Strike Six For The Climate Crooks

  1. Antarctic sea ice extent is at a record high
  2. Arctic sea ice extent is the highest in ten year
  3. Parts of Antarctica had their coldest June ever
  4. The US is having one of its coldest summers ever
  5. The North Pole is having its coldest summer ever
  6. Satellites show no warming for 17 years.

Yet the scamsters at NOAA/NASA claim Earth is experiencing the hottest weather ever. What a complete load of crap, and astonishing that they have the gall to make such claims – particularly after talking about polar amplification all these years.

They simply come up with a magic formula to generate the desired results, and turn a blind eye to the fact that it doesn’t make any sense.

About Tony Heller

Just having fun
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

537 Responses to Strike Six For The Climate Crooks

  1. terrence says:

    Yes, those six points are all true – but they are ALL the result of Global Warming! /Sacr off

  2. tom0mason says:

    POTUS will still tax you more before the elections arrive.
    That is assuming you survive till the next election. 🙁

  3. There Is No Substitute for Victory. says:

    Sarcasm/on All six of these conditions must be met before Global Warming can hide out on the ocean floor. Any real climate scientist knows this. Sarcasm/off.

  4. Andy DC says:

    .7 El Nino seems to be crapping out again.

  5. 1957chev says:

    How much does it cost to buy a climate scientist nowadays? One that will say whatever you want, probably doesn’t go cheap! Good thing the alarmists have lots of tax dollars to spend.

  6. Okie says:

    Groucho Marx: “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”

  7. D. Self says:

    When you have the State Run Media on your side you can vomit bald faced lies until you are 6 feet under. Next propaganda.”C02 is really causing global cooling”. Keep fighting the good fight, Steven.

    • Gamecock says:

      Zactly. The legacy press supports the government agenda, so they happily publish the scares. The legacy press is not acting in the public interest.

  8. BallBounces says:

    The fact that it can be cold in the midst of such terrible warning shows how diabolical and pernicious global warming is. And it’s all your fault. You are a bad person. Finger wag.

  9. GeologyJim says:

    Of course it’s fun to laugh at the illogic, irrationality, and [dare I say] “denial” of plain facts by the Climageddonistas, but the six observations noted by Steve/Tony are the precursors of glacial advance.

    When glaciers advance, growing seasons shorten, habitats migrate toward lower altitudes and latitudes, crops fail, and mortality increases.

    Not a rosy forecast

  10. gator69 says:

    Too bad there is no such thing as a strike out in “T”-ball.

  11. Jerry says:

    So is it safe to conclude that we’d be entering another ice age had it not been for anthropogenic greenhouse gases, which kept the climate from changing?

    I’m seriously considering taking the track that we are seeing anthropogenic climate stability. “Everything you climate scientists have said is true. And look at where we would have been had we not warmed the planet.” Subtract CO2 forcing (go on the high end) from the pause and show that New York City should be under a glacier right now but for the last 150 years of geoengineering. “The earth wants to freeze us out but we won’t let it.”

    • Gail Combs says:

      There are a lot of papers that support that view. It is called Ruddiman’s “Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis”

      There had been a very intense debate regarding which of the most recent interglacials is the best analogue for the present Holocene. Lisiecki and Raymo, (2005) essentially quashed the Berger and Loutre’s 2002 modeling and no one has come forward with anything supporting an extended Holocene since then.

      Lisiecki and Raymo (Paleooceanography, 2005) produced an exhaustive analysis of 57 globally distributed deep ocean cores reaching back about 5 million years.

      Lisiecki and Raymo’s conclusion?

      …the June 21 insolation minimum at 65N during MIS 11 is only 489 W/m2, much less pronounced than the present minimum of 474 W/m2. In addition, current insolation values are not predicted to return to the high values of late MIS 11 for another 65 kyr. We propose that this effectively precludes a ‘double precession-cycle’ interglacial [e.g., Raymo, 1997] in the Holocene without human influence….
      http://large.stanford.edu/publications/coal/references/docs/Lisiecki_Raymo_2005_Pal.pdf

      Here is an earlier paper:

      Lesson from the past: present insolation minimum holds potential for glacial inception (2007)

      “….Because the intensities of the 397 ka BP and present insolation minima are very similar, we conclude that under natural boundary conditions the present insolation minimum holds the potential to terminate the Holocene interglacial. Our findings support the Ruddiman hypothesis [Ruddiman, W., 2003. The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era began thousands of years ago. Climate Change 61, 261–293], which proposes that early anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission prevented the inception of a glacial that would otherwise already have started….

  12. tonyp says:

    The increase in Antarctic sea ice is a result of increased glacier outflow and is a result of warmer basal conditions. So, yes, it is a result of global warming.

    The Arctic sea ice result is random fluctuation.

    The cold winters/summers are unrelated to any form of temperature trend and represent small scale perturbations of a larger system.

    The no warming for seventeen years is a flat out misrepresentation of the data. This is only true if you limit the discussion to surface temperature. As soon as you include whole-atmosphere effects you get significant warming again. As soon as you incorporate ocean warming effects (which are directly observable using Argo float measurements) you see that warming has not only continued it has accelerated.

    • gator69 says:

      So tunneling penguins with blowtorches are to blame for increased sea ice at the South Pole, and natural variability explains the Arctic. Got it.

      And as for the claimed ocean warming detected by the Argo buoys, it is less than the range of error for those buoys.

      Find a new hobby, and maybe it’s not too late for a helmet.

      • Gail Combs says:

        Argo buoys?
        Yeah I remember now, the numbers were not showing warming so, just like with the land records the data was ‘Adjusted’ to support ‘The cause’

        “It is useful to compare the above graph to the Argo-only data ( Loehle, C. 2009. Cooling of the Global Ocean Since 2003. Energy & Environment 20:99-102) available at http://www.ncasi.org//Publications/Detail.aspx?id=3152 below which shows a cooling trend.” ~ Craig Loehle

        GRAPH

        YUP, sure as heck looks like a COOLING TREND to me.

    • mjc says:

      How many consecutive cold winters/summers does it take to make a trend?

      The 17 yr long pause is using the satellite data. 5 datasets, including satellite and surface temps indicate a ‘pause’. Depending on the dataset used it runs from just over 13 yrs to almost 18 yrs. So don’t get to bent out of shape when it’s said to be real.

      So, the Arctic is nothing to worry about, and isn’t going to disappear any time soon, because it’s just ‘random flucuations’?

      • Gail Combs says:

        RSS is now 17 years 10 months. The RSS dataset for the 214 months October 1996 to July 2014 – more than half the 427-month satellite record.

        RSS= Remote Sensing Systems’ satellite-based monthly global mean lower-troposphere temperature dataset.

        • tonyp says:

          The claim of 18 years of no temperature increase is based on surface temperature and ignores ocean temperature increases at depth which amount to an average of 0.4 degrees C over the past 10 years. Incorporating the effects of specific heat capacity this is enough energy to increase the temperature of the entire troposphere by 4 degrees C. The amount of energy entering the system has not slowed it has in fact increased. Using surface temperatures is a misleading cherry-picking of the data.

          There was an error in the pressure measurements of some (note that, some) Argo float data that introduced a negative bias to pressure readings. This was due to a small oil leak that over time increased the negative bias. This had the effect of making the float think it was shallower than it actually was which gave the illusion of falling temperatures because the float was comparing temperature at depth with earlier temperature from a shallower depth. The floats with the mechanical fault have been identified and their effect on observations removed. The data has been subsequently analysed and cross verified with measurements from other mechanisms.

          Domingues, C.M. , J.A. Church, N.J. White, P.J. Gleckler, S.E. Wijffels, P.M. Barker and J.R. Dunn (2008), Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise. Nature, 453, 1090-1094, doi:10.1038/nature07080.

          Levitus et al 2009 doi:10.1029/2008GL037155

        • tonyp says:

          Lower troposphere. To accurately calculate the energy entering the climate system you have to include the whole atmosphere and the ocean temperature at depth. You cannot use results from a small portion of the system and claim they represent the whole system.

      • tonyp says:

        The answer to your first question is 30. If a trend persists for 30 years it can no longer be dismissed as a short term variation. But the purported trend in question here is based on a subset of the data. If you incorporate temperature increase at depth enough energy has entered the oceans in the last ten years to heat the troposphere by 4 degrees C.

        • geran says:

          “enough energy has entered the oceans in the last ten years to heat the troposphere by 4 degrees C.”
          >>>>>>>>

          Enough kool-aid has entered tonyp’s bloodstream in the last ten years, he believes any “scare” data he happens across.

          (Hint to tonyp: The troposphere has not warmed by 4ºC. The oceans have not warmed. We cannot even get a weak El Nino going, and we need one. You need to stop reading the false science papers and learn some basic science——-You’re welcome.)

        • tonyp says:

          Here I have to correct myself. The observed temperature increase is 0.04 degrees C not 0.4 degrees C. My apologies. This is still enough energy to heat the troposphere by 2.4 degrees C.

          The calculation is as follows:

          specific heat of air: 0.0013
          specific heat of water: 4.17

          That is a factor of about 3200 times more energy to heat 1 cc of water as opposed to 1 cc of air.

          depth of troposphere = 100 km
          depth of heated ocean = 2.7 km

          areal coverage of atmosphere = 1
          areal coverage of ocean = 0.7

          volume of troposphere/volume of heated ocean = 100/(0.7 * 2.7) = 52.9

          So to work out how much heating would have occurred if this heat had gone into the troposphere the calculation is:

          0.04 * 3200/52.9 = 2.4 degrees C

        • geran says:

          Yes, and you need to keep correcting yourself. The basic science is: Sun heats ocean, ocean heats troposphere, troposphere loses heat to space.

          Learn it, love it, live it.

        • Dave G says:

          Tony, so if the oceans have heated .4C in such a short time, how much sea level rise would that cause? If it is true there will be other indicators.

        • tonyp says:

          The most recent calculation of thermosteric sea level rise I am familiar with is here:

          Domingues, C.M. , J.A. Church, N.J. White, P.J. Gleckler, S.E. Wijffels, P.M. Barker and J.R. Dunn (2008), Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise. Nature, 453, 1090-1094, doi:10.1038/nature07080.

          A more general survey of recent sea level change is here:

          Church, J. A. and N.J. White (2011), Sea-level rise from the late 19th to the early 21st Century. Surveys in Geophysics, 32, 585-602, doi:10.1007/s10712-011-9119-1

          An estimate of eustatic sea level change from GRACE data is given here:

          Chambers, D., Wahr, J., Tamiseia, M., and Nerem, R., Ocean mass from GRACE and glacial isostatic adjustment JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 115, B11415, doi:10.1029/2010JB007530, 2010

  13. tonyp says:

    The sun cannot be responsible for recent increases in temperature because if it were there would be heating in the uppermost atmosphere where in fact we observe cooling consistent with energy that was formerly reflected into the uppermost atmosphere being trapped in the lower atmosphere by the absorption affects of greenhouse gases.

    • tonyp says:

      The thing that strikes me about this paper is that his sea level data seem to be de-trended. There is no evidence in the sea level curve in figure 4 or in the plot of rate of change in figure 6 of any linear trend. Now, figure 4 states explicitly it is de-trended as is his plot of SST but this is not made clear in the discussion ofhis methodology. By removing the overall strong linear trend that is universally observed in tide gauge readings (see for example Church and White 2011 doi:10.1007/s10712-011-9119-1) he is a priori removing thermosteric and eustatic contributions from long term temperature trends. It is little wonder that he comes to the conclusion that the remainder is strongly correlated with solar activity with contributions from ENSO and presumably PDO.

      • geran says:

        tonyb, do you even understand energy flow (heat transfer) in any slight way? You seem so terribly confused. It’s almost as if you are just copy/pasting items from other sources that do not even fit the point you believe you are trying to make.

        For example, your comment above (1:03pm) makes absolutely no sense in light of known physics of heat transfer.

        Hint: Confusion is NOT science.

        • tonyp says:

          The observed cooling of the stratosphere due to greenhouse gas effects is shown in:

          http://www.arl.noaa.gov/documents/JournalPDFs/ThompsonEtal.Nature2012.pdf

          The mechanism is explained in Lastowicki et al 2006 (DOI:10.1126/science.1135134) and here:

          http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/20c.html

          Note again. A fall in stratospheric temperature is the oppsite of what would be expected from an increase in insolation.

          You were saying something about someone being confused and not understanding physics. You can explain that in more detail when you get back from reading the papers.

        • geran says:

          I can see why you are confused. Both papers try to combine ozone with the magic “GHG”, CO2. Apparently, the purpose is more confusion. Ozone, at high altitudes, is not manmade. “Cooling” the stratosphere does not warm Earth’s surface, nor warm the troposphere. Sunlight, if unblocked by clouds, water vapor, or dust, (albedo) largely reaches Earth’s surface, including oceans. The heat transfer, in simple terms, is then from Earth’s surface, through the levels of atmosphere, to space.

          Learn the basics, and you can figure these things out for yourself.

        • tonyp says:

          That does not mean that observing cooling where solar insolation models predict heating is not contraindicative of the latter.

          You talk a lot about science and the sun and blah blah, but you know what you don’t do? You don’t explain any physical mechanisms. You don’t provide references to support your conclusions. You just say: science, sun, there you go.

          That actually isn’t scientific.

          The mechanism of heat transfer changes fundamentally as you move from the troposphere (where the primary mechanism is convection) to the stratosphere (where the primary mechanism is radiative). The trapping of heat in the troposphere by greenhouse gases and the more efficient radiation of energy out of the stratosphere leads to net cooling of the latter and heating of the former. This is not “magic” this is physics. And the fact that you don’t understand it doesn’t make it incredible, it means you lack specific technical expertise. Which may come as a surprise to you but it’s been pretty obvious from the rest of your bleatings.

          If you’re so confident I lack scientific ability here’s a test. I will bet you $US 10,000 that I hold a higher scientific degree and have published more peer reviewed papers in credited journals than you. Put your money where your mouth is or shut up.

        • geran says:

          And, tonyp, one final thought before I hit the sack.

          Quote from the second paper you advertised:

          “At present, however, our understanding of stratospheric cooling is not complete and further research has to be done.”

          Does that mean anything to you?

  14. gator69 says:

    tonyp says:
    August 9, 2014 at 1:00 am
    “Lower troposphere. To accurately calculate the energy entering the climate system you have to include the whole atmosphere and the ocean temperature at depth. You cannot use results from a small portion of the system and claim they represent the whole system.”

    Please alert the IPCC. Last I checked they still had not identified all climate forcings, were fuzzy on most, and clouds were a complete mystery. The fact that you think you can ‘accurately calculate’ anything to do with our climate shows the vast depth and breadth of your ignorance. But then that is par for alarmists.

    Nearly 30 excuses for the ‘pause’ that turnyp denies, and counting…

  15. geran says:

    tonyb says: “The trapping of heat in the troposphere by greenhouse gases and the more efficient radiation of energy out of the stratosphere leads to net cooling of the latter and heating of the former. This is not “magic” this is physics.”
    >>>>>
    tonyb, once again, if you understood the basics, you would not be spouting stuff like this. The “trapping of heat” phrase indicates you have been brainwashed by the Warmists. You need to get away from the papers, that you think are “science”, and get back to the basics.

    Let me see if I can make any progress. Consider a sink faucet. When you turn the faucet on, water flows into the sink. Consider a control volume around this flow, between the faucet and the sink. That control volume contains water, but it is not “trapping” the water. The water flows through it. “Containing” mass or energy is not “trapping”. The same applies to a CO2 molecule in the atmosphere. The molecule has a temperature. It contains energy. It absorbs energy, and it emits energy. It CANNOT “trap” energy any more than the control volume can “trap” water. The process is called heat TRANSFER.

    tonyb says: “If you’re so confident I lack scientific ability here’s a test. I will bet you $US 10,000 that I hold a higher scientific degree and have published more peer reviewed papers in credited journals than you.”
    >>>>>>
    tonyb, your “higher scientific degree” and “peer reviewed papers” mean absolutely NOTHING if you continually misrepresent the basic science. But, it appears by your tone that you have become frustrated by your confusion, so I will back off. I have learned that I cannot help someone that WANTS to be confused.

    Tonyb says: “Put your money where your mouth is or shut up.”
    >>>>>>
    Ah, the final desperate move for the frustrated and confused–CENSORSHIP.

    (Perfect example of “climate science”, folks–misrepresent the basic science, tout your meaningless credentials, and then censor anyone that refutes.)

    • tonyp says:

      For starters, it’s tonyp not tonyb. Basic literacy skills should be part of your arsenal.

      The distinction between “trapping” and “containing” is at best a meaningless and superficial quibble. The term “trapping heat” is commonly used in atmospheric physics text books and in publications on climate processes. I will continue to use it because it annoys you and that in and of itself is a worthy cause.

      If you want to get back to the science fine:

      If temperature rise were caused by insolation temperature within the stratosphere should rise along with the rest of the atmosphere. Yet that’s not what is observed. What is observed is the exact opposite, a marked cooling. Which, coincidentally is what is predicted if CO2 levels within the atmosphere increase.

      The increase in troposopheric CO2 means that more energy is absorbed in the troposphere and TRAPPED near the surface. As a consequence, the lower atmosphere, land, and oceans get warmer.

      The energy radiated into space by the Earth must equal the energy coming in. Otherwise we would not have an equilibrium, we would have runaway cooling or heating. TRAPPING of heat in the lower troposphere therefore means that some other portion of the atmosphere must radiate more heat. Which is exactly what we see happening in the stratosphere.

      You can turn this argument around. Cooling in the stratosphere can mean one of two things. Either the amount of solar energy coming into the system is falling or some other portion of the atmosphere is heating up. Since again, total heat emission must remain equal to total energy input.

      We observe oceans, land and atmosphere getting warmer. The stratospheric temperature trends are simply inconsistent with the claim that an increase in insolation is responsible.

      And while we’re discussing data here is a list of the ten hottest years on record starting with the hottest.

      2010
      2005
      1998
      2003
      2013
      2002
      2006
      2009
      2007
      2004

      So, this, whole no warming for the last eighteen years thing you keep bleating about. How does that work exactly? It’s hotter but there’s been no warming? That’s your argument?

      • Gail Combs says:

        Give it up

        Even the UK MET office (grudgingly) and IPCC’s Patchy have finally acknowledged there has been a “Pause” after they were made into laughingstocks.

        • tonyp says:

          The IPCC concede they under-estimated the effect of temporal variability on temperature. True.

          But that is different from saying that there has been no heating. The heat has been more effectively mixed at depth within the ocean by increased wind activity. This is observable using buoy data. The reference is:

          Trenberth and Fasullo 2013 doi: 10.1002/2013EF000165

        • mjc says:

          One of 30 excuses…and the most famous one at that.

          “The oceans ate it.”

          Any elementary school teacher doesn’t buy the ‘my dog ate it’ excuse, either.

          The scientific method requires ‘poking holes’ in theories, not sitting around slapping each other on the back congratulating each other on the latest paper that confirms a bias.

