: “For the past 16 years, there has been no significant increase in surface temperature.“

        I have no problem with that statement.

        The reduction in signal to noise ratio for the data means that shorter periods such as 16 years are unlikely to show statistically significant warming, or cooling or a “pause”.

        For UAH data, the trend for the 16 years from the beginning of 1998 to the end of 2013 is

        Trend: 0.06 ±0.22 °C/decade (2σ)

        The data shows a warming trend that is not statistically significant. It does not show cooling or a pause, statistically significant or otherwise.

        The trends for the graph above.

        From 1979: Trend: 0.14 ±0.07 °C/decade

        Statistically significant warming.

        From 1999: Trend: 0.14 ±0.19 °C/decade

        Not statistically significant warming. Or cooling. Or a “pause”.

        As for the null hypothesis.

        “null hypothesis

        noun

        (in a statistical test) the hypothesis that there is no significant difference between specified populations, any observed difference being due to sampling or experimental error.”

        In other words, there is no change in a trend unless the change is statistically significant.

        There is no statistically significant change in trend from the data for the last 15 or 16 years compared to the statistically significant warming trend for the last 35 years. The error margins overlap.

        Therefore, the null hypothesis, that there has been no change in the statistically significant warming trend over the last 35 years is confirmed.

        Whatever may be happenning with the atmosphere, ocean temperatures and sea levels continue to rise.

        With regard to the failure of bristle cone pines as a proxy for temperature since the MBH paper was published. This is ancient news.

        In fact it was recognised in that paper that tree ring proxies which had matched other proxies and instrumental records up to that time had begun to fail in the 1960s. This was discussed in the literature as the well known “divergence problem.” The reasons were then and are still unknown. Some suggest that anthropigenic causes such as particulate pollution or acid rain.

        The recognition of this problem is precisely the genesis of the “Mike’s Nature trick” “hide the decline” comment in the stolen/hacked/leaked CRU emails, which was misrepresented by skeptics as an attempt to hide the decline in the instrumental records,rather than addressing a known problem with the proxy data.

        The solution, “Mikes nature trick”, was to disregard the known to be inaccurate proxy data from the 1960s on and use the actual instrumental data instead. Shock, horror.

        This methodology was found to be entirely acceptable in the US National Academy of Science report to the US congress.

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        • #

          Philip
          so explain to us how using a proxy with “known problems” means the science is settled, and any critics are deniers? Point us to the place where you or Michael Mann went to some effort to tell the public that tree ring proxies are sometimes utterly invalid, and that you don’t know when or why.

          Where was the “ancient news” announced and the message given that the whole bristlecone HockeyStick should be considered unreliable.

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          • #
            Philip Shehan

            Ms Nova. Being something of a pedant who has a graduate diploma in History and Philosphy of Science, I do not like the term “settled science”. I never use it. Science is never finally settled. All scientific theories are subject to revision or replacement.

            The basic theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) states that the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration with burning of fossil fuels is warming the atmosphere, and that is affecting and will increasingly affect the earth’s climate with further rises in CO2 concentration.

            This basic part of AGW is relatively simple, based on a sound theoretical understanding backed by laboratory experiment of the absorption of infrared radiation by CO2 and supported by empirical evidence which links observed global temperatures to rising temperatures for the last 150 years to CO2 concentration. The empirical result is that temperatures have risen by 2 C with doubling of CO2 concentration, in line with the theoretical calculation of 1.5 to 4.5 C

            The term settled is sloppily used to mean that this theory is established to a very high degree of probability and is accepted as such by mainstream science. People are welcome to dispute that conclusion but it is one with which I concur. But that conclusion is subject to revision in the light of further evidence.

            The complexity of climate means that the details of what effects this anthropogenic increase in global average temperature have on climate at the regional level are far less well established. Or far from “settled” to use that sloppy term. That is why climate research continues.

            The details depend on the contributions to climate from other mechanisms, natural and anthropogenic, the nature and magnitude of various “feedback” mechanisms which reinforce the or counter the atmospheric warming caused by an increase in CO2 concentration, the non uniform distribution of land masses and oceans and the effects on wind and ocean currents etc.

            I do not call critics deniers. At least not those who show genuine skepticism toward AGW. Those who show no skepticism in their own views and reject AGW out of hand, and exhibit the psychological state of denial, the refusal to accept an idea because find the consequences unacceptable to their worldview are another matter.

            As I said, the causes of the known problems with tree ring data in since the latter part of the century are unknown. Discussion of “divergence” begins at the bottom of this page of the report SURFACE TEMPERATURE RECONSTRUCTIONS FOR THE LAST 2,000 YEARS.

            However prior to the appearance of the divergence problem, tree ring proxy data matches other proxy data, (Chapters 5 -8 on the side bar), and the instrumental record.

            The whole bristle cone and other tree ring data was not considered unreliable, just that from the latter part of the 20th century. The link above gives the earliest referencees to the divergence problem as Jacoby and D’Arrigo 1995, Briffa et al. 1998. Also discussed here. “Mike’s nature trick” simply kept the reliable data while dispensing with the unreliable data and relied on the instrumental data instead.

            Numerous “hockey sticks” based on other proxy and instrumental data confirm the original.

            REPLY- So people can see – this is typical posting of Philips. This is 523 words. Most of which are about him or his opinions, when my points are about the way climate scientists work and their publicity bias. Phil, this thread is not about you. This is a long way of not answering my key question see #2 question here #4.2.1.2. – Jo

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            • #

              “The whole bristle cone and other tree ring data was not considered unreliable, just that from the latter part of the 20th century. “

              And you admit you don’t know why that occurs yet you accept bristlecones from distant history with no thermometer checks as if the same factor is “known” to be not working (whatever it is). Philip – that’s very unscientific .

              I’m glad you don’t use “settled science” or ” denier” (much), congrats. But the supporters and some creators of the Hockeystick do. Do you admonish them, or is it “what a scientist does”? Iwasn’t talking about what you said. I was talking about The Team.

              I note you avoided answering my questions even though my comment was very very short.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Ms Nova,

                Apologies if this is a little long but I wish to answer your concerns fully. I thought I had done so initially but further elaboration is required.

                I discussed the ‘known problems’ with tree rings, and gave 2 links citing papers going back to 1995. I thought that answered the “ancient news” question.

                Phil this post is about climate scientists bias in their publications and publicity (not about you). You provided two links to papers, but that is my point — where was Mann and others in the media and press telling the world not to rely on their hockeystick? – Jo

                The fact that I, or more correctly the scientists who conduct the research, do not know the causes for this divergence at this time, although causes are postulated, is not as important as the fact that they know it exists, and that prior to the 1960’s tree rings do match the instrumental record, and prior to that, other proxy data which are covered in the relevant chapters I referenced.

                You are avoiding saying that I’m right about the logical meaning of their ignorance with waffle – Jo.

                In his paper, Mann references these studies and places his study in that context. Excuse me here if I quote this passage as I understand that people may not be up to wading through the whole paper:

                A variety of studies have sought
                to use a ‘multiproxy’ approach to understand long-term climate
                variations, by analysing a widely distributed set of proxy and
                instrumental climate indicators1,5–8 to yield insights into longterm
                global climate variations. Building on such past studies, we
                take a new statistical approach to reconstructing global patterns of
                annual temperature back to the beginning of the fifteenth century,
                based on the calibration of multiproxy data networks by the
                dominant patterns of temperature variability in the instrumental
                record…

                We use a multiproxy network consisting of widely distributed high quality
                annual-resolution proxy climate indicators, individually
                collected and formerly analysed by many palaeoclimate researchers
                (details and references are available: see Supplementary Information).
                The network includes (Fig. 1a) the collection of annualresolution
                dendroclimatic, ice core, ice melt, and long historical
                records used by Bradley and Jones6 combined with other coral, ice
                core, dendroclimatic, and long instrumental records.

                For more information people should read the whole paper.
                [This is more waffle. What’s a “high quality proxy” that doesn’t match warmer temperatures? Useless! – Jo]

                Proxies are used precisely because instrumental data is not available, but the fact that different proxy methods mutually support each other each other and the instrumental record where available is evidence that they are useful. That approach is entirely scientific. To quote again from the paper:

                Although studies have shown that well chosen regional paleoclimate
                reconstructions can act as surprisingly representative surrogates for
                large-scale climate11–13, multiproxy networks seem to provide the
                greatest opportunity for large-scale palaeoclimate reconstruction6
                and climate signal detection1,5. There is a rich tradition of multivariate
                statistical calibration approaches to palaeoclimate reconstruction,
                particularly in the field of dendroclimatology where
                the relative strengths and weaknesses of various approaches to
                multivariate calibration have been well studied14,15

                More waffle. Ljundqvist and Christiansen. 90 proxies and 120 proxies. Totally different shape. As does Loehle, as does boreholes.

                You asked where I and Mann “went to some effort to tell the public that tree ring proxies are sometimes utterly invalid, and that [we] don’t know when or why ”.

                Well, I answered the “when” (since the 1960’s) and noted that the “why” is as yet unkown in my comments here and above, as I have in the past.

                I neglected to account for Mann. Mann was writing a technical scientific paper for climatologists familiar with the field, who would be aware of the literature on divergence, not the general public.

                He referenced the divergence problem here:

                More detailed discussions of the estimation of, and
                potential sources of uncertainty or bias in, these series are
                available2,39,40. Industrial-aerosol forcing of the climate has also
                been suggested as an important forcing of recent climate42,43, but
                its physical basis is still controversial44, and difficult to estimate
                observationally. Noting that in any case, this forcing is not believed
                to be important before about 1940, its omission should be inconsequential
                in our long-term detection approach.

                Yes I do admonish people who use the term “settled science” as I have done here and elsewhere. As I said, having obtained a formal qualification in HPS, I would feel I had wasted my time if I was not something of a pedant on these matters.

                [Will you admit that Mann does not discuss the devastating flaws at press conferences. He presents the Hockeystick like it means something even though he knows the proxy fails in warmer conditions and he does not know why. I note you don’t provide any evidence that you tell off believers for using “settled science” — no letters to newspapers or even links to comments on other sites. – Jo]

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              • #
                Sean McHugh

                To Philip Shehan:

                And it all ends up such that you can feed Lotto numbers in as data and obtain a Hockey Stick. That makes it worthless by itself, regardless of the divergence joker and the “trick” it required to make tree rings seem a reliable method for determining ancient temperatures.

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              • #

                I’ve replied inline because I don’t want to requote largely wafflely passages that avoid the point of this post. Phil has dominated too much already and is still not answering my q’s in #4.2.1.2 despite using 1000 words. This post is about the lack of scientific updates on modern tree-rings, the utter logical failure of the Hockeystick, and the one sided publicity machine that shows meaningless tree rings graphs but never publicly admits how useless they are except buried in silent scientific papers or even just datasets no one looks at.

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            • #
              Lord Jim

              … observed global temperatures to rising temperatures for the last 150 years to CO2 concentration. The empirical result is that temperatures have risen…

              Which is an elementary mistake of confusing correlation and causation.

              A few facts:

              The world has been warming since the end of the LIA. That warming has not accelerated, despite huge increases in co2.

              Without positive feedbacks mechanisms warming is estimated to be 1 degree for a doubling of co2.

              The observed warming does not match the model projections.

              The estimates of sensitivity to co2 are constantly being revised down.

              Past reconstructions of climate are unreliable.

              The terrestrial thermometer record is unreliable.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                The cause and effect relationship has been outlined in my earlier comment. And below.

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              • #
                Lord Jim

                The observed warming does not match the model projections.

                Speaking of which, over at ClimateAudit:

                Unprecedented” Model Discrepancy

                Judy Curry recently noted that Phil Jones’ 2014 temperature index (recently the subject of major adjustments in methodology) might be a couple of hundredths of degree higher than a few years ago and alerted her readers to potential environmental NGO triumphalism. Unsurprisingly, it has also been observed in response that the hiatus continues in full force for the satellite records, with 1998 remaining the warmest satellite year by a considerable margin.

                Equally noteworthy however – and of greater interest to CA readers where there has been more focus on model-observation discrepancy – is that the overheating discrepancy between models and surface temperatures in 2014 was the fourth highest in “recorded” history and that the 5 largest warm discrepancies have occurred in the past 6 years. The cumulative discrepancy between models and observations is far beyond any previous precedent. This is true for both surface and satellite comparisons.”

                http://climateaudit.org/2014/12/11/unprecedented-model-discrepancy/

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            • #
              Roy Hogue

              This basic part of AGW is relatively simple, based on a sound theoretical understanding backed by laboratory experiment of the absorption of infrared radiation by CO2 and supported by empirical evidence which links observed global temperatures to rising temperatures for the last 150 years to CO2 concentration.

              Philip,

              I’m glad you said that and not me. What on Earth justifies, “…sound theoretical understanding…” and “…backed by laboratory experiment…”?

              Just for starters, no laboratory experiment can hope to duplicate the behavior of the atmosphere, whether in regard to CO2 or anything else. What sound theoretical understanding are you talking about? The whole man made warming scenario has blown up right in the face of those who preach it.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                The basic physics of the absorption of infrared radiation by CO2 is well established, demonstrated in laboratory experiments and familiar to any 1st year chemistry student who has ever run an infrared (IR)spectrum of an organic compound and observed the absorption band corresponding to the C=O double bond.

                The C=O bond of carbon dioxide molecule absorbs quanta of energy corresponding to the infra red band of electromagnetic radiation which causes the bond to stretch and vibrate, increasing the kinetic energy of the molecules, which is measured as an increase in temperature.

                Thus the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration since the industrial revolution from 280 to 400 ppm by the burning of fossil fuels has caused a rise in atmospheric temperature and will continue to do so.

                The theoretical understanding of the greenhouse effect goes back to Joseph Fourier, John Tyndall and Svante Arrhenius in the 19th century.

                The dependence of warming on CO2 concentration is shown by this curve.

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              • #
                RB

                That you resort to his childishness, Philip, suggests that you now realise that its all crap. Are you a shill by any chance?

                Do you think that a Professor in physical sciences doesn’t know about the absorption of IR by CO2?

                Thus the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration since the industrial revolution from 280 to 400 ppm by the burning of fossil fuels has caused a rise in atmospheric temperature and will continue to do so.

                No. It has not been proved by Tyndall, Arrhenius nor any Noble Peace Prize winner to be true. You can’t link to a theoretical plot of forcing for evidence. You might as well link to an equation and call it data.

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                the Griss

                A Christmas present for you Philip…

                Note the text in the conclusion…

                In our view the greenhouse phenomenon, as it was postulated by J. Fourier (1824), estimated by S. Arrhenius (1906), first quantified by S. Manabe and R. Wetherald (1967), explained by R. Lindzen (2007), and endorsed by the National Academy of Science and the Royal Society (2014), simple does not exist.”

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              • #
                the Griss

                A tiny increase in kinetic energy, for a minute fraction of a second, in 0.04% of the atmospheric gases,..

                .. will be immediately passed onto the remaining 99.96% of atmospheric gases..

                .. and dealt with exactly as it has always been dealt with.

                It will not and can not cause any atmospheric warming.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                RB I do not understand your comment.

                What Professor in physical sciences?

                And excuse me for being a pedant again. Just as I object the use of the word settled science, I object to the use of the word “proof” applied to science, as it means “settled” once and for all.

                Fourier Tyndall and Arrhenius provided a sound theoretical understanding of the greenhouse effect. That is all I wrote.

                I did not call the plot data.

                I repeat. The absorption of Infra red radiation by CO2 is a simple laboratory experiment as demonstrated on the ABC program catalyst. You pass a beam of infrared light through an air sample free of CO2 in a glass box. You observe the radiation that passed through the sample radiation with night vision goggles. You do the same thing with a sample of CO2. You see nothing with the night vision glasses. The temperature rise can be measured.

                As for that IR spectrum. If the sample absorbs infra red radiation at the wavelength of the C=O double bond, where does that energy go?

                Do I have to teach you, or your putative Professor in the physical sciences the first law of thermodynamics?

                I was asked to justify the statement that the basic premise of AGW, that rising concentrations of atmospheric CO2 cause a rise in temperature is “based on a sound theoretical understanding backed by laboratory experiment of the absorption of infrared radiation by CO2 and supported by empirical evidence.”

                I have done so.

                That people cannot respond to this without abuse demonstrates their intellectual shallowness.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Well Griss that, if you pardon the expression “settles” it then. Ferenc Mark Miskolczi, using the royal “we”, has overturned an entire body of science.

                And. That tiny increase in kinetic energy affecting 0.04% of the atmosphere (that’s over 3 trillion tonnes) being irradiated , on average, 12 hours a day, day after day, week after week, decade after decade…

                Actually the absorbed energy does not remain as kinetic energy indefinitely, even if not passed on to other gas molecules due to collisions. That is only part of the story.

                The energy in the bond will drop back to a lower state by emission of a photon of IR radiation. This will occur in all directions, including downwards to the earth’s surface.

                Thus some of the infra red radiation which had been travelling away from the earth’s surface into space is turned around by the CO2 molecule and increases the temperature of the surface.

                15

              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                Philip Shehan,

                I have noticed a distinct trend, within alarmist circles, to just present a curve, but without providing any mathematical underpinning. The Visio drawing package will produce nice curves, and do so without the tedium of having to have real empirical data. You really do need to address the point that RB raised.

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              • #
                the Griss

                “Ferenc Mark Miskolczi, using the royal “we”, has overturned an entire body of science.”

                So, you can’t refute it.

                I thought as much. 🙂

                Tell me Philip, if in your niche little speciality, someone came up with something that cast serious doubt on what you were doing…..

                ….would you attempt to comprehend and thereby improve your understanding ?

                Or would you just say.. “no, everything we know is correct” and muddle on regardless. ?

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              • #
                RB

                That people cannot respond to this without abuse demonstrates their intellectual shallowness.

                That after so many years you can not appreciate that there is no need to point out CO2 absorbs IR radiation is beyond belief. You’re a blatant propagandist who deserves to be abused. It like arguing with a spoilt teenager and not someone who claims to have a PhD.

                That you resort to this means that you know its all crap.

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            • #

              Philip Shehan,

              I noticed that you made the following claim:

              Do I have to teach you, or your putative Professor in the physical sciences the first law of thermodynamics?

              I was asked to justify the statement that the basic premise of AGW, that rising concentrations of atmospheric CO2 cause a rise in temperature is “based on a sound theoretical understanding backed by laboratory experiment of the absorption of infrared radiation by CO2 and supported by empirical evidence.”

              I have done so.

              Do you really believe that you have done anything at all which pertains to “the first law of thermodynamics”? With the conservation of energy!?

              Really!?

              Do you think that adding an amount of inert gas to the atmosphere constitutes adding energy to it? I notice you make/imply that claim twice?

              Do you believe that the ‘physical foundation’ of AGW is added energy through more CO2?

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            • #
              James McCown

              supported by empirical evidence which links observed global temperatures to rising temperatures for the last 150 years to CO2 concentration.

              This is false. There were only sporadic measurements of atmospheric CO2 concentrations made before 1958. Most researchers who have examined the correlation between CO2 concentration and global temperatures for the pre-1958 period have relied on ice core data. Such data is not appropriate for comparing with annual temperature data because it does not have that degree of temporal accuracy. It is no better than approximately 20 year weighted averages. You can see my criticism of these research papers in my post on WUWT back in August:

              http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/29/problems-with-statistical-tests-of-pre-1958-atmospheric-co2-concentration-data/

              00

        • #
          Konrad

          “The solution, “Mikes nature trick”, was to disregard the known to be inaccurate proxy data from the 1960s on and use the actual instrumental data instead. Shock, horror.”

          You’re right Philip, it is a shocking example of the craven, venal and mendacious behaviour of climastrologists. The proxy data was not “known to be inaccurate” as you assert. The accurate tree ring data was showing quite clearly that trees are not thermometers, as their growth responds to multiple environmental factors. Disregarding the accurate tree ring data that showed this and claiming tree ring data from before instrument records was a proxy for temperature was scientific malfeasance. No if, no but, no maybe.

          422

          • #
            Philip Shehan

            Konrad, As my above comments note The National Academy of Sciences report to the US congress, SURFACE TEMPERATURE RECONSTRUCTIONS FOR THE LAST 2,000 YEARS, found nothing mendacious or shocking about this methodology and tree ring proxies prior to the late twentieth century are consistent with other proxies and instrumental data.

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            • #
              Robert

              So? Argument from authority Phil? Because the NAS reports to the US Congress that means it’s all good then? Since when does acceptance by a political body have a thing to do with whether or not we are talking about proper science?

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        • #
          the Griss

          “sea levels continue to rise.”

          At a constant rate. No acceleration (a slight deceleration, actually), no CO2 signal.

          The error margin in the temperature overlap for all concurrent 15-30 year periods, even before the beneficial release of CO2 as fossil fuel.

          The trend 1905-1945 was almost identical to that from 1965-2005

          There is no CO2 signal even in the much adjusted HadCrut temperature record.

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          • #
            Philip Shehan

            Griss. Temperatures rise with the log of CO2 concentration, not linearly.

            See level rise due to thermal expansion will also depend on this relationship. Sea level rise due to land based ice melting also contributes to sea level rise and is expected to do so at an accelerating rate.

            Alinear fit

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            • #
              the Griss

              “Temperatures rise with the log of CO2 concentration, not linearly”

              Except when it doesn’t.

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              • #
                the Griss

                And of course when we look at un-adjusted sea temp data, we see just how ludicrous the idea of there being any link between CO2 and temperature is.

                Note. this data mimics pre-adjustment Hansen land data, with the big peak around 1940, which has of course been non-stealthily removed by Climategate et al

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              • #
                the Griss

                Whoops, forgot second link to pre climategate data

                Again we see the strong drop in temperatures from 1940-1970 while the world CO2 output was increasing.

                The low temp point was around 1975, so cherry-picking around this period is bound to give a upward trend until 1997 at the start ot the malor El Nino event.

                Since that El Nino event finished completely at the beginning of 2001, all 4 main temperature data sets show basically zero warming

                GisTemp only shows a slight positive trend due to the manic efforts of Gavin in warming the last couple of years by ‘inventing’ warm areas where there are no thermometers, a warming that does not show up in the satellite data.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Griss, which part of variation in temperature data due to the superimposition of the factors other than CO2 concentration do you still not understand?

                The link above showing CO2 and temperature data from 1850 has a correlation coefficient of R of 0.91

                As for sea temperature rise, see the graph from Bob Tisdale, no warmist, in my reply to RB below. It puts current global ocean rise at 0.03 C/decade, as does the heat content data, after some arithmetic.

                Also note that that sea level rise is consistent with thermal expansion of oceans with rising temperatures.

                Is that “pre climategate” data the one showing only land based data from Europe, primarily from one site in England?

                With regard to temperature trends from 2000. Which bit about short data sets and statistical significance do you still not get? Judith Curry does.

                The trend may be real, but so what?. I refer again to the influence of factors other than CO2 on temperature over the shorter term.

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              • #
                the Griss

                Of course CO2 matches temperature in Giss and HadCrud.

                Its been specifically adjusted to do so.

                And if you think these adjustments only apply to the US, you are even more naïve that I thought.

                Any data set before 1979 can be taken as meaningless thanks to Hansen et al.

                and since then there has been one single warming event, with a very small underlying warming trend.

                We should be very glad this warming trend exists, because the LIA was apparently not that warm.

                Warmer is GOOD, more CO2 is GOOD.

                These are the things that help man and life in general exist on this Earth.

                The next 2-3 years will tell the real story.

                Temperatures have peaked in what could be called the Current Slightly Warm Period. (not a match for the MWP and certainly not the RWP)

                Its now downwards for the rest of all our lives. !

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            • #
              Roy Hogue

              …expected …

              That seems to be the watchword along with predicted and all their various synonyms. It certainly isn’t “measured” as a scientist should be interested in. It’s one thing to make a prediction and then measure to see if it happens but quite another to make predictions and call them proof that X, Y or Z is actually happening.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Roy. Prediction means conjecture about an event that has not happened yet. How do you measure an event that has not yet happened?

                Scientists make predictions about events that have not yet happened without supplying measurements of the events that have not yet happened all the time.

                Shocking to you perhaps, but true.

                See my comments above about settled science and its twin, “proof”.

                13

              • #
                Roy Hogue

                Scientists make predictions about events that have not yet happened without supplying measurements of the events that have not yet happened all the time.

                Indeed they do. But they do not say the event has happened unless it does. Or did you miss that part?

                Where is all the predicted warming?

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          • #
            Philip Shehan

            I might add that even now, rising sea levels are causing real problems.

            Warming world’s rising seas wash away some of South Florida’s glitz

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            • #

              But most sea level rise is a localized phenomenon due to subsidence, erosion, and all kinds of factors/ Global sea levels as measured by tide gauges show 1 – 1.5mm a year rise. See “Sea level” in my index.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                According to the link I posted above, using satellite and tide guages, the sea level rise is somewhat larger.

                Exactly. Philip. Exactly. Satellites are adjusted according to one subsiding tide gauge in HK which is why they show more rise than all the tide gauges. I was right. This is also OT. As usual, you post an irrelevant point. I explain where it’s wrong. You don’t admit it. Instead you pick up a minor element and continue on with irrelevant points. – Jo

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            • #
              Roy Hogue

              I might add that even now, rising sea levels are causing real problems.

              Phil,

              I expect you can dance circles around me on the science, the math and probably many other subjects. But you can’t pull the wool over this old mans eyes with stuff like this. I spent too many years learning to analyze symptoms and reconcile different opinions about what they meant. It’s what made me a very good software debugger Sometimes when no one else could figure out what was wrong I pulled the fat out of the fire. And that’s not bragging, though I admit that it felt good when I could do it.

              You’ve been flying in the face of a large elephant in the room — evidence of all kinds from circumstantial and anecdotal to reliable measurements that don’t agree with you. And when a lot of evidence of the kind you don’t seem to pay attention to, supports the position Jo has maintained and documented so well for so long, I’ve got to go with Jo.

              Shit on the beach has been around for years. It’s a problem faced by so many coastal cities when it rains hard and for other reasons like failure to maintain sewage plants in working order, that I can’t count them. Los Angeles is one of them. Before I’ll make anything but unfortunate confluence of events out of Miami’s problems I’ll need details of the sewage disposal system.