          “Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?” is NOT the scientific method AND is exactly what is wrong with modern climate science.

        • tonyp says:

          I gave you areference, the data is publicly avalable

        • mjc says:

          The ‘Why should I’ comment was not specifically in referrence to you/this thread but in general for the whole of modern climate science. It is one of the underpinning ‘beliefs’ of the ‘team’ that their data should be protected from having holes poked in it.

      • Gail Combs says:

        For starters, it’s tonyp not tonyb.

        Of course you are not Tonyb the climate historian, we would not want to insult him by confusing you with him.

      • geran says:

        tonyp, you’ve already demonstrated your confusion. But, you seem so sure of your science, perhaps you would want to link us to your BEST peer-reviewed paper (non-pay walled, of course) on AGW. I can guarantee you it will get a REAL science review here.

        (Assuming Goddard is willing to put up with such nonsense.)

      • mjc says:

        As evidenced by your list of hottest years, you are marching in lock-step with the ‘team’…not a 1930’s anywhere on it.

        • tonyp says:

          That’s right. I am part of the Rothschildian conspiracy that is winning unimaginable wealth and power from our propagation of the message: Stop wasting money on climate science and invest in clean energy.

          I’ve taken time out of my busy schedule clubbing steals and oppressing racial minorities to present NOAA data. NOAA and NASA are endearing themselves to congress and guaranteeing their funding won’t come under attack by propagating misinformation that can readily be refuted by analysing their data. (come to think of it… restricting your attention to a tiny unrepresentative subset of the data is not in fact an analysis it might even give skewed error-prone results). Just like they did under Bush, because obviously they saw the political advantage in going against his climate policy.

          But if you’ll forgive me I need to go help some Iranian nuclear scientists irradiate some artifiially cultured ebola.

          So you guys would be into the moon landings being faked right? Government suppression of the alien landings at Roswell?

          I suggest you guys look at the other large-scale conspiracy theories out there and examine what it does to your credibility to be in anything like the same ballpark

        • mjc says:

          Actually, it’s rather simple and easy to prove that the temperature data is pretty much worthless, because the past has been cooled and the present warmed by the constant ‘adjustments’ made to the data.

          Most of the adjustments made should have been a one-off deal and never touched again, but instead they are being constantly fiddled with. You can see this for yourself by downloading and comparing several months worth of the temp records.

          The fact that there are constant ‘tweaks’ made to the data, should at the very least raise an alarm that something isn’t ‘kosher’. I know of no other field where such data manipulation is even remotely acceptible.

        • Phil,

          Those are surface temperature readings they are not whole atmosphere readings, they do not incorporate ocean temperature. Once you take whole atmosphere you observe warming. To see that this is the case you might like to look at NOAA’s or NASA’s lists of the ten hottest years on record all of which fall in the last 118 years.

          As a final note. I was not rude to you. Please remain civil or refrain from posting.

        • philjourdan says:

          If we were dolphins, you would have an argument (no point, but an argument). But we are not dophins, so those are indeed the reality of the world. As Argo does not go back 18 years, your statement is a blatant lie. In other words, you have no clue what the temperature of the oceans was even 20 years ago. So your statement is not even an informed opinion, just an ignorant one.

          As for the temperatures, the laws of thermodynamics will not be violated because you and Trenberth cannot find any missing heat. The Oceans temperature rises and falls in tandem with the atmospheric temperature since the warming mechanism is the same, and there is no magic fairy dust that allows heat to jump around the atmosphere to get to the oceans.

          So you are disproven.

          Strike four.

        • tonyp says:

          You cannot simply ignore ocean temperature as a factor in climate trends. Sorry, let me rephrase. You can but then you can have no idea what the climate is doing.

          You’re right Argo does not go back 18 years but even if you restrict yourself to the whole atmosphere there has been appreciable warming in those 18 years as demonstrated in a number of different data sets but I will persist with NOAA and NASA.

          Ok, I notice you’ve dropped the whole 0.,1 degree accuracy thing but I’m going to make the point anyway. Here’s an experiment you can try for yourself so there’s no chance of any interference or manipulation.

          Take a good-quality random number generator that generates numbers between 0 and 1. Run it 3000 times. See how far the mean is from 0.5.

          What you should see is that it’s very close.

          This is a demonstration of the statistical principle that the uncertainty of a mean decreases with the number of observations. So if you want to start getting accusatory, you just failed a first year statistics assignment question.

          And you were rude and insulting in doing it because you were so convinced and now you’ve dropped that and you’re changing the subject because misdirection is way easier than actually saying “You know what you have a point I stand corrected”. Strike One Phil.

        • philjourdan says:

          And again you are wrong.

          I did not mention your math ignorance because I had already. There are so many problems with your post, where to begin.

          #1: No one is ignoring the oceans. But temperature will equalize between the 2. The heat will not be transformed. So if the oceans increase by .02º, then that is all the atmosphere will heat by even if the heating source were removed tomorrow. The 2 will tend to equilibrium. The oceans will not release all the heat. Nor will the energy that heats the oceans some how magically transform to the atmosphere. Of course it takes more energy to heat the oceans. But it always has. So that is a moot point.

          #2: There is no such thing as a random number generator in the first place. Any generator you find or create on a computer is based on an algorithm. it may appear to spew random numbers, but they are based upon a calculation. Second, argo buoys are NOT random. If they were, they would be less than useless. They are measuring something. And it is going to be different every where they are. They are not measuring anomalies, they are measuring temperature. So they are all different (they can, by pure chance be the same). However, the more you have the less likely there is an error, but the accuracy remains the same. If they cannot measure past .1ºC, then that is their limitation. This is not a theory. This is a mathematical certainty! It is basic math! As another pointed out, if you are machining a piece and the machine is only accurate to .1, then it does not matter if you make 3000, that is still the accuracy of the machine and you are screwed if you need .01. Period.

          #3: I have not been rude, and the only insult you may have perceived is due to your ignorance. Ignorance is not an insult. If I called you stupid, that would be an insult. Ignorance is the lack of knowledge, stupidity is the rejection of knowledge. learn it, live it love it.

          Until you know what an insult is, and when someone is merely saying you are ignorant, you can strike all you want to. But the strikes are all yours.

          Strike 17. learn the language.
          Strike 18 (again): Learn basic math
          Strike 19 Learn the difference between error and accuracy.

          And keep your strikes to yourself. If your total contribution is a ball and strike count, you are not worth the trouble of 81 strikes. You already lost the game.

        • tonyp says:

          1) Your argument is incorrect. Large portions of the atmosphere are substantially cooler than the oceans. There is therefore a lot of potential potential for these parts to be warmed by the oceans. That doesn’t happen currently because of two factors 1) Convection cells can only carry so much heat and their strength is determined by ocean surface temperature 2) The strength of wind activity is very effectively driving wave action and near-surface eddies that move hot water to depth. Once the wind activity normalises and that churning stops the hot water will preferentially accumulate near the surface because its hotter and less dense. Sea surface temperatures will increase substantially driving more effective convection cells and carrying heat to more of the atmosphere.

          2) This is a spurious argument. The distribution of observational errors is defined by the observational uncertainty. A particular observation will have a random error whose magnitude is broadly characterised by the uncertainty. The basic principle holds. The chance any one observation is skewed is reasonable. The probability that all 3000 observations are skewed in the same direction is negligible. Obviously you don’t believe me, I don’t believe you. Your local university will have a statistics department. Phone them up, talk to them about it. See what they think.

          3) You may not have noticed but I’ve had to field a large number of posts and the vast majority of them contain attacks on my intellect, my character, my professional qualifications and even my literacy. Even you have made repeated, unfounded, and grossly inaccurate claims about my level of mathematical training. Yesterday I was able to determine a source of error in calculating partial derivatives of satellite position with respect to initial conditions, satellite observation systems and surface mass distributions. The signs are positive that this will substantially reduce errors and speed convergence in attempts to invert satellite orbit readings to solve for those parameters but it’s still early days. I actually don’t need random strangers telling me I’m an idiot and second guessing my mathematical ability. So I developed a system. You get two warnings and if you persist in doing it I will just ignore you. You don’t like it. I don’t care. People want to debate science I will debate science, people can throw around insults and conspiracy theories about NOAA, NASA and the IPCC on their own time.

          Your strike system has (a) no basis in observed reality and (b) no consequences. While imitation is the sincerest form of flattery I have to admit I don’t see why you’re doing it. Mine lets me quickly identify people I don’t want to talk to. If you don’t want to talk to me then don’t.

        • philjourdan says:

          Yes, I always heat the house by boiling a pot of water! Do you even think before you write? Apparently not. The heat cannot “jump” over the lower atmosphere into the upper atmosphere. That in itself is pure stupidity! Strike 59

          And for the last time, ERROR does not equal PRECISION. You can have the most accurate thermometer in the world! But if it is only set to measure tenths, it will never measure hundreths! Your whole argument is a non sequitur! Strike 60!

          Please do yourself a favor. get an education. And sue the idiots who gave you (note the word) the degree in Statistics. You were robbed!

        • philjourdan says:

          P.s. I was not rude to you either. Calling a pig a pig is not insulting the pig.

        • tonyp says:

          Unsubstantiated ad hominem attack. I notice this always starts at the point where people are demonstrably wrong on something. Strike Two.

        • philjourdan says:

          So calling a pig a pig is an ad hominem? Since when.

          Strike 20 Anthony. You are already through 2 innings.

          learn English.

        • tonyp says:

          Strike 3

        • philjourdan says:

          Strike 61 – a pig is a pig. Period. It does not care if you call it a pig. Period. Only 20 outs to go before you are out of the game. (although you technically have never been in it).

        • geran says:

          Okay Purcell, at what point is spouting nonsense not being rude?

          “Those are surface temperature readings they are not whole atmosphere readings, they do not incorporate ocean temperature.”
          >>>>>>
          Let me guess. YOU, or another Warmist, will be who determines how to incorporate surface and ocean temperatures to arrive at a “whole atmosphere” reading?
          And you expect us NOT to make fun of you?

          “Once you take whole atmosphere you observe warming.”
          >>>>>>
          See what I mean?

          “To see that this is the case you might like to look at NOAA’s or NASA’s lists of the ten hottest years on record all of which fall in the last 118 years.”
          >>>>>>
          NOAA and NASA? Are these the same folks that Goddard has caught “adjusting” historical records?

        • Simplistic ad hominem attack. Strike 2. You want to refute what they say find data.

        • philjourdan says:

          Learn what an ad hominem is.

          Strike five.

        • geran says:

          philjourdan says:
          August 11, 2014 at 8:38 pm

          Learn it. Love it. Live it.

  16. Gail Combs says:

    Tonyb:

    From Dr Robert Brown, physicist at Duke University in reply to another physicist, Peter Morcombe who was commenting on the recent Robinson and Catling model

    Peter Morcombe states “Quantum electro-optics is my field; I have been building lasers for fun and profit since 1970” so this is within his field of knowledge.

    His take home comment is:
    It takes many microseconds for an excited CO2 molecule to release a photon while the mean time between collisions with nitrogen/oxygen molecules near sea level on Earth is <0.2 nano-seconds. Thus it is that the vast majority of excited CO2 molecules give up their energy to the "bulk of the atmosphere" (as Arrhenius would say) by collision before they have time to radiate a photon."

    And Dr. Brown backs him up: “The lifetime of the excited state(s) is much longer than the mean free time between molecular collisions between the CO_2 molecule and the (usually nitrogen or oxygen or argon) other molecules in the surrounding gas. That means that the radiative energy absorbed by the molecule is almost never resonantly re-emitted, it is transferred to the surrounding gas, warming not just the CO_2 but the oxygen, nitrogen, water vapor, argon as well as the other CO_2 molecules around.”
    ……

    More in-depth starting with Peter’s comment:

    Thanks to collision broadening the ability of complex molecules to absorb radiation in the lower atmosphere is greatly enhanced but most of the energy they collect is given back to the surrounding “chief mass of the air” as Arrhenius would say.

    As the pressure rises the mean time between collisions falls until the collision time constant is much smaller than the radiative decay time constant.

    In other words radiative transfer in the lower atmosphere has essentially the same effect as convection. Robinson and Catling’s equations confirm this numerically…
    link

    Dr Robert Brown: (I cut a lot of very technical physics so go to the source I link to.)

    …..This doesn’t mean that CO_2 is not a greenhouse gas — quite the opposite. It does mean that there is very, very little variation in its functioning as a greenhouse gas with partial pressure as long as the partial pressure is less than perhaps 1% of the total, at least as far as its base radiative properties (absorptivity of its bands) are concerned. Those bands are utterly dominated by CO_2 colliding with N_2, O_2, H_2O and Argon, in order and almost all of the lineshape is due to the time between impact-approximation delta-correlated collisions with any of these species, not any sort of “slow” species-species interaction.

    As a consequence, I’ve simply never understood what people mean when they assert that there is some sort of pressure broadening contribution to the expected GHE due to increasing CO_2. No, there is not. There is an effect due to increased concentration and a reduced mean free path of IR photons, but this effect is known to be extremely weak as it is long since saturated…..

    link

    Peter:

    rgb,
    Many thanks for taking the time to comment here.

    For the benefit of folks who do not know you let me publicly thank you for the help you provided over the twelve years we were colleagues in the Duke university physics department….

    CO2 has many absorption lines but my personal favorite is the one at 15 microns (wave number 667.7). It takes many microseconds for an excited CO2 molecule to release a photon while the mean time between collisions with nitrogen/oxygen molecules near sea level on Earth is <0.2 nano-seconds. Thus it is that the vast majority of exciited CO2 molecules give up their energy to the "bulk of the atmosphere" (as Arrhenius would say) by collision before they have time to radiate a photon.

    The collision time constant is directly proportional to pressure, other things such as temperature being equal. In contrast, CO2 molecules in the stratosphere are much more likely to radiate a photon isotropically so half the radiation will return to the surface or the cloud tops. Will it matter? No it won’t.

    Dr. Brown made an additional comment on the subject more aimed at lay people HERE.

    ….The lifetime of the excited state(s) is much longer than the mean free time between molecular collisions between the CO_2 molecule and the (usually nitrogen or oxygen or argon) other molecules in the surrounding gas. That means that the radiative energy absorbed by the molecule is almost never resonantly re-emitted, it is transferred to the surrounding gas, warming not just the CO_2 but the oxygen, nitrogen, water vapor, argon as well as the other CO_2 molecules around. Periodically CO_2 is thermally excited in-band by just such a collision and radiates energy away, but it is not like an elastic scattering process such as occurs in specular reflection within clouds. In band/thermal radiative energy gradually diffuses upwards, with the mean free path of the photons increasing the higher one goes, until it starts to equal the remaining depth of the atmosphere and photons emitted “up” have a good chance of escaping, cooling the molecules (on average) that emit them. It takes order of 100s of absorptions and emissions for radiation to diffuse upward to escape, and there is an almost equal probability that radiation will diffuse downward (especially from the lower levels) where we observe it as back-radiation/greenhouse radiative forcing of the surface.

    Even this is oversimplified. Because of pressure broadening, molecules close to the ground emit photons “in the wings” at frequencies that less broadened molecules at higher altitudes/lower pressures are nearly transparent to. That means that there is a steady CO_2-mediated “leakage” even from lower altitudes directly to space from the edges of the monotonically decreasing-with-height absorptive bandwidth. It also means that there is a MAJOR change in atmospheric absorptivity/emissivity with simple high and low pressure centers as they move around, as well as a modulation of the size of the emission-wing “hole”.

    Grant Petty’s book can walk you through much of the physics.

    • tom0mason says:

      Gail,
      You should take a peak over at Tallbloke’s site sometime. I feel you may enjoy some of their lively descussions. For instance last month’s knock about on back-radiation was very enlightening. https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/what-back-radiation-does-and-doesnt-do/

    • tonyp says:

      First of all, let me say this. If you’re looking at this from a quantum level perspective then yes the term “trapped” is inappropriate to use with respect to heat or energy. This is not however the length-scale used by most atmospheric physicists or climate scientists who tend to view things on a rather more macroscopic scale. I will now desist from using the word “trapped”.

      It seems as though the aim here is to figure out the magnitude and nature of the effect of CO2 from quantum mechanical principles working from the quantum mechanics model to a model of macro-scale behaviour. That’s not the approach I would take but it is certainly a valid line of investigation.

      It seems to me as though the central elements of this discussion don’t really argue against CO2-driven temperature increase.

      Let me see if I’m getting this right. It’s not just the CO2 that gets hot, it’s the CO2 and the other gases too. Okay, I don’t think anyone ever said that only the CO2 gets warm. If they did they were obviously wrong.

      The higher you are in the atmosphere the easier it is for the absorbed energy to escape. Sure.

      The lower you are in the atmosphere the more emissions/collisions are necessary for the energy to escape and the longer that process takes. Exactly right. Which means it takes energy longer to get out of the lower atmosphere than the higher atmosphere so the lower atmosphere warms more than the higher atmosphere.

      There is some sort of pressure dependence on absorption that can produce photons that escape more readily since their wavelength is not in the absorption range of the rest of the atmosphere. Ok. But unless this holds for all CO2 there will still be more absorption and more warming with increasing CO2 levels.

      The statement about the “functioning of CO2” as a greenhouse gas being independent of concentration as long as it remains below 1% is, I think, a reference to the range of CO2 concentrations for which the classic sensitivity formula of Arrhenius holds. Once you get outside that concentration range the logarithmic relationship of Arrhenius breaks down and you get no more change because you’ve hit saturation. Fine. I quite agree.

      Maybe I’m wrong in my interpretations. But this doesn’t sound like anything I’m opposed to.

      You seem convinced this is damning. You’re going to have to point it out to me.

  17. Gail Combs says:

    “….The lower you are in the atmosphere the more emissions/collisions are necessary for the energy to escape and the longer that process takes. Exactly right. Which means it takes energy longer to get out of the lower atmosphere than the higher atmosphere so the lower atmosphere warms more than the higher atmosphere…..”

    I think you entirely missed the point.

    #1. Somewhere else Dr Brown mentioned that the IR emissions in the CO2 wave bands from the earth into the atmosphere are absorbed within the first meter. Others state the concept as saturation. It is why the log scale levels off for the most part around 270 ppm link where band broading kicks.

    #2. The energy is being transferred via collision it is NOT being re-radiated back towards earth in a measurable degree. At that point you switch to convection as the method of energy transfer and not radiation. To give you a feel for the energies involved I suggest your read THIS.

    #3. One of the points often brought up is an IR reading device pointed at the sky will give you a reading. Since anything that is not at absolute zero radiates, this is a complete red herring. Of course the atmosphere and especially clouds are going to give a reading, they are not at absolute zero. However it is a great point for tricking the scientifically illiterate.

    Is there heat transfer from the earth/ocean to the atmosphere? Of course, but the oceans and the earth’s surface have much higher heat capacity compared to air. CO2, a miniscule part of the atmosphere is a minor bit player compared to the sun, the source of most of the energy and water in all its phases. (Phase changes of water being a major energy transfer method.)