              Drought has been around for thousands, if not millions of years. It comes and goes as it sees fit. California has had a serious one for the last 3 years at least. Yet this year shows a change in that trend, notwithstanding that CO2 continues to be dumped into the atmosphere. I’ve been her through several and watched the rain and snow come and go without regard for what anyone want’s or thinks. I may see the end of this one soon or it may continue. But either way it won’t have anything to do with CO2.

              You have a really hard sell with someone like me because I look at everything I can find. Not just your links to stuff that supports you.

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              • #
                OriginalSteve

                I wouldnt be surprised if they are using Scalar tech to keep it dry in California to really push the CAGW nonsense to new heights.

                You can provide a “drought” if you can burn off clouds easily.

                Look for the tell-tale herringbone/ribbed pattern through the clouds whioch shows the Scalar is operational.

                21

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Roy.

                I have not been ignoring any elephants in the room. And I do not take your provision of evidence of your analytical skills as bragging.

                I do not discount evidence put by those against AGW. I did not always accept AGW. Some time I think, between the 3rd and 4th IPCC reports, I came to the conclusion that the preponderance of evidence was on the side of the proponents of AGW rather than the critics. Perhaps a future re-evaluation of the evidence will cause a change in that position.

                I have no problem with people reading the balance of evidence in a different way. We should all be genuinely skeptical. I do have a problem with people who substitute personal attacks for scientific argument.

                The reason that I regularly visit skeptic sites such as this one, which often gets me called a troll, is that I am interested in hearing the evidence from both sides. I do not reject skeptic arguments out of hand. I read and evaluate them. I am something of a contrarian (my teachers in class discussions at school noted with approval that I liked to play devil’s advocate) and I tend not to post “me too”, “I agree with that” comments.

                I want everyone base their arguments on sound arguments. In fact when I started commenting on Mr Bolt’s blog, way back before he became a multimedia megastar and answered each comment individually, I saw my role as helping non scientists to understand some of the arguments and principles involved. I still do. Statistical significance for example is used by skeptics and warmists alike in their arguments. Remember when skeptics correctly proclaimed that Phil Jones had ‘admitted’ that there had been no statistically significant warming for x years? Way, way, back Mr Bolt even asked how CO2 was taken up by plants. I answered and he thanked me. I do not wish to ‘run rings’ around anyone. Just put an argument based on science.

                Unfortunately the personal attacks in many of the comments make me more combative than I would like to be in many of my responses. I apologise if my remarks to you have been a bit snarky.

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        • #
          the Griss

          “There is no statistically significant change in trend from the data for the last 15 or 16 years compared to the statistically significant warming trend for the last 35 years. The error margins overlap.”

          LOL, you don’t really expect to get away with that little piece of statistical mis-direction do you ?

          Been getting help for 1st year Arts students again ?

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          • #
            Philip Shehan

            Griss. Kindly point out where the analysis is wrong.

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            • #
              the Griss

              Meaningless, cherry-picked endpoints showing zero comprehension of the climate system.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Griss

                I am not discussing the climate system. I am discussing the temperature data on which Mr Bolt and Professor Curry have based their conclusions. I agree with Curry’s conclusions as she understands statistical significance. Mr Bolt does not understand it any more than you do so you are both wrong.

                They are their meaningless cherry picked end points.

                29

              • #
                the Griss

                “any more than you do”

                and you complain about personal attacks. LOL

                Hypocrite, and cry-baby.

                And also, know that your 1st year Arts degree understanding of statistics and significance is still shining through. !

                Pretend all you like and try to hide behind your trivial and basic mathematics, but it is obvious to anyone, except the most wilfully blind, that the temperature in all four data sets has been essentially zero-trend since the end of the 1998 El Nino event.

                21

            • #
              the Griss

              Any short term periods will show the same thing..

              The error margin is so large they will overlap..

              Your analysis is, as usual, meaningless and trivial.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Griss you seem to miss my point about short time intervals resulting in reduced signal to noise ratios and thus larger error margins.

                For clarity I will use Muana Loa CO2 data here diagrams to illustrate the point, rather than temperature, as the “noise”, (actually seasonal variation) is more uniform than for temperature data which depends on multiple factors.

                Take data from 2000 to the present.

                The magnitude of the “signal” is the vertical rise in the central green trend line of the data, is from 368 to 397 or 29 units (ppm in this case).

                The noise “envelope” is confined between the blue and purple lines parallel to the trend line. Its vertical distance, or the “peak to peak noise” is 8.2 ppm (the combined offset values from -4 to 4.2 units for these lines).

                The signal to noise ratio defined here (there are more mathematically complicated definitions) is thus 29/8.2 or 3.5 (no units for a ratio).

                We can define the error margins for the slope here as the extremes of the linear slopes that can be confined within the noise envelope. (The usual 95% or 2 sigma criterion for statistical significance is based on a more complicated calculation but our definition here illustrates the point.)

                That would be a line from the extreme left hand end of the blue line to the extreme right hand end of the purple line, and the left hand end of the purple line to the right hand end of the blue line.

                These slopes are both positive, so within our definition , the rise in CO2 over the time period is statistically significant.

                Now look at the data from 2010.

                The trend (slope) and noise envelope values are essentially unchanged, but the signal, the vertical rise of the trend line, is now only 6 units. The signal to noise ratio is now 6/7.8 = 0.8.

                A far greater range of slopes can be accommodated between the envelope and thus the error margins are larger.

                You can fit a negative slope between the left hand extreme of the blue line and the right hand of the purple line, by this criterion of statistical significance, the slope does not show a statistically significant increase in CO2 concentration over the period.

                That is why I write that shortening the period of time you are looking at inevitably increases the error margins, without any other change in the quality or real trend of the data.

                The fact that the error margins for the temperature trends for 16 and 15 years are so large that they include negative values and are therefore do not show statistically significant warming while the data for 35 years has the same slope as the 15 year trend is statistically significant is not trivial.

                Nor is the fact that the error margins for the short term periods are not statistically different to that for the 35 year trend, as their error margins contain the statistically significant trend.

                This means that the null hypothesis, that there has been no change in the rate of warming holds.

                That is not a trivial result.

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              • #
                the Griss

                And you have problem understanding that the atmospheric temperature rise from the 1970’s to 2000 was part of a cycle, and occurred mostly in steps as the oceans released pent up energy from a series of strong solar peaks.

                You love to turn those steps into slopes to support your nonsense.

                Well, news Philip….

                We are now on the top step. !

                Please don’t trip on your way down.

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              • #
                Roy Hogue

                OK Phil,

                I understand the significance problem.

                You’ve indisputable evidence of CO2 increase in the atmosphere with a low S/N ratio. But that CO2 increase was never in dispute. The question is, where is the temperature increase theory predicts would have occurred because of that increase in CO2?

                Way back before climategate Phil Jones was asking the same question. He didn’t know the answer and was apparently so wedded to the “correct” result that he couldn’t allow himself to wonder if the basic theory is flawed.

                To me, such private admissions among those working to prove global warming are more telling than his statement (made only after being exposed) that there was no statistically significant warming between X and Y, precisely because it shows that the chief scientist for practical purposes was himself in doubt about the theory.

                The evidence I see is that Mann constructed his hockey stick graph to bolster up the sagging CO2 theory.

                I keep wondering what it takes to wake people up and get them to take notice.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Thank you to the green thumbs. As I noted to Roy, part of my reason for being here is to explain concepts to people, warmist and skeptic alike, so that they can understand and produce arguments based on a sound knowledge of science.

                I hope this explanation is useful to everyone.

                00

        • #
          Neville

          Philip here is the UAH and RSS temp graph compared to the failed models.

          http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-global-LT-vs-UAH-and-RSS.png

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          • #
            the Griss

            And if , as most solar scientists predict, we are heading into a cooling trend for a while..

            .. those models are going to be looking sicker and sicker. 🙂

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            • #
              Philip Shehan

              Griss,

              Models represent the best theoretical understanding at that time. Thus Hansen’s 1981 model included 3 forcings, CO2, solar and volcanic eruptions. With more research greater theoretical understanding and data, the models become more complex.

              As I wrote above:

              “The details depend on the contributions to climate from other mechanisms, natural and anthropogenic, the nature and magnitude of various “feedback” mechanisms which reinforce or counter the atmospheric warming caused by an increase in CO2 concentration…”

              Any further understanding of the solar contribution with increasing research will be incorporated into the models.

              But whatever the solar contribution this does not invalidate in the understanding of warming contribution of CO2 to temperatures.

              When a cooling solar phase switches to a warming phase, this will add to the warming effect of CO2 instead of countering it.

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              • #
                the Griss

                “Models represent the best theoretical understanding at that time.”

                Yep, and the climate models have shown themselves to be pretty darn woeful. !!

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              • #

                Models which are falsified by empirical comparisons or as more data/observations/measurements becomes available, do represent one thing only:

                That the (tentative) description underlying the model was not correct or (at minimum) not sufficient.

                Even you should be aware of that.

                20

          • #
            Sean McHugh

            This, from WUWT:

            The NOAA long period duration mean sea level trend records for the other Florida locations show similar rates of unchanging linear increasing sea level trends as Miami. There is simply nothing in the NOAA mean sea level trend data that supports Obama’s ridiculous remarks about Miami’s man made CO2 emissions caused increased flooding.

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          • #
            Philip Shehan

            I seem to be having trouble posting a link with a rather robust criticism of Spencer’s graphs.

            Never mind. Looking at the models and data over a longer period and considering the complexity of the system, the models are in fact doing very well. Fig 9.8 page 768.

            15

            • #
              Sean McHugh

              I seem to be having trouble posting a link

              You are also having trouble arguing in support of your statement. A link isn’t an argument. Pull out the relevant bits that support your claim and also make it clear whether they/you are saying that there has been no pause or that the models predicted it. Because from here, it seems no matter what the climate does, the warmists will somehow have it accommodated in the models – and therefore the models uncannily predicted it!!!

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        • #
          RB

          Anyone notice that the P.S. choice of ocean temperature plot is not shown as an increase of <0.02°C in 10 years but in 10exp22 joules.

          One might think that he only cares about confidence intervals when it suits him.

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          • #
            the Griss

            RB, Flat lines aren’t very catastrophic. 🙂

            (except to the AGW agenda)

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          • #
            Philip Shehan

            RB

            Are you Robert B from Mr Bolt’s blog?

            I had a reply to this on Friday but was too late for it to appear:

            Rather than Tisdale’s graph showing temperature rises in some oceans, this one is more useful with its global rise of 0.03 C/decade.

            Neither of Tisdale’s graphs show error margins. The one I linked does.

            From the LLovel et al paper. Ocean heat content change above 2,000m depth. Curves show estimates based on data products from Scripps (blue), IPRC (red), JAMSTEC (black) and NOAA (green). The thick black curve depicts the mean among these estimates. The grey envelope denotes one standard error around this mean. Courtesy: authors and Nature Climate Change

            To convert the rise from heat content in Joules to temperature in degrees C, a little data and some arithmetic is required.

            Area of the earth 5.10 x 10^8 sq km

            Area of the earths oceans is 70% of this

            = 3.56 x 10^8 sq km

            The volume of the oceans down to 2000 m or 2 km (ignoring shelving at the cost line) is thus

            7.12 x 10^8 cubic km = 7.12 x 10^23 cubic cm

            One calorie is the amount required to raise the temperature of 1 cm^3 by 1 C.

            1 calorie = 4.18 joule.

            From the graph, the rise in heat content for nine years is

            9 x 10^ 22 J = 2 .2x 10^22 calorie.

            Temperature rise over 9 years is 2.2 x 10^22 / 7.1 x 10^23 = 0.031 C

            For 10 years and rounding to one significant figure, this is

            0. 03 C/decade.

            The same as NODC figure in Tisdale’s graph, 0.03 C/decade.

            17

            • #
              the Griss

              “0.03 C/decade”

              Wow, scary, and that’s measured over a very short period while still coming out of one of the coldest periods in the last 100,000 years (LIA)

              And since long wave radiation doesn’t penetrate the ocean at all, it must be coming from another source.

              The only source that can provide heat directly to the oceans is the sun, which just happened to have a series of very strong cycles over the latter part of last century. Wow, the sun warms the planet.. remarkable, hey !

              The sun now looks as though its heading for a snooze.

              Only time will tell how much the world temperature will drop.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Griss, water is a greenhouse gas. As a liguid it also absorbs IR radiation.

                If it does not penetrate very far down it is because it has been absorbed. And if it has been absorbed it has been converted in to heat. It’s that First law again. Also the atmosphere interfaces with the ocean surface. Rising atmospheric heat will transfer directly to the ocean.

                I have already commented that contributions to warming or cooling by the sun are a part of AGW theory.

                (Water is not a gas,it is a liquid) CTS

                12

              • #
                the Griss

                “If it does not penetrate very far down it is because it has been absorbed.”

                Oh dear.. seriously ?????

                Your continued lack of understanding of basic principles astounds even me. !

                And no, I am not going to explain to you, because you have shown time and time again that you don’t what to know.

                21

              • #
                sophocles

                Oops. Bad Philip.

                Rising atmospheric heat will transfer directly to the ocean.

                No it will not!

                You have it back to front, Sir.

                The atmosphere is almost completely transparent to incoming solar radiation below the low UV. It’s totally opaque to higher UV, X-Rays and Gamma Rays, and just as well. That’s why we can see for @#$%ing miles. The oceans are not. Their albedo is low so they absorb well. At 104 times the mass of the atmosphere (that’s two orders of magnitude), they are in charge. Incoming Solar radiation heats the sea and the sea heats the atmosphere in two ways. The first and main way is direct convection at the water/atmosphere interface, the second way is water vapour carrying its latent heat of evaporation with it (humidity).

                A warmer atmosphere cannot heat the ocean: the atmosphere is gas, warm gas is light gas (technically less dense) and rises, therefore it cannot heat the sea. Rising warm air (aka thermals) are exploited by gliding birds, and man-made gliders. It is the principle hot-air balloons exploit.

                So smack back of hand with a suitably solid bus ticket and go stand in the corner.
                Really!

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            • #
              RB

              I think that I divided by the whole mass of the oceans so 0.03°C per decade is correct.

              Did you miss the comment about honesty? The truth is that this is too small to be significant with 3000 buoys measuring 3.6×10^8 square km of ocean, they took samples in an area of ocean where the spread of temperatures longitudinally over 300 km is degrees rather than 0.01°C.

              [Note I am holding several of Philips responses as we work out a better way to keep threads on topic. Jo]

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              • #
                the Griss

                Yep, its funny that a zero trend over 18 years measured by satellites is classed as non-significant…

                while the ocean heat content measured over 10 years with widely spaced buoys that go with the currents (which at depth would be from cooler to warmer)..

                …is somehow meant to make us shake in our boots.

                Quite hilarious actually 🙂

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                RB Not sure what you mean by your statement:

                “I think that I divided by the whole mass of the oceans so 0.03°C per decade is correct.”

                Is that a confirmation of my calculation?

                Yes I did notice the bit about honesty and I did answer it by pointing out the reference to standard error margins in the graph I supplied.

                If you are not Robert B from Mr Bolt’s blog, your comment is remarkably similar to two comments he posted.

                Robert B put up a graph by Tisdale, no warmist, as a supposed counter to the link I put up. As I have noted Tisdale’s graphs make no mention of error margins. And it turns out that the heat content and Tisdale’s graph are in agreement.

                If you do not think that ocean temperatures can be measured, where do you get your <0.02°C in 10 years figure from?

                12

              • #
                Sean McHugh

                To Griss:

                Yep, its funny that a zero trend over 18 years measured by satellites is classed as non-significant…

                Satellites are inferior to tree rings and ‘tricks’.

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              • #
                RB

                You are truly a DH, Philip. I divided the heat content by the whole mass of the ocean rather than 2/3 of it by mistake and didn’t check Tisdale’s plots. As, unlike you, I need to spit out the comments quickly as I don’t get paid to do this.

                Do you want to play the man, Dr. Brian? Answer the question. Why don’t you question whether the rise in ocean temperatures is significant? Pointing to CI that are clearly underestimated doesn’t answer it.

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            • #
              the Griss

              Neither of Tisdale’s graphs show error margins. The one I linked does.

              Again you have to wonder why the vertical axis doesn’t read “Ocean Heat Content Anomaly (…)”. 😉

              And why isn’t the rate stated with a +/- like the temperatures.?

              31

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Griss. What are you in about?

                The vertical axis of the graph shows the change in heat content of the ocean over a period of time, relative to a zero line. What difference does it make if the word anomoly is or is not included in the axis label.

                The graph does not calculate a rate at all. It displays the standard error of the data graphically.

                23

              • #
                the Griss

                Just being pedantic about the bad labelling of the graph.

                Not surprised you don’t understand the issue, as you aren’t a mathematician. 😉

                22

              • #
                the Griss

                “The graph does not calculate a rate at all.”

                Oh, so you just state the rate without an error range.

                How convenient for you. 🙂

                I guess that you haven’t got the data to go in the SkS trend calculator, hey ! 😉

                22

              • #

                Philip Shehan

                Are you claiming the Lovell paper knows and shows the Ocean Heat Content? And I mean the actual OHC? And that the standard error displayed is the standard error of any measured OHC? Meaning that the actual values are to be found within them?

                30

            • #
              RB

              Just to make it a little simpler for you.

              Say all the world’s men were lined up from tallest to shortest, roughly, after being split randomly into a 1000 lines.

              You then separate them into groups of roughly 1000 and, roughly again, pick out one in the middle. There is a 3cm spread of heights in the 1000 and you take the single height measured to 0.1cm as the average of that group.

              After 10 years of measurements, you notice that half the lines have increased in height by 0.06cm/decade and the other half has remained static. This averages out to be 0.03cm per decade for the whole population.

              This is then used to verify a model that predicts the female population of Djibouti will hit their heads on the sky if we don’t spend $billions to stop it, if it isn’t all too late.

              Would you take it seriously or change the data to units of the billions of grains of rice that was required to increase a human’s height by 0.01mm?

              12

              • #
                RB

                A more accurate analogy would be 30 lines and one in every million sampled.

                12

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Sounds like a statistically significant rise of 0.03 cm per decade to me.

                AGW does not say that people are going to hit their heads on the sky.

                It does say that the increase on sea level will cause problems for low lying areas.

                In fact as the link to problems in Miama shows, it already is.

                More serious is the inundation of areas of Bangla Desh by storm surges that wash away dwellings, villages and people, and is turning previously productive land into salt flats.

                This is affecting the lives of tens of millions of the world’s poorest people. India is already concerned about the tide of refugees.

                The rate of sea level rise due to thermal expansion is expected to rise, and be joined by rises due to tjhe melting ice sheets.

                13

              • #
                the Griss

                “More serious is the inundation of areas of BanglaDesh”

                Philip., seriously ????

                Look up the definition of “delta” and how they respond to sea level changes. ! 🙂

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              • #
                Sean McHugh

                To Philip Shehan:

                It does say that the increase on sea level will cause problems for low lying areas. In fact as the link to problems in Miama shows, it already is.

                That seal-level CAGW has already been debunked but you just ignored and repeated. From above:

                WUWT:

                The NOAA long period duration mean sea level trend records for the other Florida locations show similar rates of unchanging linear increasing sea level trends as Miami. There is simply nothing in the NOAA mean sea level trend data that supports Obama’s ridiculous remarks about Miami’s man made CO2 emissions caused increased flooding.

                More serious is the inundation of areas of Bangla Desh by storm surges that wash away dwellings, villages and people, and is turning previously productive land into salt flats.

                The Bangladesh delta has been growing not shrinking:

                Delta Growth despite a rise in Sea Level

                I know that will disappoint you, Philip but it isn’t the end of the world.

                40

              • #
                the Griss

                “Delta Growth despite a rise in Sea Level “

                Not sure I like the wording. it should be…

                “Delta Growth because of a rise in Sea Level”

                20

              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                Philip Shehan:

                The sort of changes, recently reported changes in the Bangladeshi delta have happened for centuries. It has only become news-worthy recently, because somebody at CAGW-Central has realised that it can be spun in support of the CAGW meme, as some sort of anecdotal “evidence”.

                The reality is that the amount of flooding is dependent on the amount of rainfall in the Arunachal Pradesh. Heavy rains in the mountains not only cause primary flooding, but also bring down lots of fertile soil which settles in the delta, making the soil highly fertile. Because of this, the delta tends to grow in both hight and area, over time.

                It has nothing to do with sea level rise or fall, should such a thing exist.

                But you are programmed to respond in the way that you do, and we understand how hard it must be to do otherwise.

                10

            • #
              david smith

              0. 03 C/decade

              So, that’s…
              … 0.3 deg C in 100 years.

              Oh my gawwd!(runs around screaming, hands waving wildly in the air)

              Get a grip Philip. If the temperature outside your door tomorrow was 0.3 degs higher than today I defy you to tell me that you’d notice any difference.

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        • #
          NielsZoo

          From 1979: Trend: 0.14 ±0.07 °C/decade
          Statistically significant warming.

          Really? The microwave systems on these birds are calibrated against computer modeled simulations. They are already washing away this purported 0.1°K or worse 0.01°K accuracy with the sampling and data parsing of the original target volume of about a half million cubic kilometers on the best instruments (ATMS has only been flying since late 2011 and RSS doesn’t even use it yet according to their site.) Granted, there has not been as much tampering with the sat data as has been done with other data sets, but it is still an extrapolated, mathematically created “measurement” arrived at by a many layered process requiring other data on water vapor etc. that finally infers an average temperature of a large chuck of atmosphere. It then becomes the fodder input for statistical analysis with magical accuracy. The “variations” in all of these trends are well below the noise floor of the measurement systems no matter what data set you are looking at. From RSS’s site:

          All microwave sounding instruments were developed for day to day operational use in weather forecasting and thus are typically not calibrated to the precision needed for climate studies. A climate quality data set can be extracted from their measurements only by careful intercalibration of the data from the MSU, AMSU and ATMS instruments.

          I never seem to see that careful integration process explained by those using this data. I never see any error bars in all these “statistically significant” trends in the data nor do I find that “statistically significant” warming is… well… significant if one were to put the full error ranges on these graphs. It’s all in the noise. Are we getting warmer? Probably. Is it a bad thing? No. Can we do anything about it? Mankind cannot change the weather not with satellites, taxes, carbon credits or dancing witch doctors

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          • #
            the Griss

            From 1979: Trend: 0.14 ±0.07 °C/decade
            Statistically significant warming.

            Philip has to use the 1998 El Nino event to manage any trend at all.

            He knows that before and after the El Nino step the trend was basically zero.

            One event that warmed the atmosphere, by releasing energy from the ocean (ie an ocean cooling event) after a series of very strong solar peaks.

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        • #
          Geoffrey Cousens

          Thankyou Jo for the introductory warning about this this “goat”.

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  • #
    James Bradley

    Of Laden’s post and what I comprehend between the lines.

    Synopsis:

    It raises probability that tree ring growth is not an indicator of increased temperature after all, but of increased CO2.

    In doing so it recognises the ‘pause’ and the obvious question ‘what came first the temperature or the CO2?’

    It also seems that this ‘diverbence’ has become some sort of an earth shattering dilemma requiring tacit recognition and timely abrogation.

    Why on would that be a problem?

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    • #
      manalive

      There is that other ‘hockey stick’ which presents the puzzling AGW incongruity that the alleged temperature blade (and CO2) starts ~50 years before human CO2 emissions took off.

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      • #
        Philip Shehan

        Temperature data is noisy but the rise in temperature here follows CO2 increase by about 3 decades.

        There is no ‘pause’ in CO2 concentration increase.

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        • #
          James Bradley

          Phil,

          Facts speak for themselves.

          The truth is self evident.

          What we experience now we have experienced directly at least once in our lifetimes if we are over 60 years of age.

          The dams are full.

          There is snow in the mountains.

          Polar caps are increasing.

          Gore, Flannery and Suzuki own substantial waterfront property portfolios.

          Crop yields increase with CO2.

          Equatorial temperature remain remarkably stable night and day.

          Desert temperatures fluctuate between unberable heat in the day and freezing cold at night.

          A sk all the questions.
          B elieve none of the answers.
          C limate scientists lies

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        • #
          the Griss

          Ah, again the highly adjusted HadCrut series..

          Keep us laughing Phil.. Its Christmas time. 🙂
          .

          “There is no ‘pause’ in CO2 concentration increase.”

          Yep, China and India are doing their bit to green the world, keeping that plant food release humming along. 🙂

          Temperature rises have, however, basically come to a halt for the last 18 years.

          Pity CO2 won’t help plants cope with the coming cooling. 🙁

          51

          • #
            Philip Shehan

            And yet, Griss Hadcrut matches the data from other series including satellite and as the link shows, all the data sets tell the same story.

            I will not bother to dig out the reference yet again, but the Gistemp data, which you also claim has been has been doctored to suit the warmist cause makes adjustments such as for the heat island effect that reduce the rise in temperature over time.

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            • #
              the Griss

              “Hadcrut matches the data from other series including satellite’

              OMG, but you are dim. !

              We are talking about the massive adjustments before the satellite record.

              The satellite record basically stopped the warming, except for the 1998 El Nino step.

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            • #
              the Griss

              An if you don’t think there is a deal of collusion between Giss and Hadley.. ..

              ..just go back and look at the ClimateGate emails, especially the “inconvenient peak at 1940” comments.

              51

            • #
              Geoffrey Cousens

              Do stop noisily arguing.

              00

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          There is no ‘pause’ in CO2 concentration increase.

          But there is a ‘pause’ in the increase in global temperatures.

          The null hypothesis says that, they are independent variables. Or, alternatively, they are both are reponding, in some way, to another, as yet unidentified, influence.

          10

          • #
            Graeme No.3

            Rereke:

            Why bother? He appears at irregular intervals with cherry picked graphs based on fudged data and gets annoyed when no-one listens to him. I don’t know why he bothers, does he think that in some way he has won the argument? Or is he just baiting the Griss?

            He certainly doesn’t take in anything that doesn’t suit him, and equally no-one is convinced by his fiddles. He claims to have been a Scientist but his behaviour is such that I doubt that he was ever anything much in that line, or else that he has been retired for many years and is having mental difficulties.

            00

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    So the “hockey” game goes on (and on and on and on…)?