    • Gail Combs says:

      BTW CO2 is causing so much warming in the middle of the hottest month, that in mid North Carolina at 1 PM, the hottest part of the day, it is 64.6 °F!!!! The record MINIMUM for this date is 58 °F and the record high 104 °F.

      I am going to go put a sweatshirt on….

      • tonyp says:

        Gail,

        Thank you for the effort of getting my name right. I am sorry it is an inconvenience. I do not know tonyb. I hope he will forgive me for unjustly tarnishing his first name.

        Thankyou for the weather report. This is a common witticism but it is a bit annoying because it is based on a confusion between weather and climate that is entirely avoidable.

        The atmospheric temperature where you are right now is very sensitive to short time-and length scale parameters. Is it night or day? Is it summer or winter? What are ENSO and PDO doing? What elevation are you at? IS there cloud cover? And son and so forth. On short time-scales CO2 is pretty irrelevant, it’s only on time-scales of more than 30 years that CO2 will assert itself as the dominant effect. Using a given year or a given day is meaningless. Please don’t do this.

        I still do not understand your point here. The energy is emitted and reabsorbed inside a metre and the agitation-collision-emission cycle is repeated. The net result is that warming occurs. Does it matter that this would happen more efficiently if heat transfer were radiative? No. It’s less efficient than it might be. So… that means no heating results? That isn’t true, a process can be significantly inefficient and still be large in magnitude.

        The heat radiates up. Sure. But it takes its time doing it and there is more energy arriving all the time. The slower the upward propagation the slower the heat transfer upward, the more heat accumulates in the lower atmosphere. The more CO2 there is in the atmosphere the more absorption occurs, the slower the heat transfer, the greater the heat accumulation.

        I’ve not referenced the phenomenon you speak of so I’m uncertain why you bring this up.

        Water cannot drive long term temperature trends because it doesn’t spend long enough in the atmosphere. As a result it can’t force temperature increase.

        Insolation cannot directly be the cause, the cosmic ray theory is a vague hypothesis with minimal supporting evidence and is utterly unable to explain the periodic forcing of climate throughout the last million years.

    • cdquarles says:

      I sort of remembered hearing this story before. Thanks for the link. I also sort-of remembering hearing of a diver caught in a storm being turned into an ice-covered cadaver. I hope I’m wrong about that one.

  18. geran says:

    tonyp says:
    August 9, 2014 at 3:42 pm

    “I will now desist from using the word “trapped”.
    >>>>>>>

    I’d call that progress!

    (It’s okay if you don’t want to reveal your own BEST, peer-reviewed, paper on AGW here. Having to do 180º flip-flops is embarrassing, but it can make you a better scientist.)

    • tonyp says:

      I tell you what. You give me your name, address, work phone number, work email, and professional affiliation so I can throw it open to community of nutbars and I’ll do the same with mine.

      • geran says:

        But, tonyp, you mentioned your “peer-reviewed” papers first. Now, you seem ashamed to let anyone read them.

        You keep flip-flopping so much it reminds me of a fish out of water.

        Or, maybe you really don’t have any such papers….

        • tonyp says:

          Ok, here you go:

          DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.01.001

        • geran says:

          Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but I’m not finding anything by a “tony p”.

          Could you provide a direct link just so I know you are not trying to send me down a blind alley?

        • A direct link to what? The paper? Is that not what the doi reference does?

        • nielszoo says:

          I think this is it in Quaternary Science Reviews… but I can only find it behind a paywall:
          “Climate variability over the last 35,000 years recorded in marine and terrestrial archives in the Australian region: an OZ-INTIMATE compilation”
          (There are 47 authors listed)

        • Gail Combs says:

          The question then becomes who the heck are OZ-INTIMATE members?
          Our ‘Friends” at SkS give us a Chris Tmas Turkey!

          Integration of ice-core, marine and terrestrial records for the Australian Last Glacial Maximum and Termination: a contribution from the OZ INTIMATE group (Turney et al. 2006)

          So it looks like an international group of Warmist palaeoclimate reconstruction types. (and I thought that group would have more sense but $$$$ does talk.)

          INTIMATE is an open network for all interested scientists working on palaeoclimate reconstructions in the period 60,000 to 8000 years ago.

          ….The results of the NASP programme were published in a Special Issue of Journal of Quaternary Science (1994), edited by John Lowe. This contained compilations from the twelve regions plus an overview in the form of a series of palaeogeographical maps showing the sequence of climatic changes around the North Atlantic during the Lateglacial and early Holocene (Lowe et al., 1994). Details of the NASP programme were also published in a Special Issue of Quaternary International, edited by Jan Lundqvist, Matti Saarnisto and Nat Rutter (Lowe & NASP Members, 1995)

          During the course of NASP, a number of important developments occurred. A new radiocarbon calibration (CALIB 3.0) was published (Radiocarbon, 1993, 1); tephra horizons were increasingly being used as chronostratigraphic event markers; there were important new Greenland ice-core records from GRIP and GISP2; and quantified palaeo-oceanographic data were beginning to emerge from different sectors of the North Atlantic (Walker, 1995). In response to these various initiatives, ice-core geophysicist Jorgen-Peder Steffensen, and marine scientists Gerard Bond and Chris Charles, were invited to join the NASP programme at the 1994 Workshop in The Netherlands. This proved to be the first step in a new international, interdisciplinary collaboration which led to the the final NASP-sponsored Symposium at the XIVth INQUA Congress in Berlin: ‘Integration of terrestrial, offshore and ice-core data for high-resolution modelling of the North Atlantic during the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition’.
          http://cost-es0907.geoenvi.org/the-action/intimate-history

          Publications (public):
          http://cost-es0907.geoenvi.org/documentation/publications-public

          (My curiosity bone got tickled again.)

        • Fascinating and immediate transition to ad hominem attack. Strike 1.

        • geran says:

          tonyp, that’s your own very best “peer-reviewed” paper proving AGW?

          FAIL.

        • I never claimed to publish on AGW, all I claimed was that I have a better grasp of science in general and this science in particular than you. A claim that but I look forward to seeing your reference. Nice ad hominem attack though. Strike one.

        • philjourdan says:

          learn what an ad hominem is.

          Strike one.

        • geran says:

          tonyp, or purcell, or whatever, attacking your nonsense “peer-reviewed” paper is not attacking you personally (ad hominem). As you indicated, you do not have a paper proving AGW. That was my point.

          You have clearly shown you do not understand the basic science. You thought CO2 “trapped” heat, then you reneged. All you have is IPCC “science”, which is WRONG. You believe, as do most “Warmists”, that models are the answer. Yet, IPCC models continue to be WRONG.

          Oh, and as to your magnanimous “strike 1” nonsense, the other commenters here have hit so many “home runs” against you, you can not catch up.

          Game over.

        • Frankly, not one of the arguments presented so far represents so much as a grounder to first base. You assert that the IPCC is wrong as proof that I am wrong. But no-one has any evidence of this except failure to model short-term perturbations of SURFACE temperature (as opposed to whole-system heat content). This shows a lack of understanding of modelling processes but even when I explain why this is the case people crow triumphantly as though the fact we don’t have centimetre-level resolution in the observational data is some sort of failure of the IPCC.

          The accuracy of the projections on short time scales is limited by the accuracy of the initial conditions but that is a different thing from saying that the accuracy on timescales of fifty years or more is wrong.

          To use an analogy. I can’t tell what my state of health is going to be tomorrow, I can make a guess but I could get hit by a bus or catch a cold and then my guess would be wrong. But I can be pretty certain what my state of health is going to be in twenty years and absolutely certain what it will be in 100 years because the random fluctuations will have given way to larger scale effects.

          In the short term PDO and ENSO dominate weather patterns and they’re chaotic. But that has no bearing on long-term trends.

          The argument that I’m wrong because I agree with the IPCC and the IPCC are wrong is circular. The IPCC projection of surface temperature was less accurate than they thought it would be. But their estimate of the total energy in the system was accurate. So they were right once and underestimated their error bars once. That isn’t an excuse to automatically reject what they say.

        • philjourdan says:

          Here’s a clue einstein. The surface temperature is what it is about. Not the oceans, not the stratosphere, the surface and the atmosphere. Now since the temperature has not risen, and you have been shown that, you have had to try to move the goal posts. And you have been called upon it.

          What is true is that you have been given the facts, but reject them out of hand. IYO, you do not like any of the facts. yet you have offered none and demonstrated a great ignorance of both the science and statistics.

          So puff away. If you goal is to waste our time, congratulations, you have succeeded. If it was to show anyone you know anything, you failed. And if it was to persuade anyone about your opinion, you are an abject failure.

        • tonyp says:

          You make a lot of empty assertions followed by an even more empty assertion. There are people on here that have asked intelligent questions. I have answered them those people have gone away and not come back. Maybe they’re convinced, I don’t know, maybe they weren’t. You make an assertion that they aren’t when you demonstrably can’t have any data one way or the other. You are not convinced. I see that.

          Sure, you can claim that Earth’s climate is dependent only on surface temperature and that’s all that matters. And you will be proven wrong the next time it rains.

        • philjourdan says:

          Wrong assumption Anthony. I did not say:

          you can claim that Earth’s climate is dependent only on surface temperature

          So you lied. I said: The surface temperature is what it is about.

          And that it is. We do not live in the oceans. We are not fish. A fact you have yet to get through your head. It is not empty assertions. They are simple undeniable facts. And you respond with non sequiturs and lies. How noble of you.

          If you are having problems with the English language, let us know. I am sure we can find a language you are proficient in. If you are not ESL, then I suggest you take a reading comprehension course.

          You are convincing no one. Your answers are empty, your misunderstanding rampant, and condescension second to none.

          The failure is yours. But I will allow that is due to your handicap with the English language.

          here’s a clue Einstein. Straw men are not debated. But then you have no clue on what a straw man is either (or ad hominems, or insults, or much of anything).

          Strike 21.

        • tonyp says:

          Did you talk to a statistician yet?

        • philjourdan says:

          I am a statistician Anthony. I also have a minor in Math. It is not statistics you are talking about. it is basic math.

          Learn it.

        • tonyp says:

          You have a PhD in statistics?

        • philjourdan says:

          Assumption, erroneous – Strike 78.

          RIF. The words are simple and in plain English.

        • geran says:

          The argument that I’m wrong because I agree with the IPCC and the IPCC are wrong is circular.
          >>>>>
          NOPE. It is logic. The IPCC “science” is wrong. You follow their “science”. That makes you WRONG.

          The IPCC projection of surface temperature was less accurate than they thought it would be.
          >>>>>
          Hint to Purcell: That means they were WRONG.

          But their estimate of the total energy in the system was accurate.
          >>>>>
          NOPE. Their “energy budget” is seriously flawed. They misuse (corrupt) the Stefan-Boltzmann equation.

          So they were right once and underestimated their error bars once. That isn’t an excuse to automatically reject what they say.
          >>>>>
          NOPE. They were/are WRONG, and they continue to be WRONG, so that is an excuse to automatically reject what they say.

          Learn it. Love it. Live it.

        • Fatuous assertion from beginning to end. Something you claim has been demonstrated but can’t in fact demonstrate is used to cast doubt on an unrelated observation.

  19. tom0mason says:

    Now that some people have finally capitulated on the foolishness of considering CO2 trapping heat, perhapse they can disabuse themslves of thinking that “functioning of CO2” as a ‘greenhouse gas’ [an erroneous and despicable term designed to confuse] can ever be separated from water in the atmosphere, and maybe even appreciate the amount of unsettled science is involved.
    Thinking that the meager action of CO2’s IR properties can be seperately analyzed when descussing our planet’s dynamic atmospheric interfacing with the oceans and land, is a fantastical notion.

    • tom0mason says:

      WRT http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/media/archive/1460.jpg
      (Graphic from: Clough and Iacono, JGR, 1995; adapted from the SPARC Website)

      Starting at that left hand lower edge there’s a big red spot indicating H2O dumping lots of heat at the top of the troposphere. This happens at a height that is determined directly by the amount of heat that needs to be disappated and NOT by position of tropopause (the dashed line). Simply the graphic shows that the more heat at ground level the stronger and more frequent convected airflow rising up, this ensures stronger evaporation, and a bigger red spot higher up that graph.
      Now when there is a hurrican / tropical storms’ “overshoot” happens but that’s not on this graph. These “overshoots” are very large surges of heat convected airflows that leads to surges within storms reaching across the (dashed line) tropopause and straight into the lower stratosphere. That is what we know actually happens as radar operators and aircraft pilots have cataloged it.

      Back at the graph see the large orange / yellow / green “cats eye” in the stratosphere? That basically is the meager CO2 signature. That is all of it (with a little water). We can see this because if you look directly below it there’s an empty band of light blue. That is a direct reading on CO2, and it shows that the CO2 is just not doing anything big in the troposphere.

      From that point, and moving to the right and below the tropopause line, is water’s radiant signature once again radiating at height, but weaker, in an even larger wavenumber (shorter wavelength).
      Thus the overall message we can take away from this graphic is that in the troposphere, water is everything and CO2 as near to zero as makes no difference.
      This graph clearly shows that convection and evaporation / condensation are major processes in the troposphere and this radiative model isn’t very important for surface cooling at all.

      From an original idea at http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/tropopause-rules/

      • tom0mason says:

        Forgot the note from the graphic http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/media/archive/1460.jpg

        Stratospheric cooling rates: The picture shows how water, cabon dioxide and ozone contribute to longwave cooling in the stratosphere. Colours from blue through red, yellow and to green show increasing cooling, grey areas show warming of the stratosphere. The tropopause is shown as dotted line (the troposphere below and the stratosphere above). For CO2 it is obvious that there is no cooling in the troposphere, but a strong cooling effect in the stratosphere. Ozone, on the other hand, cools the upper stratosphere but warms the lower stratosphere. Figure from: Clough and Iacono, JGR, 1995;

        • tonyp says:

          Water vapour cannot provide positive feedback to temperature change because its lifespan in the atmosphere is too short. It only applies its heating effect for a short time and then it is gone.

          In order to consistently increase water vapour levels a sustained temperature increase must be applied and maintained. In that circumstance there will on average be more water vapour and there will be a resulting amplification. Critically, that amplification is not large enough to significantly increase the saturation level of the atmosphere with respect to water vapour. Which is to say, Water vapour can’t drive up temperature by enough to increase the amount of water vapour.

          The situation is different with CO2. If CO2 levels become elevated they will remain so for time scales of centuries. So even a brief temperature increase that raises CO2 levels will leave that CO2 active for a much longer period during which time the CO2 can achieve more significant temperature increase, more than enough to liberate additional CO2. This establishes a positive feedback loop.

          Water vapour levels can only be driven by sustained temperature change and their effect on temperature cannot liberate enough additional water vapour to initiate a feedback loop. CO2 levels can be increased for long periods by brief temperature pulses and that additional timespan is long enough that the resulting heating will liberate more CO2 initiating a positive feedback loop.

        • tom0mason says:

          GHG Assumption: Gases that absorbs radiant infrared light thereby block infrared light. Thus ‘blocking’ or trapping heat.

          The 1909 greenhouse gas experiment first performed by Professor Robert W. Wood at John Hopkins University proved this assumption false. Professor Wood’s experiment has been proved correct by other scientist duplicating his results. After peer-review the results confirm that the so-called ‘greenhouse effect’ is solely due to the blockage of convective heat transfer within the environment in which it is contained i.e. as in this case, a lab flask.
          Also by careful examination of satellite records, Professor Wood results are validated as the atmosphere moves heat by convection not radiation.

          see http://www.biocab.org/Wood_Experiment_Repeated.html
          Bio on Robert W. Wood
          http://www.nndb.com/people/102/000099802/

        • tonyp says:

          This study is an investigation of how greenhouses work. As such it is not an investigation of the properties of greenhouse gases… it’s an examination of how glass buildings heat themselves.

          No one is suggesting that a glass boundary layer has been erected. This is not Under the Dome.

        • tom0mason says:

          Avoiding the answer again.
          The Wood’s experiment showed what?

          You don’t know.

        • tom0mason says:

          Wood’s famous experiment?
          Oh dear, beyond your feeble comprehension?

        • tom0mason says:

          “Water vapour cannot provide positive feedback to temperature change because its lifespan in the atmosphere is too short. ”
          So tell me when does the atmosphere absolutely dry out. It does not ever, so water is always in the air.

          “The situation is different with CO2. If CO2 levels become elevated they will remain so for time scales of centuries. ”
          Another unproven theory. CO2 moves in and out of the oceans at much greater levels than you are accounting for.

          The rest of your reply is a straight parroting of the IPCC indiot handbook.
          Get you head around it CO2 is a trace gas, water vapor is 3-10% of the atmosphere always. CO2 does zero – the atmosphere moves heat by convection and not radiation.
          Why does it get windy? Oh, is that the radiation? No, convection! Why does it rain, snow, have droughts in fact any weather event that is not geological – radiation? No. It is convection. Period!

        • tonyp says:

          Thank you for this series of utterly fatuous assertions. You’ve been invaluable.

        • tom0mason says:

          So no answer to the question – when is the atmoshere dry?

          How much CO2 goes into and out of the oceans and at what rate?

          You don’t know do you. Because you do nothing but expound the concensus fatuous assertions. No measurements. Just models based on proving CO2 is a major climate driver.

          Good bye parrot you have nothing to offer.

        • tom0mason says:

          It is you that is coming out with nonsense.
          Positive feedback with no proof!

          Your ineptitude is stunning

        • tom0mason says:

          “Water vapour cannot provide positive feedback to temperature change because its lifespan in the atmosphere is too short…..CO2 can achieve more significant temperature increase, more than enough to liberate additional CO2. This establishes a positive feedback loop.”

          And there it is, built on a false premis – that there has to be positive feedback. Where? Why? How?
          Your hypothesis requires this but it is a chimera, a ghost. At no period in the Earth’s history has such things happened. have never been measured. Glacier records, you have admitted, do not time CO2 release and temperature variation together. And the average time difference is 200+ years on average.

          Water in all it’s many forms dampens and extinguish any such positive feedback loop, as (annoyingly) water ‘steals’ most of the heat and ensures that it goes off the planet.

          Nice idea but sorry your hypothesis of CO2 mediated positive feedback loops are again just Bullcr@p.

          Next!

  20. Gail Combs says:

    Tonyp
    “…If temperature rise were caused by insolation temperature within the stratosphere should rise along with the rest of the atmosphere. Yet that’s not what is observed….”

    HMMMmmm, Actually it is loss of ozone that cools the stratosphere. (NASA) and ozone formation and destruction is dependent on different wavelengths of solar/cosmic energy. I already mentioned today that although the TSI (total solar insolation) is fairly constant the distribution of wavelenghts has been found to change.

    Let’s start with NASA.

    2008: Solar Wind Loses Power, Hits 50-year Low

    “The average pressure of the solar wind has dropped more than 20% since the mid-1990s,” says Dave McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. “This is the weakest it’s been since we began monitoring solar wind almost 50 years ago.”…

    “Ulysses also finds that the sun’s underlying magnetic field has weakened by more than 30% since the mid-1990s,” says Posner….

    Unpublished Ulysses cosmic ray data show that, indeed, high energy (GeV) electrons, a minor but telltale component of cosmic rays around Earth, have jumped in number by about 20%….

    So what does that 20% jump of cosmic rays do? Ozone Layer Burned by Cosmic Rays

    …Leon Sanche and Qing-Bin Lu of the University of Sherbrooke in Canada… studied ozone and cosmic ray data taken by ground stations, balloons, and satellites, and found some surprising relationships. Ozone depletion seemed to be greatest at altitudes and latitudes of high cosmic ray ionization intensity. What’s more, they found a strong correlation between the variation of global ozone levels and the intensity of cosmic rays during the period from 1979 to 1992….

    So a decrease in the solar wind is linked to the increase in cosmic rays which is linked to a decrease in ozone which NASA links to a cooling of the stratosphere. What else does the decrease in ozone do?

    Ozone in the Stratosphere
    Ozone is the combination of three oxygen atoms into a single molecule (O3). It is a gas produced naturally in the stratosphere where it strongly absorbs incoming UV radiation. But as stratospheric ozone decreases, UV radiation is allowed to pass through, and exposure at the Earth’s surface increases. Exposure to shorter wavelengths increases by a larger percentage than exposure to longer wavelengths. Scientists can accurately estimate the amount of UV-B radiation at the surface using global data from satellites such as NASA’s TOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer), GOME (Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment) and Aura (will open in a new window), to be launched in 2003, satellites. These satellite measurements are compared to ground-based measurements to ensure that the satellite data are valid. To calculate the reduction of UV-B by ozone, scientists consider the total ozone in a column of air from the stratosphere to the Earth’s surface. At mid-latitudes, a decrease of one percent in ozone may result in an increase of between one (310 nm) and three (305 nm) percent of potentially harmful UV-B at the surface during mid-summer when UV-B is highest….
    earthobservatory(DOT)nasa.gov/Features/UVB/uvb_radiation3.php

    So a deep solar minimum ==>less solar wind ==> more cosmic rays ===> less ozone (and therefore cooler stratosphere) ===> more ultraviolet radiation at the surface which warms the oceans and the earths surface which in turn warms the lower atmosphere.

    What I am seeing is although TSI may stay the same because the distribution of solar wavelengths shifts quite a bit along with other solar parameters you get differential heating of the air/water column.

    A good paper on Solar Activity over Millennia
    ..http://arxiv.org/pdf/0810.3972.pdf

    It is a long paper

    • tonyp says:

      Let’s leave aside modern change for a moment and look at the question of the glacial cycle.

      If CO2 did not drive the 8 kelvin temperature increase between the LGM and the present day what did?

      It was not albedo reduction and it was not orbital perturbation. They contributed but that contribution can be explicitly and precisely calculated and is too small by an order of magnitude.

      Whatever it was seems to be in period with orbital oscillations, because they’re highly correlated.

      If it is this proposed fluctuation in solar wind why is that linked at all to Earth’s orbital characteristics? Earth’s gravitational and tidal effect on the sun is ridiculously small. The effects of Saturn and Jupiter aren’t much larger. It is inconceivable that the large scale properties of the sun can be that sensitive to remote gravitational signals.

      If there is no causal connection between solar wind and Earth’s orbit then how do you explain the regular 21 Ka cycles and 120 Ka cycles in global temperature extending back over the past half a million years coinciding very closely with the theoretically predicted Milankovich cycles? Persistent coincidence of timing? I find that more than a little implausible.

      I conclude as a result that the periodic warming and cooling of the earth through the Pleistocene was not the result of fluctuations in solar wind.

      I’m forced to conclude that it was caused by changes in CO2 levels resulting from ocean absorption/out-gassing and freezing/thawing of permafrost in response to forcing orbital perturbations. That conclusion gives an approximate sensitivity of atmospheric temperature to CO2 levels as both are preserved in ice core data.

      That approximate sensitivity can be used to calculate the temperature increase in response to recent CO2 increases and those values are consistent with observed temperature increase. Which makes the rather elaborate mechanics of the cosmic ray argument spurious. There is no reason to think CO2 is responsible for glacial cycles but not responsible for modern warming.

      Now if you want to maintain that CO2 does not drive glacial cycles then you have to find a mechanism consistent with the observations. Solar wind variations are not it.

      Is it possible that for the past half million years there’s been a large-scale long-term cycle in solar wind that coincidentally shares the temporal characteristics of Earth’s orbit and that that cycle has suddenly and abruptly broken and now all bets are off? Yes, it’s possible. Vaguely. But it’s also a string of hypotheticals and coincidences that should make any scientist or scientifically-minded amateur baulk.

      • geran says:

        It looks like the above is the closest we are going to get to one of tonyp’s “peer-reviewed” papers. As we see, it needs some help.

        So tonyp, just revise the very last sentence (spelling corrected, of course) to become the “abstract” and add a “conclusion”:

        Abstract: This paper is a string of hypotheticals and coincidences that should make any scientist, or scientifically-minded amateur balk.

        Conclusion: Send more funding.

        • tom0mason says:

          He certainly is not scientific. And as you say has offered no reference except one that he has misread.
          Apparently knows very little physics or chemistry, and blathers on about IR properties of CO2 as if it was the bee all and end all of the universe.
          If this is what the children today are like I’m glad I’m old and on my way. He and his generation are to dull to realize what is going on.

        • tonyp says:

          So if I make a statement it has to be motivated by an attempt to seek profit but when you make one it isn’t. When oil-company-sponsored “experts” make comments they’re motivated entirely by beneficence. When the IPCC – who don’t get paid for their contributions – do their work they’re obviously on this grand profit-making enterprise.

          Can you please refrain from ad hominem attacks?

        • geran says:

          “So if I make a statement it has to be motivated by an attempt to seek profit but when you make one it isn’t.”
          >>>>>>
          Your words, not mine.

          “When oil-company-sponsored “experts” make comments they’re motivated entirely by beneficence.”
          >>>>>>
          Exactly! 🙂

          “When the IPCC – who don’t get paid for their contributions – do their work they’re obviously on this grand profit-making enterprise.”
          >>>>>>
          more like “power-hungry”….

          “Can you please refrain from ad hominem attacks?”
          >>>>>>
          Can you please refrain from building straw men and spouting nonsense?

        • tonyp says:

          Luckily I have.

  21. Gail Combs says:

    Tonyp (It really is hard not to automatically use the b instead of p)

    What I find interesting is that the % cloud cover (Earthshine Project) shows a sharp change at the time of the 1997-1998 Super El Nino. GRAPH from:

    Changes in Earth’s Reflectance over the Past Two Decades
    E. Palle,1* P. R. Goode,1,2 P. Montan ?s-Rodr?eguez,1 S. E. Koonin2

    ABSTRACT
    We correlate an overlapping period of earthshine measurements of Earth’s reflectance (from 1999 through mid-2001) with satellite observations of global cloud properties to construct from the latter a proxy measure of Earth’s global shortwave reflectance. This proxy shows a steady decrease in Earth’s reflectance from 1984 to 2000, with a strong climatologically significant drop after 1995. From 2001 to 2003, only earthshine data are available, and they indicate a complete reversal of the decline. Understanding how the causes of these decadal changes are apportioned between natural variability, direct forcing, and feedbacks is fundamental to confidently assessing and predicting climate change.

    The rest of the paper:
    http://bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/literature/Palle_etal_2004_Science.pdf

    Also Dr. Evans came up with an interesting correlation. “Evans looked at TSI (total solar irradiance) and Earths temperature, and discovered a mysterious notch filter. That implies some kind of solar effect occurs with an 11 year delay – or one solar cycle after the TSI. He built a model.”

    It is not yet published in a journal, instead he tossed it to the savaging wolves on the internet to tear it apart first. link (It has links to posts)

    Another interesting tidbit for Penn State: Ozone depletion trumps greenhouse gas increase in jet-stream shift

    It is really a shame that the IPCC and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have focused climate research ONLY on ““Climate change” means a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere”

    The earth and her climate do not revolve around just CO2 although with out an ample supply of CO2 we will all be dead. I would really like to see a CO2 level around 1000 to 2000 ppm because we are way too close to C3 plant starvation levels.

    The Royal Society: Carbon dioxide starvation, the development of C4 ecosystems, and mammalian evolution

    Carbon starvation in glacial trees recovered from the La Brea tar pits, southern California. (That is at near sea level which makes it a real fingernail biter.)

    • tonyp says:

      The cooling of the stratosphere is caused by a combination of ozone and CO2. The pressure effects alluded to by Doctor Brown are such that in the stratosphere photons emitted by CO2 fly straight out into space because they’re not in the absorption range of the atmosphere.

      But it doesn’t matter what the cooling is caused by. It’s observed and in fact it’s larger than the models are comfortable with which clearly suggests the models needs to be revised but it also suggests that there can’t be extra heat coming from insolation because if that were in fact the case then the models would systematically overestimate the cooling.

      And again, if one portion of the atmosphere cools, another portion must heat up since total energy emissions are fixed to equal insolation.

      • geran says:

        tonyp says: “It’s observed and in fact it’s larger than the models are comfortable with which clearly suggests the models needs to be revised but it also suggests that there can’t be extra heat coming from insolation because if that were in fact the case then the models would systematically overestimate the cooling.”
        >>>>>>

        Okay tonyp, you’ve already won the Nobel Prize for “Confusion”, now you are going for the “Humor” division.

      • tom0mason says:

        How do you specifically – from measurements not a belief system – seperate the actions of water in the atmosphere from CO2.

        • tonyp says:

          Water vapour and CO2 have different absorption and emission characteristics. Also CO2 can drive long term temperature increase in a positive feedback loop. Water vapour can’t.

        • tom0mason says:

          CO2 can drive long term temperature increase.

          Is a pure LIE.
          There is NO experiment evidence.
          Wood’s famous Greenhouse experiment proved this is nonsense.

        • geran says:

          tonyp says: “Also CO2 can drive long term temperature increase in a positive feedback loop.”
          >>>>>>>
          Well, we know that is WRONG. CO2 is NOT a heat source, therefore is CANNOT cause a temperature increase. That’s basic science. Then, we have the supporting observations–rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere, with no corresponding, statistically significant, temperature increase.

        • tom0mason says:

          Yes and the other thing is thinking IR is heat when it is just electromagnetic energy at a particular band of frequencies.
          Heat is the atomic kenetic action (vibration) of atoms and molecules. Probably the IPCC refute that as well. 🙂

        • tonyp says:

          You are going to have to provide a reference to some data to support the assertion of no warming with increasing CO2 levels. Are you referring to excursions of duration less than 30 years? Short term fluctuations are due to other effects. For example, temperature will generally decrease with the transition from day to night or from summer to winter. These have nothing to do with CO2. Similarly, decadal oscillations are unrelated to CO2-induced trends. The time-scales on which CO2 is dominant are 30 years and longer.

          Again, during the last ten years there has been rapid heating of the land-ocean-troposphere system. This is not an example in support of your thesis.

          I did not claim that CO2 is a source of heat. I claimed that elevated CO2 levels in the lower troposphere cause temperature increase. In other words I claim that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Are you asserting that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas? This claim contradicts the results of laboratory experiments and practical observations.

        • philjourdan says:

          The duration of the pause was set by Phil Jones and Ben Santer. The fact that anyone can recognize it does not mean they are the ones to set the bar.

          Perhaps you should engage them as to why they think that a 13, 15 or 17 year pause is detrimental to their models.

        • tom0mason says:

          tonyp
          Waters IR absorption spectra easily swamps CO2, as waters active area is all of the IR frequencies whereas CO2 is active on 2 frequencies.

          Discovered by Hettner (1918) as a low-frequency component of water vapour absorption in atmospheric transparency window 8-14 mcr, this phenomenon remained unexplained for 20 years, until Elsasser (1938) suggested that the continuum is an accumulated far-wingcontribution of strong water vapour spectral lines from neighbour bands. This hypothesis was generally accepted until the end of 70th years when the strong quadratic pressure dependence of the continuum absorption (which could not be explained by Lorentz (1906) line profile) as well as the strong negative temperature dependence have been detected (Bignell et al.,1963;Penner and Varanasi,1967). In this connection Penner and Varanasi (1967) and Varanasi et al. (1968) suggested that the main contribution to the self-continuum could be caused not by far wings of water monomer lines but rather by water dimers. Similar assumption was made also by Viktorova and Zhevakin (1967) for microwave spectral region.

          The dimer model have explained quite easily the pressure and temperature dependencies of the self-continuum absorption observed since then in many experiments (Mc Coy et al. 1969;Bignell, 1970; Burch, 1970; etc.). Since that time a long scientific discussion has started between adherents of the “monomer” (or “far-wings”) and the “dimer” nature of the water vapour self-continuum, which is continuing up to the current time.

          On the one hand, more sophisticated (than Lorentz theory) ab-initio (Tvorogov et al. 1994; Ma and Tipping 1999, 2002; etc.) and semi-empirical (Clough et al. 1989, 1995, etc; Mlawer et al. 1999; etc.) line shape models have been developed, which could explain quite well the experimental facts mentioned above, and due to which the dominating role of the far wings of water vapour lines in the continuum absorption, especially in atmospheric conditions, is most commonly accepted today.

          See for so much more…https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/unsettled-science-uncertainty-around-the-continuum-absorption-of-water-vapour/

        • tonyp says:

          The claim that CO2 absorption spectra are swamped by H20 is demonstrably false and was the result of insufficiently accurate instrumentation. That is the danger of using a 1919 reference as your primary source. This result has been disproven. See Smith, R.N., et al. (1968, 2nd ed.). Detection and Measurement of Infra-Red Radiation. Oxford: Clarendon.

        • tom0mason says:

          See these people for why you are SO wrong –

          Aref’ev VN, Dianov-Klokov VI. Attenuation of 10.6-µm radiation by water vapor and the role of (H20)2 dimers. Opt. Spectrosc. (1977) 42(5), 488-492.
          Bignell K, Saiedy F, Sheppard PA. On the atmospheric infrared continuum. JOSA (1963) 53(4), 466-479.
          Bignell KJ. The water-vapour infra-red continuum. Q. J. Royal. Meteorol. Soc. (1970) 96(409), 390-403.
          Burch DE. Investigation of the Absorption of Infrared Radiation by Atmospheric Gases. Semi-Annual Technical Report. Philco-Ford Corporation, Aeronutronic Division, Newport Beach, CA, Rept. U-4784 (1970).
          Brown A, Tipping RH.Collision-induced absorption in dipolar molecule – homonuclear diatomic pairs. In “Weakly Interacting Molecular Pairs: Unconventional Absorbers of Radiation in the Atmosphere” ed. by C. Camy-Peret and A.A.Vigasin, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Netherlands (2003), p. 93-99.
          Clough SA, Kneizys FX, Davies RW. Line shape and water vapor continuum. Atmos. Res. (1989) 23, 229-241.
          Clough SA. The Water Vapor Continuum and its Role in Remote Sensing, in Optical Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere. OSA Technical Digest Series (Optical Society of America, Washington, DC, 1995) v. 2, 76-78.
          Cormier JG, Hodges JT, Drummond JR. Infrared water vapor continuum absorption at atmospheric temperatures. J. Chem. Phys. (2005) 122(11), 114309.
          Daniel JS, Solomon S, Kjaergaard HG, Schofield DP. Atmospheric water vapor complexes and the continuum. Geophys. Res. Letters. (2004) 31, L06118.
          Devir AD, Neumann M, Lipson SG, Oppenheim UP. Water vapor continuum in the 15- to 25-?m spectral region: evidence for (H2O)2 in the atmosphere. Optical Engineering (1994) 33, 746-750.
          Dianov-Klokov VI, Ivanov VM, Aref’ev VN, Sizov NI. Water vapour continuum absorption at 8-13 mm. JQSRT (1981) 25, 83-92.
          Elsasser WM. Mean Absorption and Equivalent Absorption Coefficient of a Band Spectrum. Phys. Rev. (1938) 54, 126-129.
          Epifanov SYu, Vigasin AA. Subdivision of the phase space for anisotropically interacting water molecules. Molec. Phys. (1997) 90, 101-106.
          Hettner G. Infra-red absorption spectrum of water-vapour. Ann. Phys. (1918) 55, 476-496.
          Lorentz HA. Proc. Amst Akad. Sci. (1906) 8, 591.
          Lowder JE. Increase of integrated intensities of H2O infrared bands produced by hydrogen bonding. JQSRT (1971) 11, 153-159.
          Ma Q, Tipping RH. The averaged density matrix in the coordinate representation: Application to the calculation of the far-wing line shapes for H2O. J. Chem. Phys. (1999) 111, 5909-5921.
          Ma Q, Tipping RH. The frequency detuning correction and the asymmetry of line shapes: The far wings of H2O-H2O. J. Chem. Phys. (2002) 116, 4102-4115.
          Mc Coy JH, Rensch DB, Long RK. Water vapor continuum absorption of carbon dioxide laser radiation near 10 m. Appl. Opt. (1969) 8(7), 1471-1478.
          Mlawer EJ, Clough SA, Brown PD, Tobin DC. Recent developments in the water vapor continuum. In Ninth ARM Science Team Meeting Proceedings, San Antonio, TX, March 22-26 (1999), p. 1-6.

        • tonyp says:

          There are two possibilities. Either CO2 does drive long term climate variation or it does not.

          You suggest based on your preferred model of quantum behaviour of water that it does not and cannot.

          Many other eminent scientists suggest that it can and does.

          Let us assume for a moment that you are correct. How then do you explain the variations in global temperature during the glacial cycles? Doubtless you assert that the CO2 variations that correlate so closely with the temperature are some form of coincidence. That’s possible I suppose, temperature driven out-gassing after all.

          But that means that some massively important component of the atmospheric model is missing. And now you have a problem. Because existing regional climate models do a very good job of predicting large-scale patterns. This can only be the case if whatever the missing mechanism is acts almost exactly like the projected behaviour of CO2.

          So what you’re saying is that CO2 is not a factor in climate change but that there is a missing factor unknown to modern atmospheric physics that acts exactly the same as CO2 is hypothesised to.

          So the possibilities are:

          the theorised alternative model of H2O absorption is wrong and the more widely accepted model is correct

          or

          there’s something out there that acts exactly like CO2 is thought to that isn’t CO2 but has managed to escape the notice of atmospheric and climate scientists and is for some reason highly correlated with the Milankovich cycles.

          I am about to wield Occam’s razor. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a fairly safe bet it’s a duck.

        • tom0mason says:

          There is but one possiblity and you and IPCC know what it is, and what it will mean. Occam can put his razor away as there is NO argument because all satellites agree.

          I note that you still have not directly answered any questions but that’s what happens with some people.