    One team has some actual numerical analysis skills and finds the stick — or is it schtick? — to be inadequately supported by the evident facts. In fact they showed it to be falsified if I remember (it was a long time ago already).

    The other team is Laurel and Hardy with The Three Stooges cheering them on.

    The referees are none other than Michael Mann and Al Gore.

    The puck goes back and forth across the ice, landing goal after goal for the numerical analysis team but each time they score, the referee calls a foul.

    Just as we thought that game was finally rained out and done for, here is another replay. This time The Three Stooges are on the ice and Laurel and Hardy are cheering them on. The facts, however haven’t changed a bit.

    Will it never end? 🙁

    Wake up, Roy. C’mon, wake up now. You must have fallen asleep at the keyboard.

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      By which I mean, it’s a doggone nightmare to keep seeing this paraded around like the hockey stick actually meant anything.

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    • #
      Philip Shehan

      Your recollection is incorrect. The ‘hockey stick’ has been validated.

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      • #
        Robert

        Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer supporting evidence, the committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium. The substantial uncertainties currently present in the quantitative assessment of large-scale surface temperature changes prior to about A.D. 1600 lower our confidence in this conclusion compared to the high level of confidence we place in the Little Ice Age cooling and 20th century warming. Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that “the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium” because the uncertainties inherent in temperature reconstructions for individual years and decades are larger than those for longer time periods and because not all of the available proxies record temperature information on such short timescales.

        Well, not really validated. When talking about the author of the “hockey stick” they don’t really appear to have much confidence in his conclusions do they?

        Now with your degrees you certainly should understand the difference between “plausible” and “probable.”

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        • #
          Philip Shehan

          Robert,

          The hockey stick is validated not just because of what the report says about Mann’s version, but because of the numerous supporting hockey sticks produced by other groups using different data..

          I do understand the difference between plausible and probable.

          Do you understand the difference between plausible and fraud, scandal and anything with ‘gate’ attached as suffix?

          Because that is what Mann was accused of and the findings reject.

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          • #
            Robert

            Good, provide the quoted section of the paper that explicitly rejects that, provide the quoted section of the paper that explicitly supports your claim. Otherwise it is nothing but a claim. Mann is still hiding in the courts to prevent the release of his data, if it is so robust and valid there should be no reason not to release it wouldn’t you agree?

            If I’m taking readings in volts and change the scale to millivolts near the end even though my input is still volts I’ll get a hockey stick as well.

            So explain why if one uses proxies from end to end there is no hockey stick, the hockey stick only results when one uses proxies up to a point then changes to instrumented records. That others using the same flawed method produce the same results is not surprising. If the method were robust then we would be talking probabilities with associated percentage instead of plausibility.

            Does someone here need to dig up some of the interviews with the people involved in that report who paint a different picture of it than the one you are trying to claim? Then everyone can spend a day or two listening to you rationalizing why what they said means something else in order to continue your meme.

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          • #

            Philip Shehan

            No, Manns Hockeystick is by absolutely no means (and meanings of the word) ‘validated’.

            Why would you even claim such a thing?

            Using the same data arrives at a reconstruction that in parts resembles his stick. But that is not even the issue. Using most of the same data, and some other too, again there is a resemblance. But that still has nothing to do with it.

            Although it is the topic of this thread, you seem unaware of the fact that the proxy-reconstructions are unable to ‘reconstruct’ the actual temperature measurements now (which run higher). Accordingly, if temperatures (eg during the MWP) were as high or higher than today, for all we know the proxies wouldn’t be able to pick that up.

            Or don’t you know why the hockey stick was so important to the narrative? You seem to be reading up quite a lot at sites that tell you your story, and you repeat the common talking points. But don’t you know why they are needed?

            Judging from your stated motives, you should have had ample opportunity to learn that.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Your recollection is incorrect. The ‘hockey stick’ has been validated.

        Phil,

        I realize that science isn’t a democratic process where the theory with the most votes wins the debate and becomes true. But really, Phil, the last 2,000 years? From what was this reconstructed, inferred or read outright that makes 2,000 years worth of temperature data suddenly so accurate and compelling (or even true)? Perhaps Christ’s disciples started the trend of carrying around thermometers everywhere they went? Maybe the observations were chiseled in some cave somewhere for posterity’s sake?

        Scientists are very fond of piling a mountain of conclusions on a very thin sliver of evidence, building one thing on another until we’re fed the whole history of the universe from the beginning until now by the theoretical physicists, based as far as I can see on the degree of red shift in the light from stars farther from Earth. Can no one but me think of at least one plausible reason for that red shift other than, the universe is expanding? What if the universe is infinite in all directions? The red shift is then caused by gravity I would think, not doppler effect. Sorry, that could be entirely wrong, I’m no expert. But I can think and ask questions. So how much of that 4.5 billion year history (when I last saw a number) is anything but a computer model or a scientist’s curiosity? The answer hardly matters since it all remains in the theoretical domain.

        How much of this 2,000 year reconstruction is anything but a computer model or computer analysis of some proxy (that word again) for temperature? I could not get to anything but the title page or I would have read at least enough to be able to judge. [my firewall? have to look into that]

        As I think about the Vostok ice cores, the more I realize that while they certainly are a record of temperature change, their accuracy in determining what the temperature actually was is highly questionable. So too with any proxy. The question remains, how do you calibrate the proxy?

        So one more time, the weight of all the evidence available is against your position.

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      • #
        Manfred

        Your recollection is incorrect. The ‘hockey stick’ has been validated.

        Philip Shehan #6.2

        In point of fact and contrary to your assertion PS, the Hockey Schtick is arguably one of the least credible pieces of work to have ever been cited as ‘evidence’ for a 20th century anthropogenic influence on atmospheric temperature. That it was widely promoted remains not only a testament but an indictment to the new age meme of environmentalism and gave “climate science” amongst other things not only its well earned reputation for expensive, failed prediction and models, but its inverted commas.

        Aside from the travesty of science associated with the obvious, that Mann et al. failed to respond to repeated requests for their data and computer source codes, they also appear to have unsuccessfully endeavoured to eliminate the medieval warm period (IPCC Third Assessment Report WG1 (2001) summary, Figure 2.20, Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstruction), clearly shown in the earlier IPCC 1990 FAR chapter 7 fig 7.1(c) from http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_chapter_07.pdf

        Of the Hockey Schtick the best that may be said has already been stated in Energy & Environment· Vol. 14, No. 6, 2003 McIntyre S, & McKitrick R.

        ‘…the dataset used to make this construction contained collation errors, unjustified truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, incorrect principal component calculations, geographical mislocations and other serious defects. These errors and defects substantially affect the temperature index’.

        21

        • #
          Philip Shehan

          Manfred

          Here is what the report said about the criticisms of McIntyre and McKitrick. Here.

          As part of their statistical methods, Mann et al. used a type of principal component analysis that tends to bias the shape of the reconstructions. A description of this effect is given in Chapter 9. In practice, this method, though not recommended, does not appear to unduly influence reconstructions of hemispheric mean temperature; reconstructions performed without using principal component analysis are qualitatively similar to the original curves presented by Mann et al. (Crowley and Lowery 2000, Huybers 2005, D’Arrigo et al. 2006, Hegerl et al. 2006, Wahl and Ammann in press).

          From Wahl and Ammann

          The results presented here show no evidence for removing the MBH [Mann, Bradley, Hughes] Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstruction from the list of important climate reconstructions of the past six centuries, on the basis of alleged “flaws” in its use of proxy data or underlying methodology. Indeed, our analyses act as an overall indication of the robustness of the MBH reconstruction to a variety of issues raised concerning its methods of assimilating proxy data, and also to two significant simplifications of the MBH method that we have introduced. The shape of a single-bladed “hockey stick”-like evolution of Northern Hemisphere temperature over
          the last 600 years is strongly confirmed within the MBH reconstruction framework (general algorithm and proxy data).

          15

          • #
            sophocles

            … the finest report friendship can buy. You should read Mcintyre and McKitrick’s analysis in depth.

            Mann used faulty maths. His resulting algorithm preferentially selects, as one of The Team put it (in an email in the Climategate emails. I can’t remember who it was from, it may have been Tom Wigley) produces or preferentially selects hockey sticks “from pink noise.” Only a hockey stick could be produced. So only a hockey stick was produced. In that respect, the hockey stick was ‘validated.’
            “Yes! Look! It’s a hockey stick.”

            That’s what is meant by “biases the shape of the reconstructions ….” Translation: it’s faulty.

            IF you want an algorithm which will only select/produce hockey sticks from any data set, you know where to look.

            He should have withdrawn or at the very least issued a correction. Instead, no. He said “I’m not a statistician” and did nothing.

            Now we know that he claims not to be a statistician, all his statistics are compromised and not to be believed. If he was still a student, even a postgrad, he would have been failed. But no, he’s a `climate scientist’ so it’s all right.

            Andrew Montford’s “The Hockey Stick Illusion.” is worth reading.

            20

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        OK. If by validated you mean it was shown to be the result of less than honest manipulation of data to prove a point then I guess it’s been validated.

        Michael Mann probably rues the day he thought of it though.

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          I suspect it has ruined his life. It will always be there, like one of the Shades of Hades.

          Right or wrong, he will never escape the idea that he might have used “a trick” to get the result he wanted, and so, he will always carry the professional stigma that follows on from that idea.

          20

  • #
    Peter C

    Mind numbing Arguments

    I know exactly what he means. Just try reading a little bit from SKS, or just as likely Greg Laden’s own blog. After a few moments my mind just refuses to take it in anymore. The falsehoods, the willful misrepresentations, the obfuscation.

    Which gets us back to the trees and the hockey stick graph. The upturn of the graph was only there because Michael Mann et al played a little trick and grafted the thermometer record onto the end of the tree ring temperature reconstruction (without making it clear in the text that that was what they had done). The tree ring record, if continued after 1960, actually shows a down turn, not an up tick. This became known as “hide the decline”.

    The divergence of the tree ring reconstruction and the thermometer record means that tree ring reconstructions are a hopelessly bad way of estimating past temperatures. This was very clearly explained by John Costello in his paper on the Climategate Emails.
    http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/greenhouse-science/climate-change/climategate-emails.pdf

    Reading his paper did not give me a numb brain at all.

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  • #
    Eric Worrall

    Last time I ignored data because it wasn’t ready (ie didn’t fit the conclusion I wanted) the teacher made me redo the assignment.

    Obviously tree ring researchers didn’t have that kind of teacher in primary school.

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    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      Show your working or you get half marks.

      Getting the correct answer without showing your working is not demonstrating that you know the subject.

      These were even drummed into me, and I was pretty resistant to learning.

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      • #
        Ken Stewart

        When I was teaching (seems so long ago!) I used to insist that answers/ results must be able to be justified, and that the proof of understanding is being able to teach someone else so they can understand.

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        • #
          Roy Hogue

          Surely you guys are kidding. In this post normal day and age of such great enlightenment it’s sufficiently self evident that if humans produce CO2 then, QED, the world is warming at an alarming rate.

          What work needs to be shown? There is no work to do. Remember, they tell us that any fool with a thermometer can see the temperature rising?

          But wait. Maybe you guys aren’t fools. I wonder what happens then. 😉

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          And in this post normal age, if you jump off a diving board, you move towards the water, not because of gravity (which you can’t see, or touch, or smell, or hear), but because “you really wanted to be in the water”.

          Civilisation is doomed folks.

          10

  • #
    RB

    Climate science denialist Steve McIntyre has also weighed in on Salzer et all’s research. His post is truly mind numbing, as he treats Salzer et al as a climate reconstruction paper, and critiques it as such, but the paper examines the methodology of tree ring proxy use and the ecology of tree rings.

    I think McIntyre’s reply to this stawman is pure gold, and easy for the fuddled minded to follow.

    It is beyond ludicrous to say that a proxy that has gone dramatically down since 1980, while NH temperatures have gone sharply up has performed “remarkably well”.

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    • #
      ROM

      If Greg Laden decides to take on Steve McIntyre I would suggest that Steve Mc. would very quickly have Laden way, way down at the bottom of one of those ore bodies that Steve Mc does analysis on, using a very small pick while digging an ever deeper and darker hole for himself.

      Laden is about five levels of intellect lower than Steve Mc. and it really shows.

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      • #
        Sean McHugh

        If Greg Laden decides to take on Steve McIntyre I would suggest that Steve Mc.

        I don’t think it would happen. I suspect Laden would prefer to link snipe. Today few warmists are prepared to step into a ring that they don’t control. The reason is that they will probably get done, and they know it.

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        • #
          gai

          Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals

          RULE 2: “Never go outside the expertise of your people.”

          This is why the Warmist scientists refuse to debate. They know they will lose and lose badly.

          This is why, although Mike Mann has sued at least twice he has refused to allow ‘discover’ for years or is it decades, no I think we are into centuries by now.

          00

      • #

        Quite right. You only have to look at Lewandowsky’s attempt to take on Steve McIntyre in Sept 2012 about Lew’s “Hoax” paper. Alarmists know they are in an empirically weak position.
        They also know that if SM is not satisfied he will come back to the topic again and again. This was certainly true of Briffa’s Yamal dataset.

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  • #
    spangled drongo

    Thanks again, Jo, for this absolutely necessary information about the true state of climate “science”.

    Thanks to people like you it’s becoming a lot easier for the average person to understand who the real “deniers” are.