        • tonyp says:

          You will have to restate your questions. You imagine that I am talking to you one on one. This is not the case. I am maintaining six different dialogues with six different individuals of differing levels of intellectual ability but largely uniform and reflexive uncivility.

          The surface temperature data are a tiny subset of the data. You need to include whole atmosphere and ocean temperature to get an accurate picture of the level of energy flux into the system. You are basing your conclusions on a deliberate use of a less than complete data set.

        • tom0mason says:

          You are basing your conclusions on a deliberate use of a less than complete data set.

          No I’m not. Do not put words in my mouth as it is rude.
          You seem to think I’m only conversing with you I’m not.

        • tom0mason says:

          Firstly you are rude enough to hijack the conversion to other areas, and now you demand that I reiterate things for you.
          What did your last slave die of you Fµck|ng rude person?

        • tom0mason says:

          Logically just because something is unknown, does not mean that any bullsh|t that you come out with is the truth. Indeed an alternative theory is no required because the essential truths of how the climate works are unknown.
          Just because you have a hypothesis – an untested hypothesis means zip.
          Untested unvalidated hypothesis is how religions start.

          It is scientifically honest to say we don’t know when it is so.
          All else is the action of a charatan, a conman.

        • philjourdan says:

          The biggest scientist of all says it does not (not that it cannot). And that is Gaia. As CO2 has been a lagging indicator. If CO2 drove temperature, then there would be no ice ages as once it started to get cold, the CO2 would then warm it up again. Yet we are in the middle of an ice age, so that hypothesis is nullified.

        • tonyp says:

          Phil,

          I have explained in detail how CO2 lags temperature at the beginning of the warming process but then provides positive feedback for the rest of the process. I am not going to repeat that effort again. You may either make the effort to find it and read it or you may not.

        • philjourdan says:

          Why re-read an ill informed opinion? I am looking for evidence. You have provided none. Now please do so or stop spouting ignorant opinions as facts.

          The evidence is against you. The increase of CO2 lasts for thousands of years, yet so do the ice ages. Your opinion says it should be a saw tooth.

        • tonyp says:

          It is a saw tooth

        • philjourdan says:

          If you look at it over a much longer period that you are claiming is definitive proof of a mythical religion! So you are now saying you are all wrong about the current climate? gee! There is hope for you yet!

        • tom0mason says:

          And a few more that explain that your assertion about water is wrong (and you thought water was a settle science, it still being argued today)
          CO2 IR frequencies are MASSIVELY overwhelmed by water vapor and as it transistion to a different physical forms; rain, snow, hail.

          Montgomery GP. Temperature dependence of infrared absorption by the water vapor continuum near 1200 cm-1. Appl. Opt. (1978) 17(15), 2299-2303.
          Paynter DJ, Ptashnik IV, Shine KP, Smith KM. Pure water vapor continuum measurements between 3100 and 4400 cm-1: Evidence for water dimer absorption in near atmospheric conditions. Geoph. Res. Lett. (2007) 34, L12808.
          Penner SS, Varanasi P. Spectral absorption coefficient in the pure rotational spectrum of water vapor. JQSRT (1967) 7, 687-690.
          Penner SS. Effect of dimerisation on the transmission of water vapor in the near-infrared. JQSRT (1973) 13, 383-384.
          Ptashnik IV. Smith KM, Shine KP, Newnham DA. Laboratory measurements of water vapour continuum absorption in spectral region 5000-5600 cm-1: Evidence for water dimers. Q. J. Royal Meteorol. Soc. (2004) 130, 2391-2408.
          Ptashnik IV. Water dimers: an “unknown” experiment. Atmos. Oceanic. Opt. (2005) 18(4), 324-326.
          Ptashnik IV. Evidence for the contribution of water dimers to the near-IR water vapour self-continuum. JQSRT (2008) 109, 831-852.
          Roberts RE, Selby JE, Biberman LM. Infrared continuum absorption by atmospheric water vapour in the 8-12- m window. Appl. Opt. (1976) 15(9), 2085-2090.
          Schofield DP, Kjaergaard HG. Calculated OH-stretching and HOH-bending vibrational transitions in the water dimer. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. (2003) 5, 3100-3105.
          Scribano Y, Goldman N, Saykally RJ, Leforestier C. Water Dimers in the Atmosphere III: Equilibrium Constant from a Flexible Potential. J. Phys. Chem. A. (2006) 110, 5411.
          Tvorogov SD, Nesmelova LI, Rodimova OB. Model description of temperature dependence of the H2O absorption in 8-14 microns atmospheric window. Atmos. Ocean. Phys. (1994) 7(11-12), 802.
          Varanasi P, Chou S, Penner SS. Absorption coefficients for water vapor in the 600-1000 cm-1 region. JQSRT (1968) 8, 1537-1541.
          Varanasi P. On the nature of the infrared spectrum of water vapor between 8 and 14 m. JQSRT (1988) 40, 169-175.
          Victorova AA, Zhevakin SA. Absorption of micro-radiowaves in air by water vapor dimers. Sov. Phys. Dokl. (1967) 11, 1059-1062.
          Vigasin AA. Weakly bound molecular complexes in the atmosphere. Atmos. and Ocean Opt. (1989) 2(10), 907-924
          Vigasin AA. Water vapor continuous absorption in various mixtures: possible role of weakly bound complexes. JQSRT (2000) 64, 25-40.
          Vigasin AA. Bound, metastable and free states of bimolecular complexes. Infrared Phys. (1991) 32, 461-470.

          Vigasin AA, Pavlyuchko AI, Jin Y, Ikawa S. Density evolution of absorption bandshapes in the water vapor OH-stretching fundamental and overtone: evidence for molecular aggregation. J. Mol. Struct. (2005) 742, 173-181.

        • tonyp says:

          You guys can’t have it both ways. You can’t say “those egghead climatologists and their dumb unrealistic inaccurate models… they need to get out into the real world” and then say “well those lab-bound physicists have their finger on the pulse and working from quantum effects to macroscopic effects is trivial” If the lab results were as unambiguous as you are pretending then there would be uniform opinion from the physicists on this issue. And yet the physicists most commonly consulted by climatologists give a very different picture of the behaviour of water to you. Why would that be? Could you give a quick statistical break down of the relative publication rates of the two schools of thought?

          I have very strong reasons for doubting the reliability of the result that water and CO2 absorption overlap as completely as you claim because were that true regional climate models would be utterly unable to function because they would be missing a fundamental element of the climate system and have inserted an incorrect element in its place.

          You may hear the word “model” and immediately think of global models. Regional model performance is a very different kettle of fish and the standards to which they perform are very high indeed. There is absolutely no basis on which to conclude that they’re missing an important physical process. And yet you maintain they are.

          So I have the option of believing you and disbelieving atmospheric physics or believing atmospheric physics and believing the rival school of thought. I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you find some atmospheric physicists and climate scientists who believe your model and get them to construct a climate model based on your interpretation and see how it compares to the existing models. Then we can directly compare the two.

          Or you can develop the model yourself. I’m sure it’ll be easy to improve on the existing ones since they’re based entirely in error.

        • tom0mason says:

          “You guys can’t have it both ways. You can’t say “those egghead climatologists and their dumb unrealistic inaccurate models……..”

          Yes we can because you guys have not –

          1. Falsified Natural Variation of weather or climate.
          2. Validated and verified the climate models.
          3. There s no proof of CO2 as the ‘greenhouse gas’ Even Bill Nye got stung on that!
          4. No one has a good, comprehensive, scientific explanation for clouds. How they work and what they do to the weather and the climate.
          5. No one has a good, comprehensive, scientific explanation for the ocean currents, what they do, what controls them, and how the totality of them affects weather and climate.
          6. No one has a good, comprehensive, scientific explanation for the acion of water in the atmospere. How it works and what it does to the weather and the climate.

        • tonyp says:

          Your statements are uniformly untrue. You don’t agree that the models have been validated. That would be because you don’t know how to validate climate models. The models have been cross validated with regional models with simulations of past climate change and with observations of past climate change and they perform well.

          The rest of your fallacies follow from this simply wrong assertion.

        • tom0mason says:

          Talk about one HUGE fallacy. Your assertion are so wrong. In science models are validated agains measured data. That measured data is the only validation there is.

          The models are broke by design. Go check what the UN-IPCC say model have to do. Then come back and cry about validation. Until you do I know that you have no idea about the models and what they are for.

        • You will need to provide a reference to the description you want me to read. I have read several specifications that do not seem in the least objectionable.

        • tom0mason says:

          You appear to have a difficulty so just to reiterate –
          The models are broke by design. Go check what the UN-IPCC say model have to do. Then come back and cry about validation. Until you do I know that you have no idea about the models and what they are for.

          Or do you have a comprehension problem?

        • I did read the description of the IPCC models and there is nothing in them that is objectionable. Your claim that there is needs some more substantiation than your say so.

        • tom0mason says:

          The key is why was the UN-IPCC formed and therefore what do the models do.

          Your fear of knowing is palpable.

        • philjourdan says:

          Of course there is nothing objectionable – if you do not mind being wrong all the time.

        • tom0mason says:

          I know how models should be validated, how dare you! You show that you don’t understand much outside of your tiny CO2 mediated virtual world.

        • philjourdan says:

          None of the models have been validated. Actual data either validates or disproves them, and since none have even come close to predicting the pause, they are invalidated.

          Science 101.

        • tonyp says:

          a) The pause only applies to surface temperature and even there it isn’t a pause it is slower than expected warming. Once you include the ocean and whole atmosphere the result vanishes

          b) Comparison of short term behaviour against observed historical trends demonstrates accuracy. That is comparison with data. That is validation.

        • philjourdan says:

          The surface is where we live. And as Dirk has told you, heat is not magnetic. Once dispersed it does not recongregate on its own.

          Since Argo is not even 10 years old. And since Argo is even indeterminate in its readings of the net OHC, you cannot say the heat has gone there. In fact the heat has gone nowhere. But some energy may have. Just as it has since the creation of the oceans. This is not something new. nor is it in the Climate models.

          So you are wrong again. Heat in the ocean will equalize with that in the air, but it will not all of a sudden all transfer to the air.

        • tonyp says:

          I would like you to pick a position and stick with it what you seem to be saying is:

          The Argo data is wrong
          Even if it isn’t wrong the oceans have always received energy this is nothing new
          Even if it something new heat won’t instantly leap to the atmosphere.

          The Argo data is not wrong.
          The oceans have always been warmed and now they’re warmer than we’ve ever known them to be which is an indication of energy entering the ocean-land-troposphere system.
          No one is claiming heat will instantly or suddenly transfer to the atmosphere what they are claiming is that when wind patterns return to normal the ocean will slowly radiate its excess heat to the atmosphere.

        • philjourdan says:

          RIF Tony – I said you claims of accuracy of the argo data is wrong! Which it is. I never claimed Argo was wrong, I have claimed there is not enough of it! Strike 53

          Second, I am claiming that the atmosphere is where we live. So if there is heat hidden in the deep (greater than 2k meters) oceans that defies the laws of thermodynamics it does not matter!

          And finally, I am saying that you are not god and cannot change the laws of thermodynamics. i.e. Heat once dissipated does not on its own recongregate! So the heat in the oceans will approach an equilibrium with the atmosphere, but not burn it up!

          Strike 54.

          And for trying to create a straw man (even though you have no clue what it is), strike 55.

        • philjourdan says:

          The oceans have always been warmed and now they’re warmer than we’ve ever known them to be which is an indication of energy entering the ocean-land-troposphere system.

          And here I thought they taught the Queen’s English in Oz. Apparently not.

          Here’s a lesson for you. Warmed is past tense of to warm. Warming is the present tense.

          Show me anywhere anyone has not said they have not WARMED. Strike 56.

          And also show me the temperature readings from 1240. If you cannot, then you lied again. Strike 57.

        • tom0mason says:

          “Why don’t you find some atmospheric physicists and climate scientists who believe your model and get them to construct a climate model based on your interpretation and see how it compares to the existing models. Then we can directly compare the two.”

          It’s on the way, but as the real scientist find it hard to get paid it is mostly unpaid work. But it will happen because just by force of numbers the truth will out.
          Here’s a few for you.
          Dr John Easterbrook
          http://myweb.wwu.edu/dbunny/index.html

          Dr Tim Ball
          http://drtimball.com/blog/

          ExNASA climatologist Dr Roy Spencer
          http://www.drroyspencer.com/

          Steven McIntyre (reduce M. Mann’s hocky stick to twigs, and Cook 97% to trash.)
          http://climateaudit.org/

          There are a few hundred if not thousand more but as you might understand I don’t have all their contact addresses.

          BTW there are quite a few competing models already, that’s because in science nothing is cut and dried (there are NO absolute facts!)

        • tom0mason says:

          You know nothing about IR radiation, as proved by this reply

        • tom0mason says:

          tony p
          You are going to have to provide a reference to some measured data to support the assertion of warming with increasing CO2 levels.

        • tonyp says:

          Certainly, I refer you to the measurement of CO2 levels and temperature during the Pleistocene as preserved in ice core data.

          Petit et al. Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica Nature 399, 429-436 (3 June 1999) | doi:10.1038/20859; Received 20 January 1999; Accepted 14 April 1999

        • tom0mason says:

          Excellent, except the alignment of global temperature and CO2 do not match, even if Al Gore says otherwise.

          So no, you still have no measured data that shows temperature rise with the rise in CO2 or do you not mind an 200-800 year lag?

        • The lag between the initial temperature increase and the rise in CO2 is well understood.

          The initial perturbation in temperature is due to minute variations in Earth’s orbital dynamics induced by gravitational effects of other bodies in the solar system on the time-scale of the Milankovich cycle. This produces a heating effect but that heating effect can be well constrained and is much smaller than the subsequent observed temperature increase.

          The initial heating effect has three large-scale consequences:

          1) The ice sheets retreat – reducing albedo
          2) Increased ocean evaporation – leading to out-gassing of CO2
          3) Thawing of permafrost – leading to release of CO2 and CH4

          The effect of the change in albedo can also be well constrained and is too small to account for the change in temperature between the LGM and now even in conjunction with the orbital term.

          But the release of CO2 and CH4 initiates a positive feedback of the initial small temperature perturbation that increases temperature, releasing more CO2 and CH4.

          This process is moderated by the spread of vegetation into formerly frozen and glaciated areas and into the warmer and more fertile ocean. Eventually the rate of vegetative CO2 consumption outstrips out-gassing and permafrost CO2 releases to establish an equlibrium until a subsequent negative perturbation initiates the reverse process and starts the next glacial cycle.

          To repeat, the initial temperature increase was unrelated to CO2 but the bulk of the subsequent temperature change since the LGM was. That CO2 is a greenhouse gas is not the same as saying it is responsible for all temperature change. This is a common fallacy. The lage between the initial temperature increase and rising CO2 levels is well understood and is in fact a vtal part of why the glacial cycles coincide with the Milankovich cycle.

        • tom0mason says:

          Thank-you. You are saying I’m correct global temperature and CO2 levels do not align, even if Al Gore says otherwise. Therefore the daft idea that any rise in CO2 now cause temperature rises now is BS. The world is not on fire, sea levels are OK, etc., etc., etc.

          All the rest of you text is a nice story thanks for the that.

        • So, the fact that Dr Evans’s famous model has no mechanism for the cause of the glacial cycles is of no concern to you. You guys all propose to replace current models that has a gaping big hole right in the middle of it where the glacial cycles should be.

        • tom0mason says:

          Says you.
          He has put his neck on the line and within 5 years the truth of his ideas will be proved, or otherwise.
          Given that water is the dominant driver of both the weather and climate, it is good to see a scientist ready to think outside the broken, politically driven consensus.
          Why was the UN-IPCC set-up and what is it’d mandate – you fear the truth.

        • philjourdan says:

          And what is the cause of glacial cycles in any of the current climate models?

          (Hint: Nothing – they do not explain anything).

        • tom0mason says:

          Ice core data show thet I’m correct.

        • DirkH says:

          Anthony Purcell says:
          August 12, 2014 at 5:16 am
          “You guys all propose to replace current models that has a gaping big hole right in the middle of it where the glacial cycles should be.”

          No, we propose to throw away models that are proven failures. You don’t need to replace them. Just throw them away.

          After that, we can talk about how much funding climate modeling should get to try and build new models. I have a figure for that in my mind already.

          As for the “scientists” there’s always EBT.

        • tom0mason says:

          Cheers DirkH,
          Would be nice if some real science would turn-up at the UN-IPCC.
          So much public money wasted and for what?
          What has the UN-IPCC done? What difference have they made apart from scaring a few people?

        • tonyp says:

          The models are not proven failures they are demonstrably accurate on short to medium term and on regional scales.

        • philjourdan says:

          Short term – 3 days. That is all they are good for. And then not the climate models as by definition the climate is 30 years.

          And over the course of the lifetime of the models, they have failed to even come close to reality. Therefore they are nullified. not by Mann or McIntyre, but by data.

        • mjc says:

          U n-friggin’-believable…

          Tony, do you actually read what you write?

          In one post you claim that ‘that’s not global, it’s only a portion’, or ‘not complete’ or ‘not long enough’ to be a trend. But yet, your vaunted models are ‘not proven failures they are demonstrably accurate on short to medium term and on regional scales.’

          With double-speak and logic like that, you should run for public office.

        • tonyp says:

          The accuracy or otherwise of GCMs should be adjudicate on time scales of 30-50 years not 18 where small scale perturbations can remain significant. Clearly more significant than the modellers anticipated.

  22. Shazaam says:

    Actually, if the lack of warming is really the oceans eating the heat, and only warming by 0.04 deg C over the last 17 years, then there is no reason to worry about CAGW at all.

    I say: Let the oceans eat heat!!

    (OK, that was lame… The queen will have my backside for that)

    • tonyp says:

      Ok, Shazaam brings up an important point. The observed heat rise in the oceans is a mere 0.04 degrees C.

      How much heating would that produce if it were dumped in the troposphere instead of the oceans:

      Let’s run the numbers again:

      specific head of water = 4.17
      specific heat of air = 0.0013

      This is volumetric, so it takes 3200 times more energy to raise water temperature y one degree than it does for an equal volume of air.

      Let’s restrict ourselves to the top 700m of the ocean:which cover 0.7 of the earth’s surface.

      volume of upper ocean = 0.7 * 4 pi R^2 * 0.7
      volume of troposphere = 4 pi R^2 * 12

      Energy input into the oceans is:

      4.17 * 0.04 * ocean volume = energy_input

      To calculate what temperature T would be produced by the same energy dumped in the troposphere:

      energy input = T * 0.0013 * troposphere_volume = 0.04 * 4.17 * ocean_volume

      Rearranging:

      T = 0.04 * 4.17/0.0013 * 0.49/12 = 0.04 * 3200/24 = 0.04 * 133 = 5.2 degrees

      So had the energy that has been absorbed by the oceans been absorbed by the troposphere it would have produced heating of 5.2 degrees.

      Obviously the increase in heat is genuinely minuscule.

      • Gail Combs says:

        AHHH, But where did that heat in the oceans actually come from?