    393

    • #
      sophocles

      You should find a copy of Nigel Calder’s “The Manic Sun” (Pilkington Press 1997). It describes the growth and ascendancy of the Extended Greenhouse Effect in the face of all objections very succinctly. It’s a worthy read.

      10

  • #
    Ron C.

    Warmists using the “denier” or “denialist” label reminds one of the way “cockroach” was used in the Rwanda conflict.

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  • #
    George McFly......I'm your density

    Jo, I see that they refer to you as “climate science denialist JoNova” and also to Steve McIntyre as “climate science denialist Steve McIntyre”.

    Would it be appropriate to refer to these polite gentlemen of science as climate comrade Laden or climate citizen Hughes?

    They seem to be part of a sweeping social movement.

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    • #
      James the Elder

      Judging by the worldwide climate terrorist war, Climate Bin Laden seems to fit.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      In my comment at #3.2, I made the point that “denialist” is not actually a word, at least, not in English. But we can legitimately use the word “catastrophist” in referring to, “these polite gentlemen”.

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      • #
        Kevin Lohse

        Too erudite, Rereke, You are casting pearls before Jo’s rough, unlearned but honest clientele. “Catastrophist” has too many syllables for this post-normal age. “Bedwetter” is more in keeping with the spirit of these anti-intellectual times. 🙂

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    • #
      gai

      I use the term Clim-Astrologist (Climastrologist)

      Because they are much closer to Astrology than they are to science/

      00

  • #

    Via this mechanism CO2 looks to be partly controlled by cosmic radiation.

    When the intensity of cosmic rays reaching the Earth’s surface was higher, the rate of tree growth was faster.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8311000/8311373.stm
    Oh and…

    In 2009, cosmic ray intensities have increased 19% beyond anything we’ve seen in the past 50 years

    http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/ray_surge.html
    Looks like they can thank cosmic radiation for continuing to “hide the decline”.

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      You can see the cosmic ray peak here if you click on the “monthly” button.
      http://cr0.izmiran.rssi.ru/mosc/main.htm

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        Obviously the red thumber has a problem with the Russian cosmic ray data. Please do tell us what the problem is.

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          TdeF

          I note that the blog operating software keeps track of thumbs and does not allow multiples, for example.

          So the same software could easily track thumbs in a session and limit them to say 3 or so.

          And/or force a pause between thumbs, say 20 seconds, at least enough time to be able to read the comment.

          It just seems to corrupt the whole idea of thumbs if someone can rapidly click everyone’s comments without even reading them.

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          • #

            TdeF – I don’t mind. The sequential downers shows there is someone reading who disagrees. That’s a good thing. The thumbs up is useful all on it’s own and for different reasons.

            When the site lost the star ratings for each post in 2012 someone went to the trouble of going back through every single post and giving it one star. Talk about dedication! They had to manually load every post and there were hundreds.

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              Kevin Lohse

              Actually, I think it’s rather sweet that a person or persons unknown are sufficiently dedicated to ,”The Cause”, to witness their calling at the very Gates of Propinquity, It serves as a reminder of how far we have to journey before fact-based rationality triumphs over blind faith.

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            Robert

            TdeF, considering one does not have to log in to comment here or to click a thumb, what would be the most logical method for the software to track whether you had already submitted a thumb for a comment.

            It can be gamed if one so desires as I’m sure some already have. I rarely ever click them anymore, not even to bother giving a red to one of the trolls.

            From my chair they don’t mean much, the comment itself is what matters, if I disagree I can say why or say nothing. Whatever value Jo and the mods get from them is, I assume, why they are there. That they are sometimes abused is really not surprising though I would tend to agree that the rapid, sequential red thumbs are more of an indicator that someone is more interested in red thumbing anything submitted by particular people than they are in reading the content and explaining why they disagree. Basically a hit and run where they just look at the name associated with the comment and read thumb based on that. To be expected really.

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              TdeF

              The logic is already in place. You do not have to speculate on how to do it. The fact is you cannot thumb a comment twice. Try it. This means that you could put a delay in the process, just enough to stop people from thumbing everything in rapid succession. The delays are bad enough.

              Personally, thumbs are a big part of this web site and I take try to understand why someone would not like a comment. The idea of anarchist, vandalistic mass thumbing is anaethema to reasonable debate. I can understand Jo’s rationalization but abuse should not be accepted as reasonable and unavoidable. It isn’t. Just ask the providers of the software. It is simple to do.

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                Robert

                It can be done, I just gave you 2. It’s tied to the IP address. If one has access to more than one IP address, which many of us do, then we can thumb a comment twice, or more depending on the number of systems we have access to.

                The only way to prevent a person from giving multiple thumbs to a comment is to require that they log in establishing them as a unique individual not just a unique IP.

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                TdeF

                My idea was not to avoid giving multiple thumbs to a single comment with an alias. As you point out, that is not strictly avoidable. The idea was simply to stop a single real person from rapidly red thumbing fifty different comments in as many clicks. Of course someone could create fifty aliases, but at least make trolls work. Vandalism is not comment.

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                the Griss

                TdeF,

                I suspect that the phantom red-thumber spends most of his/her day in his/her grandma’s basement with nothing else to do.

                ME I’m off down the beach for a few hours 🙂

                Looks like I’ll only be swimming though 🙁

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        All Data for all Station are available by FTP

        Isn’t it refreshing to see that on a web site? If only the HAD/CRU data were hosted in Russia … sigh.

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      Ron Cook

      Siligy

      I’ve read that higher cosmic ray intensity is due to reduced Sun spot activity (Ian Plimer “Heaven and Earth”). For Sun spot Cycle 24 the activity has been the lowest since the Maunder Minimum and the predictions are for cycle 25 to be even lower. Increased cosmic ray activity apparently means increased cloud production, more cloud, more reflection to space, more cooling (Ibid).

      R-COO- K+
      Potassium Salt of an Aliphatic Acid

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        the Griss

        Time will tell.

        I suspect that the satellite record will start to have a noticeable decline by the end of 2017. (assuming the current second peak of SC24 doesn’t drag out too long).

        Giss and HadCrut will require a lot of “work” from Gavin and Phil to maintain the plateau.

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        Ron
        I have read that too but see some differences in the antiphase relationship(both amplitude and phase). Also some effects seem to preceed the sunspot changes so I am not convinced that the cause is not the other way around. That is fluctuations in the cosmic rays cause changes in the sun via compression of the magnetic field. It also seems to happen too often that solar flares are aimed at comets. To complicate it even more perhaps both are controlled by neutrinoes which in turn may either be or be propelled by “dark energy”. Following these theories leads to considering gravity being the vector sum of a repulsive force, a growing earth, abiotic hydrocarbons to absorb the extra energy and extra solar reasons for climate change. They could upset a few apple carts or drive me mad.

        Evidence Neutrinos affect Nuclear Decay – Peter Sturrock.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RWX9XGCdm0

        New Evidence for a Solar Influence on Nuclear Decay Rates”, a talk given by E. Fischbach.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzOOkR3a4vM

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          Ron Cook

          Siliggy,

          Cheers and thanks, my chemist’s brain finds a lot of this stuff rather complicated to understand. Plimer’s explanation was, a least, fairly simple BUT I Concede that, as you point out, there is an awful lot more to the whole question.

          I’m much happier doing trace analysis on an ICP-OES or a classical wet chemical analysis for Mmmm, Cu say. But I’m a ‘Man-made Climate change skeptic’, so I try to get my head around these things.

          R-Coo- K+

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            Ron as an electronics bloke these ideas are all a bit above my head too. It is just that they are all held to be wrong because the others would need to be right. While the accepted theories are held up by each others bootlaces and have exceptions that make no sense, require free energy or bend time around in circles.

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    What’s the scientific definition of a “denialist” Greg, or are you just namecalling?
    Seems to be someone who does not proclaim GAIA as the one true god.
    http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_un14.htm

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    pat

    who needs to update the Greenpeace/Nazca story? not the english-language MSM. RT is the only report so far yet the court appearance was on Friday (Saturday our time). surely the MSM would not be protecting Greenpeace!

    20 Dec: RT: Greenpeace director appears in Peru court after ill-conceived Nazca Lines stunt
    Greenpeace’s executive director was met with protests calling for “Justice for Nazca” outside a Peruvian court following a reckless stunt during which activists trampled Peru’s world-renowned Nazca Lines in an attempt to promote renewable energy.
    “The first thing that the people of Nazca are demanding in the name of everyone who makes a living from tourism is the punishment to the individuals responsible for this,” a demonstrator said Friday.
    This week, prosecutor Patricia Begazo begun a preliminary investigation into Argentine activist Mauro Fernandez, coordinator of the environmental organization’s Andean Climate and Energy Campaign…
    Authorities fear the activists may have caused irreparable damage to the site.
    The country’s deputy culture minister, Luis Jaime Castillo, decried the activists as “irresponsible and childish,”calling their act a “true slap in the face at everything Peruvians consider sacred.”…
    http://rt.com/news/216295-nazca-lines-damage-greenpeace/

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    stargazer

    “Climate science denialist” is one of those manner-ism that I use to decide if a person/author is worthy of my time. They are not.

    I have been to many meetings, conferences, symposiums, etc., and have been a party to or observer of disagreements between scientists. Sometimes these disagreements get quite ‘lively’. However, never have I seen two *real* scientists stoop to the level of name calling and threatening others with lawsuits and even loss of jobs. But, this seems to be in the nature of ‘climate science.’

    Back in the 70s we were all gonna freeze. New Ice Age on the way! That had me worried. There were even ‘fixes’ to this problem… just make sure to blanket all that nasty ice with some kind of carbonized dust and we would all be saved! All praise the Climate Scientist! (May peace be upon them.)

    In the 90s… we were all gonna fry! Of course there was a ‘fix’ for this problem. Just reduce and tax carbon emissions! All praise the Climate Scientist! (May peace be upon them.)

    And then… the hacked emails and ‘climategate.’

    Treemometers, proxies… *cherry picking data’, unrealistic computer models urban heat islands. It got worse… predetermined bias by a scientist. Money… billions in funding! All you had to do was give up your soul and check your brain at the lab door and you had funding for life!

    But, there was this band of truth seekers that tended the flame of truth. Guarded it, nursed it into a bright shinning light. In spreading this word of truth they were set upon by the dark side of science… they were called ‘science denialist.’ Accused of taking money from ‘Big Oil.’ (A favorite smear of the greenie-weenies.) But the flame of truth shone bright in the darkness. Gathering those whose search for knowledge and truth knew no bias. And, in spite of the ‘warmer mystics’ attempts to silence and censor others for their perceived heresies, the truth spread, and continues to spread.

    I don’t know if I was ever a hardcore ‘warmer mystic.’ But, I believed that these guys must know what they were doing. After all, they were scientists. (As am I.) The thought that a scientist could perpetuate such a hoax on this grand of a scale was inconceivable to my naive, young mind.

    And then, the hacked emails and code was exposed to the light of day. And I put my degrees in physics/astronomy/math/computer science to work and … boy, was I a damned fool…

    I came to the realization this ‘climate science’ was, and is, a religion. A religion exposed by some unnamed reformer. (I would like to think this person’s name is ‘Luther.’)

    Unfortunately, as with all religious fanatics, the war will never end. As long as there are the ‘true believers’, the dark-side warmer-mystic priests, there will be the weak minded fools that follow them.

    Keep guarding that flame, JoNova.

    Thanks Stargazer (and other commenters who said similar things). Thank you. — Jo

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      sophocles

      and have been a party to or observer of disagreements between scientists. Sometimes these disagreements get quite ‘lively’.

      It becomes fascinating when it moves to a white board and the pens come out!

      Unfortunately, as with all religious fanatics, the war will never end.

      There’s a positive chance over the next few years. The sun is going into a period of reduced activity. The Solar Influences Theory (SIT … not proven but showing ever increasing support from many quarters and much research) may soon show us. The EGHE (Extended Green House Effect, not proven but now taking increasing numbers of hits) has no answer to the present pause but … we’ll see.

      Next year, 2015, is now only 9 days away. Late next year is the earliest possible time for the Sun’s hypothesized effects to show. They should be very obvious by 2017. Either way, it’s going to be interesting. The EGHE theory brings a lot of unpleasant baggage with it, but it will either die or not, as the case may be.

      “May you live in interesting times,” is supposed to be a curse, but these times are a very interesting and great time to be alive!

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    Dennis

    It’s Christmas in Oz, cool

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    Neville

    The Mann HS graph was always [wait for the trial] nonsense.
    At the time everybody was warned that bristlecone pines should not be used as a temp proxy. What a joke they pulled and they even boasted how they hid the temp decline.

    But we have a perfectly good proxy for the NH Holocene temp and that is the GISP 2 Greenland temp series.

    http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=gisp+2++graph&id=187AC2CE6738089737955A62618664263EE9168D&FORM=IQFRBA#view=detail&id=187AC2CE6738089737955A62618664263EE9168D&selectedIndex=0

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    great graph: correlation co2 and temperature across 400,000 years:

    Vostok-ice-core-petit.png‎
    Graph of CO2, temperature, and dust concentration measured from the Vostok, Antarctica ice core as reported by Petit et al., 1999. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/File:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png

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      the Griss

      Notice that when CO2 was at its peak, and therefore (according to the hypothesis) trapping most heat..

      .. it was unable to maintain the higher temperatures .

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      the Griss

      Also notice that when CO2 drops, you get raised dust levels..

      …most probably because a whole heap of plants (probably grasses in marginal areas) die off.

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        el gordo

        At the end of the previous interglacial there was a 400 year aridity spike. As you know CO2 gradually drops as the planet cools but, by a fortuitous stroke of good luck, on this occasion we should be spared due to human intervention.

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          the Griss

          Yep, we must keep de-sequestering CO2 from its accidental burial.

          The future of all life on Earth relies on keeping that CO2 level at the absolute minimum of 400ppm.

          Thankfully China, India, and other countries are ignoring the CAGW agenda and continue to release that highly beneficial CO2 into the Carbon/Life Cycle.

          The biosphere must feel as if it has found an oasis after many thousand of years of hunger and thirst.

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    Neville

    The PAGES 2K study found that Antarctica was warmer than today from 141AD to 1250 AD ( note a warmer Med WP as well.) and also a warmer 30 year spike during the LIA.
    Here is part of their findings—– see end of 2nd last paragraph—-

    “nineteenth century (which includes the cluster of volcanic eruptions between ad 1823 and 183513), and Antarctica was coldest during the middle of the twentieth century (Fig. 2). Not all regions cooled during each of the strong volcanic-solar downturns. For example, Australasia, South America and North America tree rings do not show multi-decadal cooling during the earliest interval of strong negative forcing (ad 1251–1310).
    Twentieth-century reconstructed temperature
    The twentieth century ranked as the warmest or nearly the warmest century in all regions except Antarctica, where the large thermal inertia of the surrounding ocean may dampen warming28. Excluding Antarctica, the twentieth-century average temperature among the six regions was about 0.4 °C higher than the averaged temperatures of the preceding five centuries (Supplementary Table S3 lists centennial temperature differences based on the PAGES 2k and alternative reconstructions). Compared with the preceding five centuries, twentieth-century warming in the four Northern Hemisphere regions was, on average, about twice that of the more strongly ocean-dominated regions of Australasia and South America (about 0.5 °C compared with 0.2 °C), with the greatest differences at northern high latitudes. Twentieth-century warming in the Arctic (0.9 °C) was about three times that of the average of the other five non-polar regions.
    Our best estimate of reconstructed temperature for ad 1971–2000 can be compared with all other consecutive 30-year periods within each regional reconstruction. In Asia and Australasia, reconstructed temperature was higher during 1971–2000 than any other 30-year period. The Arctic was also warmest during the twentieth century, although warmer during 1941–1970 than 1971–2000 according to our reconstruction. In South America, the ad 1971–2000 reconstructed temperature was similar to the record maximum in ad 1251–1280. In North America, the reconstructed temperature for the 1971–2000 interval does not include the warm decades since 1980, and therefore underestimates the actual temperature for that interval. In Europe, slightly higher reconstructed temperatures were registered in ad 741–770, and the interval from ad 21–80 was substantially warmer than 1971–2000. Antarctica was probably warmer than 1971–2000 for a time period as recent as ad 1671–1700, and the entire period from 141–1250 was warmer than 1971–2000. These interpretations are generally supported by the relative magnitude of recent warming in the alternative reconstructions (Supplementary Fig. S4 and Database S2).
    Each individual proxy record contributing to the regional reconstructions was analysed to evaluate whether the values during 1971–2000 indicate higher temperatures than for any other 30-year period (Fig. 4d,e), independent of the procedures used for calibrating the temperature reconstructions. According to this analysis, of the 323 individual proxy records that extend to ad 1500, more sites seem warmest during 1971–2000 than during any other 30-year period, both in terms of the total number of sites and their proportion in each region. Similarly, of the 52 individual records that extend to ad 500, more sites (and a higher proportion) seem warmest during the twentieth century than during any other century. The fraction of individual records that indicates the highest temperatures during 1971–2000 decreases with increasing record length, consistent with an overall cooling trend”

    Here’s a link to the PAGES 2K study. But be warned Steve McIntyre has pulled apart much of the non ice core proxies used in the rest of this study.

    http://web.science.unsw.edu.au/~sjphipps/publications/pages_2k_consortium2013.pdf

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    cohenite

    the divergence problem is, well, a problem.

    Only to the extent it negates the basis of the Hockeystick.

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    Ross

    Once again Jo demonstrates a key reason why the underfunded skeptics are winning. Not only are the facts on our side but we have the superior communicators , who are also very clear, logical thinkers.

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    PeterS

    Don’t know anyone has noticed it yet but I saw one pro Green discussion on Bloomberg TV channel where they agreed the so called environmental actions taken in the recent past and now, such as solar energy, are not only important to stop the so called global warming threat, but it’s already starting to work. I suppose in a few more years, if not sooner, we’ll here them say something along the lines “See we told you so – now that global warming has halted if not reversed, we now have proof that our environmental actions have worked”. I bet that’s what they are now hoping for – another lie to try and convince the public that the world’s global warming threat is real and we managed to stop it. The problem is most people will believe such crap.

    It’s never about the science, it’s all about power and money, and as history has shown it works well for the liars and cheats but not for the innocents.

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      TdeF

      Do not forget that Australia and NZ’s Carbon Taxes worked really well too and we are still seeing the benefits in static world temperatures. They were right. Tax Science Denialists take note that Climate Economists like Richard Dennis and Ross Garnaut have saved the entire planet.

      The only problem according to our Climate Council is that Climate Change is still dramatic even if it is not caused by rising CO2 but the other byproduct of combustion, water. So we need a UN Climate Change Tax based on the world’s most scarce and valuable commodity and greenhouse gas, fresh water.

      Fresh water rich countries, like Norway and New Zealand with the highest fresh water per capita could donate money to fresh water scarce desert countries like Australia and Saudi Arabia and Chile and Libya and Kazakstan. Or Water Credits, which could be traded in Europe by merchant banks like Goldman Sachs. The essential work of the IPCC never ends.

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      Peter C

      “See we told you so – now that global warming has halted if not reversed, we now have proof that our environmental actions have worked”.

      Well global warming may have halted, or even reversed. But what if CO2 levels remain high or go higher, would that prove that their environmental actions have worked?

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        PeterS

        Good point Peter C. Copious amounts of facts never got in the way of the AGW hoax and scam, so one more fact will not be a problem for the liars and scam artists.

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        the Griss

        All any of the climate change so-called ‘environmental’ actions have ever done is shift the CO2 de-sequestration to other places.

        Stuff still gets made, it just uses up more fuel because they have to move stuff further.

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    john robertson

    Another loser fading into obscurity.
    Poor Greggy just another saint of the Cult of Calamitous Climate, to be remembered with derision and scorn.
    Sucks to be him.

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    ROM

    First they ignore you,
    then they laugh at you,
    then they fight you,
    then you win.

    Mahatma Gandhi.
    ______________________

    Over the last very few months it is becoming very obvious that there has been a very subtle but major psychological shift taking place in the climate wars.

    For decade and a half the Climate science and green blob eco-fascists alarmists have just ignored the skeptics.
    After all the science was on their side wasn’t it?
    The science was in, it was fixed, incontrovertible, unchallengeable, the earth was going to hell in a climate heated basket. Thats what the data [ suitably adjusted ] proclaimed ‘
    The god like reverence given to peer reviewed papers that supported the cause exceeded Holy writ and were promoted loudly and endlessly.

    The skeptics persisted and even started to show signs of growing in numbers

    So along came the next part of Mahatma’ Gandhi’s dictum above;

    Then they laugh at you

    The 10-10 child killing video, Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. the evidence was so strong that the skeptics were laughable but a film that in a few alarmist circles is now very recently being placed as the turning point of the whole debate as it’s claims were so spurious and so laughably far removed from peoples own experiences and knowledge and so far removed from reality that many started to have creeping doubts.
    There were numerous demands for the jailing or much, much worse the permanent marking and even execution of skeptics.
    Nobody anywhere in alarmist science or in the green blob [ who quite happily apparently acceded to and encouraged this gross and vicious extremism ] tried to stop these excesses or demand their withdrawal and for apologies be issued.
    Not a peep on these vicious nasty attacks was heard from climate alarmist science and most importantly from those science associations that purportedly represent the high status of science but who were and still are highly visible and screechingly loud promoters of this failing alarmist climate science.

    None of that stopped the skeptics who began to get ever more numbers as the whole deal unravelled as Nature in all her inscrutability refused to toe the alarmist line and just went off and did her own thing as in just deciding that temperatures should plateau out and even start to fall on the odd occasion.

    And down the gurgler went the predictions of some 103 of those grossly expensive, hundred million dollars worth of computer powered and incredibly complex future predicting IPCC global climate models who it now turns out can’t even get the past climate correct and as it happened even when they have ALL of a century’s worth of data available at their finger tips.

    So now Gandhi’s third dictum is coming into play;

    Then they fight you

    WUWT, JoNova, Climate Etc, Climate Audit and many more skeptic blogs are seeing a very recent and new influx of alarmists intent on trying to both destroy the skeptic blogs, the more outspoken skeptic bloggers and the arguments of those skeptics that throw serious doubts and outright rebuttal using peer reviewed science of the increasingly desperate and increasingly spurious and extremist claims of the climate alarmists and the green blob eco-fascists.

    A lot of this activity appears to have its main source in John Cook’s SkS which arguably; is one of the most dissembling of the truth of any of the alarmist sites.

    And we are seeing this quite new confronting by alarmists who are now appearing in greater numbers on skeptic sites in an apparent attempt to regain the ground lost and regain the passive public’s support as the whole climate alarmist, green blog driven confidence trickster deal unravels in the lying mire of it’s own undoubted making.

    And then Gandhi’s;

    You win

    Some, a few prominent Climate alarmist scientists have already surrendered and are crab like, trying to scuttle sideways out of sight hoping like hell that nobody will notice their exit and disappearance until things cool down.
    Too bad for them and others still to follow.
    With their overweening academic arrogance, their fog horn predictions for a future that has failed in every aspect to appear and their total inability to listen to others outside of their own incestuous animal farm and think through the consequences if they were proven wrong, they have created far too much damage to nations and to peoples and to science and have caused far too many deaths and created far to much despair and loss of hope for mankind to ever forget or forgive their roles in all of this monstrous debacle of what was once purportedly hailed as science.

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      Peter C

      Great stuff ROM,

      I will refer back to this comment when I have to answer the course material in John Cook’s course on the Psychology of Science Denialism from the University of Queensland, starting next year.

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      sophocles

      ROM:
      I’m currently reading Nigel Calder’s “The Manic Sun.” (Pilkington Press 1997). It’s not really about the Solar Influences Climate Theory, but then again, it is. It’s also about how Houghton’s Extended Green House Theory managed to gain the ascendancy. I was expecting a precursor of his “The Chilling Stars” but it’s not one, yet it is.

      You just might find it very interesting for its historical narrative and commentary.

      (I bought a 2nd hand copy through Amazon.co.uk, but a good library should have a copy or be able to obtain one on request. Enjoy.)

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    Lawrie Ayres

    Today is a dark day for science. Ian McFarlane has added science to his industry portfolio. McFarlane is a wind farm supporter and promoter and now would have carriage of the BoM audit I would think. Birmingham has moved elsewhere and I’m sure he would have picked the right auditors to achieve a “best practise” result. McFarlane will be even more likely to achieve the same result or maybe he will simply forget to progress the audit. Bastards. That’s what happens when Conservatives get into government and then turn green.

    On a better note may I wish Jo and her band of commenters a very Happy Christmas and a fruitful 2015. It would be a tough day without Jo, Anthony and Andrew Bolt.

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    Andrew McRae

    From Laden’s blog post:

    change in regional (and global) temperature is increasingly implicated as the cause of the divergence problem

    I look forward to Lewandowsky writing a new Recursive Fury paper on Greg Laden’s global warmism.
    i.e. Of course late 20th century temperatures are unprecedented, it’s the unprecedented high temperatures which are preventing our proxies from showing just how unprecedented the high temperatures are, duh!
    Same logic: Of course there’s no evidence the moon landings were faked because its the faking that prevents us from finding evidence of the faking. Self sealing and non-falsifiable by design.

    Of course if they’d like to produce a new paleoclimatology using only bristlecones within 40m of treeline and on slopes facing away from the sun track, that will surely give a rather different (non-hockeyish) picture of past climate change.
    Such a climatology could be produced only if there is some other independent non-tree ring proxy for determining what altitude the tree line was at during any given time. Otherwise it descends into circular logic: You know that tree is an accurate thermometer if it was less than 40m below the tree line. You can tell it was less than 40m below the tree line altitude in 1400AD because… it’s an accurate thermometer at that time?
    It still won’t be accurate without knowing the values of all other factors which affect tree growth. When using north-facing data the dendros still don’t replicate thermometers.

    Laden misleads on the Hockey Stick, my paraphrasing:

    There is no such [divergence] issue with [Mann’s 1998 Hockey Stick] work, in that there was no detectable divergence through the end of the calibration interval.

    To which, based on updated Graybill data, McIntyre reaffirms:

    The Mann reconstruction, either intentionally or by accident, ends in 1980, pretty much exactly at the top of the market of the Sheep Mountain chronology and did not show or discuss the divergence between the bristlecones and temperature that had already occurred in the 1980s.