        GRAPH from link

        • tonyp says:

          Gail,

          This graph would be very interesting if the ocean surface were flat and motionless. In that case, heat penetration into the oceans would be very weak. But the ocean surface is not static. There is quite significant wave action that takes the thin heated surface layer and mixes it at depth. Then does the same with the next heated layer in a constant conveyor-belt style mechanism.

          The increased wind activity observed over the past two decades has made this process more efficient which has lead to more heat being mixed into the oceans. This process has lead to near-surface temperature not increasing at the rate expected by the models. But critically, the overall heat of the ocean-land-troposphere system is still increasing when considered as a unit. And that energy influx is consistent with model predictions.

          The relevant reference is Trenberth and Fasullo 2013 An apparent hiatus in global warming? DOI: 10.1002/2013EF000165 It’s an open access article.

        • Gail Combs says:

          tonyp,
          what bull,

          CO2 and H20 IR spectra over lap extensively. That means any “back radiation” from CO2 that would hit the ocean goes towards evaporation.

          Of course first you have to GET that back radiation, which is going to be really really difficult near the surface of the earth. SEE my Dr. Brown Comment.

          Also the amount of sunlight at the equator at mid day in September is actually 1150 W/m^2 and not Trenbreath’s mythical flat-earth value of 161 W/m^2.

          This makes a BIG DIFFERENCE.

          Warmists conveniently forget that the energy absorbed by the oceans doesn’t magically disappear as soon as the sun sets in the evening. Also the earth is NEVER in actual equilibrium. So the oceans gained heat during the Modern Grand maximum (Usoskin et al., 2003c; Solanki et al., 2004) of the last century and as the general decline of solar activity happens the oceans will start losing heat instead of gaining. (Think a kid on a swing and the minute energy change needed to increase or decrease the height of the swing over time.)

          We are already seeing signs of this with the aborted El Ninos and summer time polar vortex.

          So far the data fixers have been able to ‘Hide the Decline’ but sooner or later people are going to figure out they have been HAD. If blackouts and starvation hits because of all the propaganda from you warmists I sure hope you, not us are the target of the Rodney King type riots to follow.

          (Just in case you are wondering I am making sure all the blacks I meet – and I meet a lot of them – know about the origin of this propaganda and what it means to their lives. {:>D )

        • Gail,

          Yes, noon time values at the equinox. Again, using a subset of the data and not the whole data set skews your result and makes your argument void. If you want to calculate average influx you need to calculate total influx over a period of time and divide by the time period. Using noontime values is absurd. The sun is down for about half the day.

          This is called cherry-picking and this is the second data-set you’ve done it with. Use the whole data set that’s what it’s there for.

          I suggest you take your claim about IR and H2O overlap to Dr Brown. Because Dr Brown states explicitly that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That cannot be the case if it has no effect on global temperature temperature.

          This has no impact on the mixing effect of wave action.

        • tom0mason says:

          Another link to information to rattle the parrot’s cage with.
          http://www.klimanotizen.de/2006.06.17_Sea_Water_Emissivity_Volz.pdf

      • geran says:

        tonyp, based on your calculations, exactly what time tomorrow will the oceans boil?

        (A tolerance of +/- 5 milliseconds is acceptable.)

      • Shazaam says:

        Yet the models all say the CO2 should be warming the troposphere. And it’s not. I really don’t care how much it might have warmed if the oceans hadn’t eaten your heat.

        The prime issue at hand is that all the climate models using CO2 as the prime driver of global warming appear to be fatally and fundamental flawed, and thus have failed under real-world conditions.

        So if the computer-generated climate models can’t accurately predict the warming in the time-span of a decade, why on earth should anyone think the prognostications of these same computer-generated models will be any better on a century scale?

        And the laughingstock-in-chief claims to be gravely “worried” about global warming based on these models?

        He’s either smoking way to much “choom” or his anti-depressants have some severe mind-altering side effects.

        • tonyp says:

          The models failed to account for an increase in wind action increasing overturning and more effectively distributing heat into the oceans. This is hardly surprising, wind is very sensitive to very small effects. Imperfect initial conditions will lead to miscalculation. That’s the problem with a large sensitive system but it does not invalidate the models. A model can only be as good as its input data, the resolution and accuracy of the input data when modelling global scale atmospheric effects is insufficient to guarantee accuracy on the level you suggest. And it never will be because of the sheer size and chaotic nature of the system.

        • tom0mason says:

          The models failed to reflect reality because they are purposefully set up to give what the IPCC require of them. That is why.
          Also as they have never been validated or the code verified they are NOT science they are a very expensive hobby.

        • tonyp says:

          Conspiracy theory rubbish. The models are limited by the resolution and accuracy of the initial conditions. The system is large, sensitive, and by the time you’ve collected the data it’s out of date. Model accuracy is not the issue. The system is massive and chaotic.

        • tom0mason says:

          Conspiracy theory! How dare you!
          What is the mandate of the UN-IPCC?
          What is the climate models of the UN-IPCC designed to show?
          Look it up you insulting fool.

        • philjourdan says:

          Conspiracy theory??? Do you even know what you are talking about? Apparently not.

          You have presented your opinion in a calm and rational way. Until challenged where you go off the deep end into a world of paranoia and self delusion!

          get back to discussing the science. Your looney tunes is not worth the time to search for more substantial content if that is the course you are taking.

        • tonyp says:

          Why do I consider repeated claims that IPCC models are designed to be inaccurate nothing more than a conspiracy theory?

          The IPCC does not design climate models. The IPCC has no say in how climate models are put together or what forcing terms are included. How interpolations and integrations are performed what algorithms are used, what the precision setting is. They get to say which ones they think perform satisfactorily and will be presented as part of their reports. But there is no direct control over models so if there was a really good model out there that was just being ignored you would be able to point to it.

          Why are the projections so flaky? It’s got nothing to do with the completeness or correctness of the model it has to do with the resolution and accuracy of the data used for the initial conditions.

          You need time series of temperature, pressure, humidity, cloud cover, wind, ocean and lake temperature density and salinity, topography (which is itself dynamic) and tides. Even if you had these perfectly accurate at a resolution of 10m in latitude longitude altitude and depth within 15 minutes the innacuracy of your interpolations would start skewing the values at your nodes. That’s how sensitive the system is.

          And you’re trying to model 15 years into the future.

          So what do you do? What you do is take an ensemble approach. You perturb the initial conditions randomly and do another run, and then another with a different set of ICs. And you do it over and over and over again until you get thousands of different projections that you hope represent the range of possible values.

          I say hope because any inaccuracies in the reported accuracy of any subset of the observations could mean you’re seriously underestimating the size of the necessary perturbations and so you’ve got no chance of getting to the right set of ICs. Even if that isn’t the case you can just get unlucky. The system is chaotic so even a small deviation from the actual IC values can produce massive changes in character. You may just miss the right ICs and end up with large misfit. It’s something of a crap shoot. You can try and stack the odds in your favour by making lots and lots and lots of model runs but ultimately there’s only so much you can do you don’t have the resources or time to search an infinitely large parameter space.

          In which case how do we know we have the physics right? We can test the models against past climate systems using time series of historical data to show that they’re accurate over short time periods. We can test them against regional models and regional observations to see how well they agree. And we can determine how well they replicate the character of significant climate features and incorporate the effects of observed perturbations. These tests show the models we have run pretty well and there is no reason to believe any important elements of the system are missing.

        • philjourdan says:

          You really need to get a longer term memory. To wit:

          tonyp says:
          August 12, 2014 at 2:24 pm

          The IPCC does not design climate models.

          Then you claim:

          Anthony Purcell says:
          August 12, 2014 at 5:20 am

          I did read the description of the IPCC models

          You read what does not exist? You really did lose a couple of screws.

        • tonyp says:

          I read the description of the models in the incorporated into the IPCC report and the basis on which they were selected.

          So the fact that Gail uses massive sea ice to prove rapid temperature change and disprove rapid temperature change – that gets a free pass? The bit where she cites people who say surface radiation is zero but back-scatter of the non-existent surface radiation is 333 Watts per square metre that gets a free pass. The bit where Gail argues from quantum mechanical principles that back-scatter does not occur and then can’t explain why 396 Watts per sq. m of surface radiation becomes 40 Watts per sq m at the top of atmosphere with 23 Watts per sq m absorbed in between. That gets a free pass. ToA radiation, surface radiation and atmospheric absorption are measurable. To derive back-scatter you just need to do some subtraction. It’s non-zero. For it to be zero one of the observations has to be in error by 628 percent!

          Yes, I mis-spoke. Fine, egg on my face. Why not bring the same level of detail-oriented logical appraisal to the other arguments being presented?

        • philjourdan says:

          I read the description of the models in the incorporated into the IPCC report

          Want to try that again – in English?

          And you have been shown to be wrong on every talking point you spew! You know nothing of math, nothing of statistics, nothing on the climate, nothing on history. The question then becomes, how far above a vegetable are you?

          The only thing we know you know is nothing. And even you do not know that. Strike 44.

        • Shazaam says:

          The models are limited by the resolution and accuracy of the initial conditions. The system is large, sensitive, and by the time you’ve collected the data it’s out of date. Model accuracy is not the issue. The system is massive and chaotic.

          Exactly.

          Thus the CAGW high priests and priestesses need to clam-up and stop predicting imminent doom based on those computer-generated fantasy models. They can’t accurately predict next week, let alone a century into the future.

          On the bright side, their utter and complete foolishness in believing their own lie has painted them into a corner they may not escape as the vast majority of their scaremongering predictions are proved to be utterly false in time.

          Self discrediting CAGW alarmista.

          If only they hadn’t done so much damage, it would almost be fun to watch their downfall.

        • Yes, the inaccuracy is in the ICs not in the physical forcing mechanisms in the model. So CO2 is driving climate trends and those trends aren’t natural variation, and those trends are larger than previously observed rates of change and they do have significant implications for food security and many other issues. So…. I’m not exactly sure why you’re being triumphant. The physical understanding of the system is invalidated and the differences of the projections form the models is the result of underestimated noise

        • Shazaam says:

          @tonyp / Anthony Purcell / puerile one

          Yes, the inaccuracy is in the ICs not in the physical forcing mechanisms in the model. — Wrong. If that were the case, a good, stable model would trend towards an accurate value. Like any good PID control system, it would eventually achieve stability. These computer-generated fantasy climate “models” only produce an output that validates the premise they were created to “study”.

          So CO2 is driving climate trends and those trends aren’t natural variation, and those trends are larger than previously observed rates of change and they do have significant implications for food security and many other issues. — Boy, you really have memorized those talking points. Have you considered a career in tele-marketing? Your talent for talking over opposing information and only hearing what you want make you a natural!!!

          So…. I’m not exactly sure why you’re being triumphant. — Definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

          The physical understanding of the system is invalidated and the differences of the projections form the models is the result of underestimated noise — And the world is supposed to regress to the 1700s technology and depopulate to a level sustainable by that technology based on the “projections / conjectures” produced by models that are utter crap because of basic errors in their design and input?

          Well I am not convinced.

          However it appears you are 100% convinced that the world is warming out of control. If you really, really want to prove to us that global warming is real ind it is happening now, I would suggest you move to Chicago, sell your winter wardrobe, your furnace and any other heating apparatus to prove to us that you are a true believer. Otherwise, you are just another ignorant CAGW pretender.

          If you survive the winter, then it is warming…. If you don’t… well at least you died for your beliefs.

        • tonyp says:

          Temperature in one city for one year is only loosely related to global trends

        • Shazaam says:

          @tonyp / Anthony Purcell / puerile one

          Your response “Temperature in one city for one year is only loosely related to global trends

          Reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit is it?

          Based on your response it would appear that your progressive education is showing. If you can’t parrot something canned back, you appear to be utterly lost.

          Hell, reading comprehension is barely your weak sauce suit.

          {snickers}

        • tonyp says:

          Taken as a whole the temperature in the troposphere is warming and has been warming over the past 18 years. Even surface temperature has been rising over that time frame just not as rapidly as predicted.

          Ad hominem attack. Strike Two.

        • philjourdan says:

          #1 – The graph represents all 4 data sets. Strike 65
          #2 – Adjusted or unadjusted, HadCRuT represents one of the data sets widely used by both sides. Strike 66.
          #3 – Again, opinion is not fact. Not even yours. Strike 67.

        • philjourdan says:

          He also falsified mann’s hokey stick with his statement since it relies on a dozen trees in one location for its blade.

        • tonyp says:

          Mann’s hockey stick has been repeatedly validated by independent analyses, by re-analysis using different techniques, and using vastly increased speleothem coverage. The Wegmann Report’s criticisms have been shown to be either inaccurate or inconsequential.

        • philjourdan says:

          Mann’s hokey stick has NEVER been independently verified by ANYONE. Others have created their own hokey sticks. But Mann has never voluntarily released his code or methods (weightings). And the only ones to attempt to duplicate his hokey stick found it to be statistically flawed to such a degree as to be worthless. M&M was then verified by Wegman.

          Strike 58 for lying again.

        • tonyp says:

          Wegmann was demonstrated to be using erroneous code he lifted from M&M

        • philjourdan says:

          DING DING DING! Strike 81 for a blatant lie! The game is over! Sorry, when someone whiffs 81 times, that is a miserable performance. But in your case it is normal.

          You are a moron. Yep! That really is an insult – or in your case just the facts. But as the game is over, and I gave you 81 strikes to come up with ANYTHING of substance of fact and you failed, the only logical conclusion is that you are a moronic troll sent here to waste our time. I hate time wasters. So you will now get the treatment you deserve. The troll treatment.

          You are an effing idiot. Wegman PLAGIARIZED some of his report (the narrative). It was NOT from the M&M destruction of the Hokey stick. The plagiarized portions did not affect the conclusion or data that was in the report, but it is used by idiotic trolls like you to try to discredit the facts of the report.

          And so you reveal yourself to be a complete moron. Congratulations. You get no more links, facts explanations or data from me. You are not worth the time. You are a idiot.

        • Shazaam says:

          @tonyp / Anthony Purcell / puerile one

          Taken as a whole the temperature in the troposphere is warming and has been warming over the past 18 years. —- Not according to the raw (unadjusted) temperature data. And only if you swallow what NOAA is dishing out without question will you find any warming.

          Even surface temperature has been rising over that time frame just not as rapidly as predicted. — Again only if you unquestioningly believe government adjustments. I think for a living and I never accept blindly accept statistical results without the chance to examine the source data.

          Ad hominem attack. Strike Two. Oh please. Enough with the hurt feelings baseball. I simply pointed out some massive deficiencies in your behavior. I do not care if your feeling got hurt as a result.

          You are barely a novice on the trolljitsu scale. (You have not even earned a white belt) So stop crying and try thinking for a change.

        • tonyp says:

          Strike three. Thank you very much for playing. I model satellite orbits for a living. It’s a good thing that doesn’t involve thinking or I would be screwed.

        • philjourdan says:

          You do not get 2 strike 3s.

          Strike 35.

        • tonyp says:

          Did you talk to a statistician yet?

        • philjourdan says:

          Strike 74 – for not repetition.

      • mjc says:

        Quick question…

        Where did you get your specific heat figure for air and what units are the heat figures in?

      • tom0mason says:

        If the actions of CO2 can not be measured then they can not be models.

      • philjourdan says:

        How many laws of thermodynamics would that violate to remove the heat from the oceans and “dump” into the atmosphere?

        As your own numbers show, even the oceans have not warmed over the past 10 years (the degrees of accuracy are only one decimal, so 2 decimals defy basic mathematical rules). And your numbers are not accurate if you take the Raw Argo data.

        • tonyp says:

          For any one float the accuracy is 0.1 degree. Combining data from many different floats reduces the odds the average is in error by a factor of square_root(N) where N is the number of floats.

          I am not saying that the energy could move in this fashion on that scale. I am simply trying to illustrate the magnitude of the energy entering the system. It is anticipated that when wind activity subsides about 0.5 degrees C will be radiated from the ocean to the atmosphere.

        • philjourdan says:

          It does reduce the error. It does not increase the accuracy. So if your measurement is to one decimal place, an average can only be to one decimal place to be significant.

          9th grade math. You do not even need statistics for that. Go back and learn it.

        • tonyp says:

          I’m not surprise you’re using 9th grade math. The uncertainty of the derived value deacreases with the number of observations. Again this is directly demonstrable.

          Find a random number generator generate 3000 numbers between zero and one and take the mean.

          Do this using 3 decimal places do this using one decimal place. It has an impact on the speed of the convergence but it does not provide a lower limit on the accuracy of the mean value.

          This is a direct experiment, you can do this yourself. Or again you can go talk to a statistician and tell them how they’re wrong.

        • philjourdan says:

          Anthony, again, for the 4th time, there is no such thing as a random number generator. There are only algorithms that you are unfamiliar with – strike 40.

          Second, the Argo readings are not random – if they were they would be useless – strike 41.

          Third, that I remember 9th grade math (math is cumulative – I guess not knowing any you do not know that) merely shows how little you know – strike 42

          And finally, once again, you get less ERROR, but that does not change the fact that your precision does not change. You cannot measure beyond .1 so you cannot determine anything any better! It does not matter HOW many readings you get (and you get only 1 per buoy, but I guess you missed that as well). THAT is basic math. Strike 43.

          You are over half way through the game and you have whiffed every pitch. You are perfectly wrong.

        • tonyp says:

          Phil,

          Even a pseudo-random number generator would be good enough for the experiment.

          Observations produce a number that is randomly distributed around the true value within a range defined by the uncertainty. That is what uncertainty means.

          Time-invariant bias drops out in the time differencing. Time-dependent bias must be uniform or predominant over all floats to skew the result. I wonder if they test for that?

          Let’s look at some machine specifications shall we?

          http://www.euro-argo.eu/Activities/Floats-Developments-Deployments/Sensors

          So each individual float has an accuracy of 0.002 degrees C and a drift of 0.002 degrees C over 5 years and an average life expectancy of 3.7 years.

          It’s almost like they thought to include these terms ahead of time isn’t it? It’s almost like some semi-numerate hack who just discovered the data set might not have a lot to tell the technicians and scientists in charge that they haven’t already thought of and incorporated.

          And again: GO TALK TO A STATISTICIAN

        • philjourdan says:

          Wrong again Anthony. You are measuring the height when you were asked for the weight! But since you are so clueless about anything mathematical, you fail to understand that.

          Again, a random number generator is PROGRAMMED to the mean! nature is NOT! Nor is every observation at the same place with the same equipment! But a “random” number generator IS.

          For sheer obstinance, strike 76!

          And for repetition, strike 77.

          Again, you cannot improve the precision of an instrument with multiple readings. All you can do is reduce the error.

        • mjc says:

          Using your critera and methods, would you want your time clock and pay to be run with same calculations?

  23. gator69 says:

    .04c warming, from buoys whose error range is .1c, and from buoys that were just launched? Where is the 30 years of trend?

    And as for CO2 residency, cherry pick much?

    http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/co2_residence_times.png

    When I was a climatology student 30 years ago, residency was considered to be at most 7 years. But this was before CAGW was a trillion dollar industry.

    This ain’t rocket science, the Earth warms and cools without the actions of man. The IPCC charter is to prove man made global warming, it is not about finding the truth. There is not a single peer reviewed paper that refutes natural variability as the driver of global climate changes, and that makes AGW merely a suggestion.

    • tonyp says:

      The accuracy of any one buoy is 0.1c but using 3000 of them reduces the error range by a factor of about 50 so to a level of 0.002C This is standard statistics.

      You are discussing the residency of individual molecules in the atmosphere. That is different from the duration of the elevated CO2 level. If you re-read my post you will note that I am careful to avoid that confusion.

      The individual molecules will be absorbed by the ocean after 7 years but since the ocean will still be at saturation level this can only be achieved by the ocean giving up a CO2 molecule in return, maintaining the elevated level. The dynamics of individual molecules and the dynamics of the system are distinct.

      • gator69 says:

        Did you not read the chart? Can you read charts?

        As for the claimed .04c of warming, isn’t it possible that is noise? And where do I find 30 years of Argo data?

        Keep bleating.

        • tom0mason says:

          gator69 nice one.

        • tonyp says:

          There is a great deal unusual about our current climate, There is no temperature increase this abrupt in the geological record that is not associated with mass extinction.

          Fascinating inversion. What company is sponsoring the AGW hypothesis and what do they sell? How do you conclude that oil companies do not have a vested interest in misrepresenting the data and preventing a sharp reduction in demand for their product? How do you maintain that conclusion in light of the fact that the same legal firms and foundations the tobacco companies used to organise their propaganda are exactly the same as the ones now organising and promoting the anti-AGW message.

        • gator69 says:

          Turnyp bleats…

          “There is a great deal unusual about our current climate, There is no temperature increase this abrupt in the geological record that is not associated with mass extinction.”

          Bullcrap. Since the LIA, we have seen similar rises in temperatures. Nothing unusual or unprecedented.

          Keep bleating…

        • tonyp says:

          Your statement is false. There is no support for the so-called Little Ice Age being any more than a sequence of regional coolings in the Northern hemisphere. The data does not demonstrate any sort of global temperature excursion as a result of the LIA.

          The relevant reference is:

          Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia
          PAGES 2k Consortium
          Nature Geoscience 6, 339–346 (2013) doi:10.1038/ngeo1797

        • philjourdan says:

          If there is no evidence to support the LIA, there is no evidence to support your contention that the temperature rise (duplicated in the early 20th century) is without precedence.

          You disproved your own hypothesis.

        • tonyp says:

          There is clear evidence from multiple studies of a sharp upward trend in temperature since the 1850s through the 20th century and spiking massively in the late 20th century.

        • philjourdan says:

          There is evidence of a saw tooth (you forget about the 30 year cold snaps). And there is evidence of several sharp upturns. However since the hypothesis of AGW uses 1950 as the beginning of man’s influence, and since all but one of the sharp upturns occurred BEFORE then, CO2 does not explain it. In fact, your hypothesis is disproved by your very statement!

          The data does not fit your opinion or likes. You are wrong again.

        • tonyp says:

          The AGW does not use 1950 as the start of man’s influence. 30 year perturbations are possible but reflect transient processes. Do you have a graphic that demonstrates what you’re talking about? It’s hard to know what you’re referring to from this description.

        • philjourdan says:

          Better go back to get more talking points. 1950 is the start of the CO2 influence with AGW. That the temperature did not rise for another 30 years has also been “explained” by the clowns of the team (oops! Another imaginary ad hominem). But 1950 is the start date.

          Ignorance is no excuse – strike 52.

        • gator69 says:

          Bullcrap.

          “In an attempt to rewrite earth’s climatic history, certain scientists have long contended that the relative coldness of the Little Ice Age and the relative warmth of the Medieval Warm Period were not particularly great in extent (spatial coverage of the earth) nor in magnitude (degree of deviation from the long-term mean), in order to make the global warming of the latter part of the 20th century appear highly unusual, which they equate with anthropogenic-induced, which they associate with the historical rise in the air’s CO2 content, which provided them a reason to call for dramatic reductions in the use of fossil fuels, such as coal, gas and oil, which reductions we believe to be unwarranted…

          And when viewed in this global and oscillatory context (and when extended even further back in time through the Dark Ages Cold Period and the Roman Warm Period), it becomes ever more clear that there is nothing unusual, unnatural or unprecedented about the global warming of the 20th century. Nor is there any need to invoke atmospheric CO2 enrichment as the driver of 20th-century warming, as previous equivalent ups and downs in earth’s surface temperature occurred during times of both low and relatively constant values of the air’s CO2 content.”

          Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso

          References
          Bertler, N.A.N., Mayewski, P.A. and Carter, L. 2011. Cold conditions in Antarctica during the Little Ice Age – Implications for abrupt climate change mechanisms. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 308: 41-51.

          Brachfeld, S., Domack, E.W., Kissel, C., Laj, C., Leventer, A., Ishman, S., Gilbert, R., Camerlenghi, A. and Eglinton, L.B. 2003. Holocene history of the Larsen-A Ice Shelf constrained by geomagnetic paleointensity dating. Geology 31: 749-752.

          Domack, E.W. and Mayewski, P.A. 1999. Bi-polar ocean linkages: evidence from late-Holocene Antarctic marine and Greenland ice-core records. The Holocene 9: 247-251.

          Hass, H.C., Kuhn, G., Monien, P., Brumsack, H.-J. and Forwick, M. 2010. Climate fluctuations during the past two millennia as recorded in sediments from Maxwell Bay, South Shetland Islands, West Antarctica. In: Howe, J.A., Austin, W.E.N., Forwick, M. and Paetzel, M. (Eds.). Fjord Systems and Archives, Vol. 344. Geological Society of London, London, United Kingdom, pp. 243-260.

          Li, Y., Cole-Dai, J. and Zhou, L. 2009. Glaciochemical evidence in an East Antarctica ice core of a recent (AD 1450-1850) neoglacial episode. Journal of Geophysical Research 114: 10.1029/2008JD011091.

          Mosley-Thompson, E. and Thompson, L.G. 1990. Spatial and temporal characteristics of the Little Ice Age: the Antarctic ice core record. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on the Role of the Polar Regions in Global Change, June 11-15, 1990. University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA.

          Shevenell, A.E., Ingalls, A.E., Domack, E.W. and Kelly, C. 2011. Holocene Southern Ocean surface temperature variability west of the Antarctic Peninsula. Nature 470: 250-254.

          Simms, A.R., Ivins, E.R., DeWitt, R., Kouremenos, P. and Simkins, L.M. 2012. Timing of the most recent Neoglacial advance and retreat in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctic Peninsula: insights from raised beaches and Holocene uplift.

          Quaternary Science Reviews 47: 41-55.

          Yoo, K.-C., Yoon, H.I., Kim, J.-K. and Khim, B.-K. 2009. Sedimentological, geochemical and palaeontological evidence for a neoglacial cold event during the late Holocene in the continental shelf of the northern South Shetland Islands, West Antarctica. Polar Research 28: 177-192.

          I am well aware of efforts to distort the climatic record in order to fool people into believing what we see is unprecedented. I studied geology for six years before I took my first climatology class, three decades ago, before the real nonscience began in earnest. The only thing unprecedented about our recent climate record, is the enormous amount of data tampering.

          Paper please.

        • tonyp says:

          I am familiar with the work on Antarctic climate change which most of these paper relate to. Proving cold conditions in and around Antarctica is a long way from establishing a global trend. Regional speleothem data from middle latitudes do not support a global temperature excursion:

          One relevant synthesis is:

          Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia
          PAGES 2k Consortium
          Nature Geoscience 6, 339–346 (2013) doi:10.1038/ngeo1797

        • Gail Combs says:

          AHHHhhh YES, The false use of statistics that take ONE data point from distribution A and ONE data point from distribution B…. adds in fabricated data from krigging and some how wants us to believe the data has more accuracy than the original data point did.

          Amazing how the Warmists think we have now understanding of real science and math and will fall for the same tricks their brain dead followers do.

          The FDA would have shut the plant down if I tried that type of B.S. on the inspector.

        • You are welcome to publish an article on the statistical fallacy underlying Krigging. Until then I’m going to rely on the advice of qualified statisticians.

        • philjourdan says:

          If you relied on the advice of qualified statisticians, you would not use krigging incorrectly – as you have done,.

        • tonyp says:

          Really, where?

        • philjourdan says:

          Where you attempted to use it!

          Are you ESL? Apparently English is not your native tongue!

          Strike 32.

        • geran says:

          Anthony Purcell, or tonyp, or whatever you are calling yourself today, one of the problems with your “science” is your reliance on IPCC “science”. It’s wrong, so if you stick with it, you’re wrong. Learn the basics before trying to “interpret” statistics. Without the basics, you can get really confused.

          Oh….

        • philjourdan says:

          Why do trolls keep changing their name? I guess they think they can start anew, but their ignorance links the names.

      • nielszoo says:

        Not quite. Your net random error decreases with the number of sensors but you don’t get increased resolution… you still have +/-0.1°C error range at each individual station and your accuracy can never be higher than that. The only way 3,000 sensors are going to increase the accuracy of a reading is if they are all at the same site. That still doesn’t increase your accuracy it only increases the probability that your reading is accurate… very different things when one is in the real world.

        • This argument has been attempted before and it is untrue. Quite simply multiple observers cannot sample exactly the same thing there must be temporal or spatial variation between observations. That that variation is smaller in some circumstances than in others has no bearing on the fact that multiple observations reduces your uncertainty. Nor does it impact how much the accuracy is improved.

          Jo Nova makes the argument that this would only be true if all the floats were in the same pool but here they’re measuring different things. That’s spurious. Temperature varies spatially and temporally within a pool just like it does in the ocean and due to many of the same effects. The only difference is their magnitude but that has no impact on the validity of the analytical technique. The floats are in the same pool. Yes, it’s a big one, that doesn’t affect the statistical underpinnings.

        • nielszoo says:

          Nope. They’re right. Think of it this way: You have a hole that you need to fit a little block of metal in. In order for the block to properly fit in the hole it needs to be cut to an accuracy of +/- 0.002mm. The saw that you have will cut your little blocks with an accuracy of +/-0.1mm. Guess what? The odds are not very high that if you only cut one block it will fit in the hole due to the accuracy tolerance of the cutting equipment’s length sensor. Using your buoy example (and numbers) what this really means is that you have to cut up 3,000 blocks in order to have a reasonable chance of actually cutting a block of the proper size to fit in the hole. The only ways to increase the probability of cutting blocks that fit are to increase the tolerance accuracy of your saw (or buoy sensor) or decrease the acceptable tolerance of your hole. Telling the client that “statistically” all 3,000 blocks fit properly in the hole will not get you paid.

          In the real world (at least the one I work in) your sensor accuracy tolerances need to be at least twice what your target accuracy requirement is and I actually prefer one significant digit (a full order of magnitude) when I can get it. The analogy with your 3,000 buoys in a single pool is correct as long as the pool is homogenous… but it still only increases the probability of the average reading being correct and not it’s absolute accuracy as every single sensor can still be at the lower end of the tolerance. Again, those pesky real world measurements.

        • tonyp says:

          There is no such thing as homogeneous so the pool argument is invalid. The analogy you provide seems clearly wrong.

          Suppose I make one observation with an uncertainty of 0.1, the chance that that observation is 0.05 above the real value is reasonably good. But if I make 3000 observations the chances that they are all 0.05 above the real value is vanishingly small. Similarly with 0.05 below.

          It is therefore pretty obvious that the more observations I make the less uncertain the derived mean.

        • philjourdan says:

          If you make an observation with a degree of accuracy of .1, then the range is .05 to .15. It is still .1 If you do that 3000 times, the range remains constant as every observation has the same range. Ergo, you may reduce the error, but you have not improved the accuracy.

          Strike 16 for the math impaired.

        • tonyp says:

          Accuracy is not a quantifiable concept, uncertainty is and that is the measure of error.

        • philjourdan says:

          Accuracy is an imprecise term. Hence why you will notice I have switched to precision (but the thought does not change). I will give you a ball on that one.

          However error is NOT precision! You can build the most error free .1 mm widget you want, but that does not make it a precise .01mm device no matter how many you build!

          So the count now is Strike 47, ball 1.

        • tonyp says:

          Precision is different from accuracy, yes. Error is a measure of uncertainty or accuracy, not precision. The error estimates are not measures of precision.

        • philjourdan says:

          YOU FINALLY GOT IT! WOW! After 77 strikes, you finally get it that error is not precision. And reducing error does not increase precision! So .1 is the best you can get.

          Foul ball, but at least not a whiff.

        • nielszoo says:

          It “seems” wrong? It happens in factory quality control stations millions of times a day. You are still confusing probability with accuracy. You can never increase accuracy to a point that is greater than the tolerance of the measuring device. If you want to find the limits of the probability of your average being close, you increase your samples. If you want to increase your accuracy you have to have a better sensor. That’s basic math. You learn this in shop class. Making 50 measurements with a caliper that is +/- 5mm does not mean that your “accuracy” is now +/-1mm… it’s absurd on it’s face. Statistical products are impressions of the real world based on real world data but are not themselves real world data and should not be treated as such.

        • tonyp says:

          Ok, try this experiment. Find a robust random number generator and generate 3000 random numbers between 0 and 1 and see how close the average is to 0.5. This represents 3000 erroneous measurements of 0.5 – each individual observation is inaccurate but the mean is a good approximation.

          If you’ve got time to burn you can do the following. Vary the number of decimal places used in the number generation and see what effect that has on convergence. The accuracy of the measurement is not a dominant factor.

          If you still don’t believe the result after this experiment you’re going to have to take it up with a professional statistician.

        • philjourdan says:

          For the second time – “random number generators” are not random! They are based on algorithms depending upon the seed you provide. The same seed will provide the same sequence of numbers.

          Strike 25

          Second, the Argo floats are not random number generators! They are supposed to be precise measuring devices. Precise only to .1ºC! Which means they will never know a greater accuracy, period!

          Strike 26

          As far as your example, the floats can get it right to .01 RANDOMLY (true randomness), but that is like playing roulette. If the wheel is balanced, and the game straight, you cannot predict when a number will come up. Period! And that is what you are claiming! You are contradicting yourself using your own ignorance!

          Strike 27 – 3 innings and nothing but whiffs.

        • tonyp says:

          Did you talk to a statistician?

        • philjourdan says:

          Strike 69 – I will not repeat it for the slooooow learners.

        • mjc says:

          Nielszoo…and THAT seems to be the major problem with climate science. For some reason, the think that more of the same shitty measurements is going to give better results…and if there aren’t enough, just fill in from nearby measuring stations, because ‘statistically’ there’s no difference AND ‘it increases accuracy’.

        • tonyp says:

          You might like to find an example and demonstrate its inaccuracy rather than make a blanket unsupported assertion. And before you even try it: no GCMs are not an example of data interpolation techniques being invalid.

        • mjc says:

          Okay…let’s try it this way.

          Data has been adjusted, multiple times, not just once. So this constantly changing data is going to generate worthwhile results?

        • philjourdan says:

          part of the reason the models do not work is because of the old adage – GIGO. They have adjusted the data beyond recognition and that of course affects the models. So garbage in, garbage out. They can try to fool the people. But science will not be denied.

      • philjourdan says:

        Sorry no. If the limit of the accuracy is a single decimal point, compounding it with thousands of devices with that accuracy limit does not increase the accuracy. It cannot. Because none of them are capable of accuracy beyond the limit. THAT is basic math. Even before you get to Statistics.

        Don’t try that BS again.

        • tonyp says:

          One reference in this regard may be found here:

          https://www.physics.upenn.edu/uglabs/lab_manual/Error_Analysis.pdf

          This is a fairly well established result.

        • philjourdan says:

          You are confusing accuracy with error. It is clear you have no math background.

        • tonyp says:

          I have an honours degree in mathematics. This is the equivalent of a Masters in the US.

          You are making a false distinction. To say an instrument is accurate to 0.1 degrees C is common usage but it is technically incorrect. Formally accuracy has no quantitative description. The quantitative description is uncertainty. So we should say: measurements produced by this instrument are uncertain by 0.1 degrees C. But often we conflate the two concepts because in practice the distinction is pretty useless and grammatically it’s just easier to use accuracy.

          To confirm that this is the case you can take the formal expression given in the handbook I referenced earlier.

          https://www.physics.upenn.edu/uglabs/lab_manual/Error_Analysis.pdf

          On page 2 measurement errors are described as uncertainties. In the table on page 4 the uncertainty of the mean is given as a function of the number of observations and the uncertainty of the individual observations.which is defined immediately above.

          Once again, my advice is that you take your concerns about this approach to the statistics department at your nearest institution of higher learning.

        • philjourdan says:

          They say misery loves company, but I do not see it that way. I get no satisfaction out of the fact that the Oz colleges are as bad as the American ones. And you are proof of it.

          If you do have a high degree in math, it is totally wasted. You know absolutely nothing about precision. YOu do not increase precision with multiple readings of an imprecise device. PERIOD.

          Since I know many Australians that have high degrees, and none appear as ignorant as you, we can only surmise that you are lying once again.

          Strike 45 & 46.

        • Shazaam says:

          @tonyp / puerile one

          I’d suggest you stick to telemarketing.

          If you read that linked document, you definitely did not comprehend it.

        • tonyp says:

          ad hominem attack. Strike One.

          The formula for the uncertainty of a mean is given in the table on page 4

        • philjourdan says:

          Strike 15 – still failing to understand the term ad hominem.

          There were none in the post.

          Since you seem to be Google impaired, here you go:

          Definition of AD HOMINEM
          1
          : appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect
          2
          : marked by or being an attack on an opponent’s character rather than by an answer to the contentions made

          His statement said nothing about your character, or have any appeal to your “intellect”. He stated you read the source incorrectly. A statement of fact given your take away from it.

        • tonyp says:

          An ad hominem attack is one in which an argument is countered by observations about who made it rather than what the argument was. Any argument along the lines “That’s the IPCC position therefore it’s rubbish” is an ad hominem attack. It doesn’t attack the argument it attempts to discredit it by association with the person making it. That need not be an attack on me.

          The way this forum works makes it difficult to see what comment of mine you are referring to and therefore who I was replying to. But the vast majority of what I describe as ad hominem attacks are attacks made on the basis of who presented the data rather than what the data says. So far there have been ad hominem disputes lodged against Trenberth, Mann, NOAA, NASA, the IPCC and the UK Met Office. It’s sloppy and it’s un-scientific. You do not get to say “I don’t like this result these guys produced therefore they’re wrong and therefore anything else they do or anyone else they associate with is also wrong.”

          You want to argue the science argue the science, fine. You want to just hurl gross character assassinations at institutions and individuals I’m not interested in talking about that.