    So any divergence which you don’t publish, by cherrypicking the end of the calibration window, is a divergence which doesn’t exist. It’s the rules of any bureaucracy – if it’s not written down it didn’t happen. In particular, if statements of climatology can be obviously inferred from a dendro “ecology” study, but the study author didn’t specifically spell out those conclusions, they can retort that their “study doesn’t say that” even when the study means exactly that.

    Hughes and Salzer say:

    We still find temperature sensitive bristlecone pine trees at upper treeline; they simply don’t extend down the mountain as far as we used to think. In addition, some of the treeline south-facing trees seem to be less influenced by temperature in recent years than they used to be. The location of the trees, and understanding what environmental variable is limiting growth at that location, is the key to developing accurate paleoclimatic reconstructions from tree rings.

    That sounds like an admission that there are no “accurate paleoclimatic reconstructions from tree rings.”

    Science is a continuous process of improvement.

    Yes indeed it is a process of improvement. So it’s lucky we didn’t take a snapshot of paleoclimate scientific understanding at one point in time in 1998 and use it to justify 16 years of global political and economic changes with probably impoverishing consequences. Oh, wait.

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    BruceC

    Just for reference, here is the 2009 PNAS paper;
    http://www.pnas.org/content/106/48/20348.full

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    Richard Ilfeld

    Trying to post a tiny sarc on Laden didn’t seem to go well:

    Translated to English from “scientific”: “Tree rings show the trend we want if we pick the trees carefully enough!.”

    It is hard for me to see any signal coming out of the noise beyond saying that a thick ring was a good year for some specific tree in some specific location. I can’t see the forest for the trees.

    But that’s it, for me, in a nutshell.

    Claiming a global proxy for a 90M site on the proper side of the hill, now, compared to different small sites with different trees a few years ago, is voodoo. To my mind, hundreds of trees from all over the mountain over many years selected randomly might give a thumbs-up/thumbs down indication of overall growing conditions, but it doesn’t seem to me a good thermometer.

    To my mind, the local newspaper reporting last frost in the spring, first frost in the fall, daily high and low, and a story on anything unusual would be much better — I’ll bet there are 500 year records for some locations. Judging from the science, while studying tree rings to learn about high altitude trees seems to be pretty well established science, as a proxy for anything climactic I’d prefer any proxy record for how “climate” impacted the folks — the source of much of our MWP validation, of course. I am willing to look at EVERY newspaper, of course, not just the days that show the trend i’m trying to “prove”

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    Kon Dealer

    Which accusations to you refer to.
    Laden, or CRU?

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    Kon Dealer

    Hi Jo. Why did you take down my post about the lying jizzweasel, Laden?

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    Drapetomania

    Philip Shehan
    December 21, 2014 at 6:41 pm · Reply
    Your recollection is incorrect. The ‘hockey stick’ has been validated.

    What a surreal comment..
    If the local plumber told me that, I would go “fair enough you dont know anything about science
    But, when a person who claims a background in science suggests that…???
    That truly scares me..
    http://climateaudit.org/?s=hockey+sticks
    http://climateaudit.org/2011/05/23/climategate-documents-confirm-wegmans-hypothesis/
    http://climateaudit.org/2010/08/01/the-no-dendro-illusion/
    http://climateaudit.org/2014/09/06/the-original-hide-the-decline/
    http://climateaudit.org/2014/02/17/mann-and-the-oxburgh-panel/
    Philip…if you have no idea about a subject…its best not to show everyone in public..that you are clueless..
    If you find any problems with the science..go to “Climate Audit” and correct them..
    But thats not going to happen is it Philip.. 🙂
    Sadly..I don`t believe you will care about the “science”..its all about Orwellian memes.
    Hint..
    You will find it safer in future to do what the majority of the $CAGW$ gang do..and for good reason might I add..
    1/Avoid the science..you are not going to win on that front obviously..
    2/Stick to what the majority of $CAGW$ advocates do….ad hominems/misdirection/appeals to authority and ignoring us…
    But don`t ever try science with “us”..
    We actually know the science better than your side..that`s the problem your mendacious money burning/faux environmentalist”friends” will never understand.. 🙂

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      the Griss

      “Philip…if you have no idea about a subject…its best not to show everyone in public..that you are clueless..”

      The warning is several years too late, D.

      He keeps reinforcing his lack of understand of anything to do with climate except the very basic maths behind the SkS trend calculator.

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    Anton

    Is Greg Laden any relation of Osama?

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    Timboss

    A climate denialist would be someone who rejects the evidence because they don’t like it rather than because new evidence has replaced it, or fault can be found with the technique.

    For example, someone who rejects millions of laser based sea-level measurements because they don’t understand basic statistics.

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      the Griss

      “because they don’t understand basic statistics”

      Then you should learn !

      And understand that the laser measurements sea level are referred against a point that has been shown to be sinking.
      (You did know they had to be referenced to some point, didn’t you?)

      Therefore a correct of about 1.2mm/yr (negative ) should be made (but isn’t because it doesn’t suit the agenda)
      Instead that have actually adjust the trend upwards for some spurious reason, peer pal-reviewed of course.

      Such an adjustment would bring the trend very much in line with that of many studies using tide gauges, at somewhere between 0.6 and 1.8mm/year

      A truly scary rate of sea level rise. 😉

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        gai

        Actually Griss, Sea level depends on when you start the measurements. (So what is new?)

        The geologic data says the sea levels have been dropping since the Holocene Optimum.

        Here is a nice list as a belated Christmas present.

        Mid to late Holocene sea-level reconstruction of Southeast Vietnam using beachrock and beach-ridge deposits

        ….backshore deposits along the tectonically stable south-eastern Vietnamese coast document Holocene sea level changes…..reconstructed for the last 8000 years….The rates of sea-level rise decreased sharply after the rapid early Holocene rise and stabilized at a rate of 4.5 mm/year between 8.0 and 6.9 ka. Southeast Vietnam beachrocks reveal that the mid-Holocene sea-level highstand slightly above + 1.4 m was reached between 6.7 and 5.0 ka, with a peak value close to + 1.5 m around 6.0 ka….

        Translation the sea level was up to 1.5 meters higher than today.

        Sea-level highstand recorded in Holocene shoreline deposits on Oahu, Hawaii

        Unconsolidated carbonate sands and cobbles on Kapapa Island, windward Oahu, are 1.4-2.8 (+ or – 0.25) m above present mean sea level (msl)…we interpret the deposit to be a fossil beach or shoreline representing a highstand of relative sea level during middle to late Holocene time. Calibrated radiocarbon dates of coral and mollusc samples, and a consideration of the effect of wave energy setup, indicate that paleo-msl was at least 1.6 (+ or – 0.45) m above present msl prior to 3889-3665 cal. yr B.P, possibly as early as 5532-5294 cal. yr B.P., and lasted until at least 2239-1940 cal. yr B.P

        This study shows a sea level highstand ~1.6 meter above the present level from ~5500 years ago to 2000 years ago.

        Holocene sea-level change and ice-sheet history in the Vestfold Hills, East Antarctica

        A new Holocene sea-level record from the Vestfold Hills, Antarctica, has been obtained by dating the lacustrine–marine and marine–lacustrine transitions that occur in sediment cores from lakes which were formerly connected to the sea. From an elevation of ∼7.5 m 8000 yr ago, relative sea-level rose to a maximum ∼9 m above present sea-level 6200 yr ago. Since then, sea-level has fallen monotonically until the present….

        The above is a RELATIVE sealevel curve. The area is not tectonically stable because the area has isostatic uplift in response to deglaciation from the Wisconsin Ice Age. The isostatic uplift plus sea level highstand gave a maximum ∼9 meters above present sea-level 6200 yr ago.

        A new Holocene relative sea level curve for the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica

        The curve shows a mid-Holocene RSL highstand on Fildes Peninsula at 15.5 m above mean sea level between 8000 and 7000 cal a BP. Subsequently RSL gradually fell as a consequence of isostatic uplift in response to regional deglaciation….

        This study shows the highstand 15.5 meters above present when you include uplift.

        Verification by another method:
        Sea Level Changes Past Records and Future Expectations

        For the last 40-50 years strong observational facts indicate virtually stable sea level conditions. The Earth’s rate of rotation records an [average] acceleration from 1972 to 2012, contradicting all claims of a rapid global sea level rise, and instead suggests stable, to slightly falling, sea levels.

        There also studies showing the temperatures were higher and the glaciers smaller verifying the above data,

        A new approach for reconstructing glacier variability based on lake sediments recording input from more than one glacier January 2012
        Kristian Vasskoga Øyvind Paaschec, Atle Nesjea, John F. Boyled, H.J.B. Birks

        …. A multi-proxy numerical analysis demonstrates that it is possible to distinguish a glacier component in the ~ 8000-yr-long record, based on distinct changes in grain size, geochemistry, and magnetic composition…. This signal is …independently tested through a mineral magnetic provenance analysis of catchment samples. Minimum glacier input is indicated between 6700–5700 cal yr BP, probably reflecting a situation when most glaciers in the catchment had melted away, whereas the highest glacier activity is observed around 600 and 200 cal yr BP. During the local Neoglacial interval (~ 4200 cal yr BP until present), five individual periods of significantly reduced glacier extent are identified at ~ 3400, 3000–2700, 2100–2000, 1700–1500, and ~ 900 cal yr BP….

        Temperature and precipitation history of the Arctic
        Miller et al
        Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, USA et al

        …. Solar energy reached a summer maximum (9% higher than at present) ~11 ka ago and has been decreasing since then, primarily in response to the precession of the equinoxes. The extra energy elevated early Holocene summer temperatures throughout the Arctic 1-3°C above 20th century averages, enough to completely melt many small glaciers throughout the Arctic, although the Greenland Ice Sheet was only slightly smaller than at present. Early Holocene summer sea ice limits were substantially smaller than their 20th century average, and the flow of Atlantic water into the Arctic Ocean was substantially greater. As summer solar energy decreased in the second half of the Holocene, glaciers re-established or advanced, sea ice expanded…

        Ice free Arctic Ocean, an Early Holocene analogue

        Abstract
        Extensive systems of wave generated beach ridges along the North Greenland coasts show that these areas once saw seasonally open water. In addition to beach ridges, large amounts of striated boulders in and on the marine sediments from the same period also indicate that the ocean was open enough for ice bergs to drift along the shore and drop their loads. Presently the North Greenland coastline is permanently beleaguered by pack ice, and ice bergs are very rare and locked up in the sea ice. Predictions of the rapidly decreasing sea ice in the Arctic Ocean generally point to this area as the last to become ice free in summer. We therefore suggest that the occurrence of wave generated shores and abundant ice berg dropped boulders indicate that the Arctic Ocean was nearly free of sea ice in the summer at the time when they were formed. The beach ridges occur as isostatically raised “staircases”, and C14-dated curves for relative sea level change show that they were formed in the Early Holocene. A large set of samples of molluscs from beach ridges and marine sediments were collected in the summer of 2007, and are presently being dated to give a precise dating of the ice free interval. Preliminary results indicate that it fell within the interval from c. 8.5 to c. 6 ka – being progressively shorter from south to north. We therefore conclude that for a priod in the Early Holocene, probably for a millenium or more, the Arctic Ocean was free of sea ice at least for shorter periods in the summer….

        What is mind boggling is the Climastrologists with degrees in Geology, Hydrology and Earth Science completely ignore the fact that the Modern Warm Period is colder than other periods during the Holocene, that glaciers are growing and the sea level is dropping. Instead they cherry pick a short term change in the weather and call it ‘ClIMATE’!

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    :Roger, please look at:

    http://gers.uprm.edu/geol6225/pdfs/06_thermal_rs.pdf

    Chapter 8 from : http://gers.uprm.edu/geol6225
    The “how” to of remote sensing is good but, the science of thermal IR radiation is but Climate fantasy. The declarative statement (pg-2) that claims, “Thermal infrared energy is emitted from all objects that have a temperature above absolute zero”, has never ever been observed or measured. Such is demonstratively false under at least two conditions:
    1. Any object with finite emissivity,at any temperature within an environment at a higher temperature, can never spontaneously emits any thermal EMR. That object can only absorb thermal EMR from such environment.. That deliberate fake claim violates all of known science!
    2. Any object at any temperature, but with zero emissivity, cannot exchange radiative energy with any environment. If “any” such exchange is detected, go polish that puppy lots more!

    Page 6 another false claim “When these particles collide they change their energy state and emit electromagnetic radiation” What total Bull Shit! Increasing energy, molecules (mass) or not, that energy potential, spontaneously creates a radiative potential (temperature), that “if’ that temperature is maintained by replacement energy, spontaneously transfers EMR energy in every direction of lower radiative potential, at each frequency band may occur. The radiative “field strength” at each frequency is maintained, without energy transfer, by each competent atomic nucleus, reading brands, and trying to figure who belongs to this fool electron.

    Again on Page 6 “There is usually a high correlation between the (fake) kinetic temperature of an object and the amount of (fake) flux radiated from the object.

    Only potential is ever measured by academics never flux. Good God, can earthlings never get the difference between voltage and current? They are orthogonal, yet complementary. Power is but the cross product of two orthogonals, and always orthogonal to each of the precedent force.

    Roger, have a pleasant 2015, or else!!! -will-

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