        • philjourdan says:

          WRONG again. Ad hominem, from the latin, to the man, is made against an opponent when you fail to address their issue. Saying the IPCC is a boob tube is not an ad hominem, since the IPCC is not here debating! And you still screw it up after I gave you the definition! What a putz! Strike 48.

          And you lied again when you said:

          The way this forum works makes it difficult to see what comment of mine you are referring to and therefore who I was replying to.

          Since you know how to reply to ANY comment and it be immediately following the comment (as I have done). Lying – strike 49

          So please spare us your feeble excuses that are proven lies, and your feigned ignorance of what an ad hominem is since you have been given the definition.

          I would love to argue the science. The only problem is you know none of it. And have yet to state any of it!

        • nielszoo says:

          The very first criteria on the page is:
          “1. Instrumental Limitations
          Any measuring device can only be used to measure to [sic] with a certain degree of fineness. Our measurements are no better than the instruments we use to make them.”

        • tonyp says:

          Yes, each individual measurement is that uncertain. No question, the question is what is the effect of multiple observations. Any one observation may be skewed. But the chances they are all skewed decreases with the number of observations. More observations, lower uncertainty.

        • philjourdan says:

          Again, you are confusing accuracy with error.

          The error may be much larger than the accuracy. Or it may be much smaller. But you cannot measure .01 with a .1 inch ruler.

          Strike 17.

        • Shazaam says:

          @tonyp / puerile one

          The formula for the uncertainty of a mean is given in the table on page 4

          Oh indeed it is. And what you did not comprehend is that reduction in uncertainty applies only to the multiple measurements made with the same measurement device.

          50 measurements made with one instrument can be averaged to a slightly better uncertainty than the instrument measurement uncertainty.

          50 measurements made with 50 different instruments in 50 different locations has the same uncertainty as a single measurement.

          A very basic error. And so much “climate science” is based on crap like that.

          Thus NASA and NOAA are busy adjusting their data sets to “prove” global warming.

          Unfortunately, the real world is not cooperating with their fantasy numbers game.

        • tonyp says:

          Ok, let’s do some math.

          At time t each float measure T(t) and gets the result T(t) + B + e(t) where B is instrument bias and e is error.

          You integrate the data to calculate an average for that time step giving

          T'(t) + B’ + e'(t)

          T'(t) being integrated temperature, B’ integrated bias and e’ integrated error.

          You do this over multiple time-steps and you calculate the difference between them:

          dT = T'(t_2) + B’ + e'(t_2) – T'(t_1) – B’ – e'(t_1) = dT’ + de’

          The biases cancel out unless they are time dependent which can and has been investigated and shown to be small.

        • philjourdan says:

          Face Palm!

          A pint cannot hold a quart! You reduce the error, but you do not increase the precision! If you cannot measure more accurate that .1, then you cannot know .01! that is 9th grade math! Your increased number of measurements mean you are more sure that your .1 is correct, but it still cannot tell you if it is .05 or .149!

          Strike 23!

        • tonyp says:

          Talk to a statistician.

        • philjourdan says:

          Repetition – the lowest form of communication – strike 68

        • Shazaam says:

          @tonyp / Anthony Purcell / puerile one

          Ah yes, the cut-and-paste without comprehension. A classic!!!

          Your “exalted” bias, is simply a calibration offset. So naturally it will cancel. That’s the point of calibrating an instrument with a NIST traceable reference to determine the potential slope and error offsets in the measurements made with that particular instrument and to accurately correct for them.

          Thus you are left with that pesky measurement uncertainty (error) for each measurement. There are many causes, (hysteresis, gain, temperature and pressure effects, sensor variation, etc.) and some can be compensated for, others not easily. Thus you are left with that instrument that can take a measurement at a point in time with a +/- 0.1 deg C uncertainty. (error band)

          Your laboratory statistics won’t save you when you take those measurements at widely separated intervals. To many conditions vary over that time to legitimately play that statistics game. Thus your uncertainty is the same for each measurement.

          You could average your temperatures and average your uncertainties (error band). Because those uncertainties (error band) are constant over time, the resulting average uncertainty (error band) is the same as the original.

          Perhaps you need a box of crayons to play with. I think you would enjoy them more…. (just my opinion though)

        • tonyp says:

          Strike Three. Thank you for playing. If you cannot present your arguments without personal insults how much merit can they have?

        • philjourdan says:

          Strike 34. Your ignorance is not their fault.

        • Shazaam says:

          @tonyp / Anthony Purcell / puerile one

          So you struck out. Couldn’t formulate any rational answers.

          I would strongly recommend you find your place on a telemarketing team. It would be a much better fit for your limited talents in my opinion.

      • Gail Combs says:

        tonyp “The accuracy of any one buoy is 0.1c but using 3000 of them reduces the error range by a factor of about 50 so to a level of 0.002C This is standard statistics.”
        >>>>>>>>>>>>>

        No it does not. You have a SAMPLE SIZE OF ONE. You are not doing repeat samples on the same population. Heck you are not even using the same instrument in multiple locations or taking repeat tests during the same ‘time’

        Unfortunately now a days any fool can plug numbers into a stat package and get an answer. It does not mean the answer is right. This was my main objection to GE’s Six Sigma program. They didn’t teach the basics of statisitcs only the mechanics of using the software package.

        For those who might want to know what I am nattering on about. See Statistical Thinking for Managerial Decisions by Professor Hossein Arsham and his subsection on #4. Necessary Conditions for Statistical Decision Makingc. Homogeneous Population (Don’t mix apples and oranges)

        …A homogeneous population is a statistical population which has a unique mode….
        To determine if a given population is homogeneous or not, construct the histogram of a random sample from the entire population. If there is more than one mode, then you have a mixture of two or more different populations. Know that to perform any statistical testing, you need to make sure you are dealing with a homogeneous population.

        One of the main applications of histogramming is to Test for Homogeneity of a Population. The unimodality of the histogram is a necessary condition for the homogeneity of a population in order to conduct any meaningful statistical analysis.…..

        Krigging by the way flunks this very simple test. You have ZERO idea of whether or not the area you are looking at is homogeneous or not.

    • tonyp says:

      The glacial cycles were driven by naturally occurring variations in CO2 levels. As soon as anthropogenic CO2 became significant it too started to drive climate variation. Natural variation is important, undoubtedly, but it can be demonstrated to not be responsible for recent warming trends.

      • gator69 says:

        Where is the science behind your claims? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Where is the refutation of NV?

        • tonyp says:

          IPCC AR5

          And before you type a conspiracy theory or an ad hominem attack. Read the thing. Don’t read someone else’s opinion of it. Read it.

          Refusal to engage directly with the evidence amounts to wilful ignorance and while that certainly makes people hard to argue with it rather undermines any pretensions to constructive debate. Please do not do that.

        • philjourdan says:

          The IPCC does not produce anything. It summarizes papers that conform to its conclusion.

          If there is anything there that supports your view, you should easily be able to source it. Quoting the IPCC is lazy and also false when challenged for any real science.

        • tonyp says:

          There are literally hundreds of papers to source. Why would I bother to type them all out myself when they are already conveniently collected in one place?

        • philjourdan says:

          RIF again Anthony. No one asked you to type any of them out.

          We said to CITE them. Not site them.

          Strike 28

        • gator69 says:

          Turnyp, I have read AR5, and more importantly, the ‘supporting’ papers.

          There is nothing unusual or unprecedented about our current global climate(s), or how we got here. Period.

          Pleases provide even ONE peer reviewed paper that refutes NV as the cause of recent, or any, global climate changes.

          Ockham’s Razor and all, you know. 😆

        • You’re the one making the extraordinary claim. You’re claiming that current climate trends are not driven by CO2 increases. You have to prove that.

          You claim that this sort of temperature increase is a standard part of natural variability. There are a great many studies that demonstrate quite robustly that you are wrong. Yet you don’t produce any papers in support of your position beyond a scattering of regional studies.

          Northern Europe is not the world, Antarctica is not the world. You want to know what global temperature is doing you need to analyse global data, not pick and choose regions that show trends you like and then claim that they obviously represent global mean.

        • gator69 says:

          Anthony, I am stating BAU, that nature is driving climate as it has for 4,500,000,000 years. You are claiming that for the first time in billions of years, we have a new driver, and that is no ordinary claim. Where is your extraordinary evidence?

          There is nothing unusual or unprecedented about our climate, or how we got here.

          You are a zealot, and a fool.

        • Strikes two and three in the one post and you are out of there gator. But thank you for playing.

          Hurl insults on your own time.

        • philjourdan says:

          You’re claiming that current climate trends are not driven by CO2 increases. You have to prove that.

          FALSE – you have to prove it. Science is not about disproving negatives.

        • tonyp says:

          There is an existing model that explains the temperature increase and is consistent with all other observations. It can explain the current process. You are claiming it is wrong. You have to prove it before the model should be abandoned.

        • philjourdan says:

          Anthony, there are lots of models that ATTEMPT to explain temperatures, none of which are even close to being accurate. So you lied again! What is it with you and the truth?

          Strike 31.

          Again, science is not about proving negatives. The not disproven null hypothesis remains the standing science UNTIL disproven. And no one (except you perhaps since you seem to have a great propensity to lie) has claimed it has been disproven. Not Jones. not Hansen. Not Trenberth. Not even Mann!

        • tonyp says:

          Actually Raymond Bradley maintains that recent climate change is incompatible with natural mechanisms. You should read his books.

        • philjourdan says:

          You maintain the same thing. Neither of you has disproven it. So why should I read Anthony Jr? I got the horse’s pa-toot right here.

      • Dave G says:

        What recent warming trends? Satellites say no warming for 18 years. Only highly manipulated data shows any warming at all.

        • tonyp says:

          This is untrue. A list of the top ten warmest years on record shows that they all lie within the past 18 years. The assertion of no warming is the result of limiting attention to surface temperature and pretending that the oceans and the rest of the atmosphere do not exist. This is clearly unrepresentative of reality. Once you include ocean warming the rate of energy transfer into the land-ocean-troposphere system can be seen to have increased.

          The relevant reference is:

          Trenberth and Fasullo 2013 – An apparent hiatus in global warming? DOI: 10.1002/2013EF000165

        • philjourdan says:

          Yet the “record” only stretches back to the late 19th century. it does not include the MWP,. RWP or Minoan or even any time prior to this ice age. It is also subject to a lot of adjusting, so your statement is not true. Not even close

        • tonyp says:

          The LIA and the MWP are a series of regional perturbations that are neither synchronous nor contiguous. Data-sets with global coverage do not indicate a change in average global temperature for these periods. There is not even that much evidence for the RWP and the Minoan thing is new to me but we have very reliable proxy records extending through the Holocene that do not reflect any global excursion.

          If temperatures now were exceeded in the past then it is reasonable to conclude that there must have been as much eustatic sea level increase as there is now. Two independent lines of investigation show that that isn’t true. Roman fish tank elevations relative to modern sea level at tectonically stable sights demonstrate that sea level rise in the period 0 AD to 1850 must be less than 0.1mm/year. Analysis of the locations of eclipses in the last 3000 years show that the observed locations are inconsistent with any change in Earth’s moment of inertia that would be produced by a redistribution of surface mass in that period. So the current increase in sea level is new.

          This is anyway missing the point. It is the rate of this global excursion that makes it very different from previous temperature variations.

        • philjourdan says:

          There are NO data sets for those periods. The oldest data set is CET which does extend back to the LIA, but as you indicate is very regional (like in one country!). So you lied.

          Strike 29

          Second, both the LIA and the MWP were global based upon proxies.
          http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/09/08/another-alarmist-consensus-achieved/
          and
          http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php

          From all over the world! So you lied again

          Strike 30.

          No one is going to believe a liar. So you might as well stop lying.

        • tonyp says:

          This is not a peer-reviewed paper. This is a specific selection of regional studies that have little probative power. Take for example the drought in Uganda. That does not indicate warming that indicates a change in precipitation patterns which could equally well be due to cooling. If this synthesis were a valid representation of the data it itself would be a paper. It is not. It’s a web-site, web-sites are not peer-reviewed studies.

        • philjourdan says:

          The links are to articles that link to the papers! If you are too lazy to follow links, that is your problem.

          Strike 70.

        • gator69 says:

          Pearls before swine.

          Less than 10 years of Argo, with buoys in new locations, and values less than their error proves the oceans are warming. But multiple peer reviewed studies over decades, along with historical record showing a LIA and MWP, are meaningless. 😆

          This is a true zealot, who will continue to parrot alarmist taking points and ignore all else.

          Pathetic.

        • tonyp says:

          I will take this opportunity to point out that the patently ridiculous and contradictory results Gail has presented pass uncriticised and unchallenged by the assembled phalanx of champions of science. No one, not even Gail, has attempted to defend setting surface radiation to zero but keeping back-scatter. No one, not even Gail has been able to explain why 396 watts per square metre of surface radiation becomes 40 watts per square metre at the top of atmosphere with back-scatter which people will swear up and down cannot exist.

          None of you seem to understand the impact of Dr Evans’ additional degrees of freedom on his ability to manufacture data fit.

          And none of you are capable of presenting your arguments without being insulting.

          I approached this thread with an experimental attitude. They can’t all be that crazy. At least one of them must be capable of understanding simple mathematics. This has been proven untrue.

          The mathematics of the uncertainty of means is an old result. This is basic statistics. Your claims regarding it are false. You can test this by going to a statistician and talking to them. This is fundamental. Find an expert and get their opinion. Don’t assume that you’re right. You can take the characteristics of Argo floats to them and see what they say. But no, not one of you has done this because you have an impression of what the truth is and verifying it against the real world, which you repeat over and over is your guiding philosophy is just something you won’t do.

          You don’t understand mathematics. You won’t take the trouble to educate yourselves. You won’t even allow information to be transmitted to you free of any effort on your part.

          Thank you all for your input. Thank you all for sharing your delusions with me. Thank you all for taking the time and putting in the effort to demonstrate how utterly devoid of merit your position is and the futility of treating it as though it is rational.

        • philjourdan says:

          Strike 75 – Actually I have not been insulting yet. I am waiting for the game to be over (just 2 more outs, or 6 strikes). So you get the strike for bald faced lying.

          I have already given you a strike for your total incomprehension of Dr. Evans work. And you do not have many strikes to go.

          I would say that I have shown remarkable restraint given your petty pejoratives.

      • tom0mason says:

        “Natural variation is important, undoubtedly, but it can be demonstrated to not be responsible for recent warming trends.”
        It can not be demonstrated – ever!

        • tonyp says:

          Your argument then is that no amount of evidence of any form could convince you that anthropogenic processes are responsible. And you’re being open-minded?

        • tom0mason says:

          Natural variation has not been falsified, until then you have NO argument as there is NO unnatural warming or CO2 effect.

          QED end of argument!

        • tom0mason says:

          Just to give some help, I, like quite a few around here grow up when global cooling was the big scare. When that hit I was on my second job as an trainee to become an engineer. Like quite a few people here I’ve traveled the world and seen many thing. But the biggest pile of BS I’ve ever seen is CAGW. With politician of every type up to their necks in the BS.

        • tonyp says:

          I’m sure there’s something in that nugget that has some relevance to something.

        • tom0mason says:

          Yes you keep treating people here like they’re dumb or something. Banging on about CO2 and all that, most of us have seen it before – many, many times. And we know very well where the flaws are, and some of us will lead you round and round and round and round and round. Get the idea. So either buck-up and read some of the reference you been given or get tired being lead round and round.

          Remember no falsification of natural variation – no argument. CO2 ? Only for the sheeple.

        • If you want to assert natural variability you have to find evidence of a temperature change this abrupt in the climate record that is not associated with massive volcanism or large impactors. Because both of those causative effects can be eliminated as applying in the modern case.

          If you can’t find that evidence then there is no reason to conclude that modern warming trends are consistent with natural variability.

          There is similarly no reason to conclude that the established and consistent body of data and models are missing any important elements. They predict temperature increase in response to elevated CO2 levels. We see elevated CO2 levels that are anthropogenic and we see higher temperatures. You have to demonstrate that the models are wrong by constructing a better one. None of the links you gave me are to climate modellers. If they’re struggling for money I suggest they approach the Heartland Institute and the NIPCC. Both organisations pay authors for contributions. This is in contrast to the IPCC which does not provide any incentive other than the opportunity to present and promote science. Or approach BP or Exxon directly. They have research divisions.

          And why is this at all expensive? Seems pretty simple. The climate scientists have all messed up their models by including erroneous effects. You take those models, turn CO2 off and away you go right? If they’re making other fallacious assumptions you either adjust the equations or the relevant physical constants. It’s not that hard.

        • tom0mason says:

          No, no, and thrice no.
          The boot is on the other foot, namely yours!
          I do not have to prove anything. You and your guys MUST prove beyond all doubt that NV is not at play. You guys have not.
          Try again.

          As for the models, they are design to forefill the UN-IPCC mandate – go look it up!
          Then try again.
          🙂

        • You can stamp your feet all you want. You’re making an assertion that is contra-indictaed by the data. Namely that stuff like this happens all the time. No it doesn’t there’s nowhere in the climate record where it does.

          Ad hominem attacks on individuals or institutions are of no value. Again it is more unsubstantiated conspiracy theory.

        • tom0mason says:

          You and your crowd have to PROVE that our climate is outside normal Natural Variation. This has not been done.
          Now you failed again. Get with the program or butt out you fool.

        • tom0mason says:

          In 1985, Keeling provided two estimates of the residence time (the reciprocal of his global air-sea transfer coefficient) and uptake of CO2 in the entire oceans, based on different methods from different locale. They were 7.9 years for 2 Gtons/year and 5.2 years for 4.35 Gtons/year. Keeling, C.D. and R. Revelle, Effects of El Nino/Southern Oscillation on the Atmospheric Content of Carbon Dioxide, Meteoritics, Vol. 20, No.2, Part 2, June 30, 1985. No one today uses such small numbers for the uptake, so the residence time must be much less than Keeling suspected.
          There are no separate, physical paths to pipe natural CO2 and anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere or to segregate them in other reservoirs. There is a theory of plant isotopic preference, and a hypothesis of isotopic bias in the dissolution of natural and manmade CO2, but the Consensus has not posited such an effect in the carbon cycle exchange between the atmosphere and the reservoirs. In fact, the Consensus accounts for the difference in the concentrations in carbon isotopes in the atmosphere and the ocean not by selective solubility but by selective photosynthesis in the ocean. Climate Change 2001, Box 3.6, p. 207. Natural and anthropogenic are indiscriminately mixed in the atmosphere, and undergo similar if not identical residence times.
          The admission in the TAR of CO2 gradients over the globe also contradicts its well-mixed claims. Independently, gradients must exist because of the highly concentrated outgassing of CO2 from equatorial waters, and the balancing concentrated polar uptakes. Consequently, the concentration of CO2 depends on where it is measured. Keeling himself warned not to mix CO2 measurements without regard to sinks and sources. He used calibration techniques to mix records. {Begin rev. 3/14/10} Recent results at 8 km from the AIRS (Atmospheric Infrared Sounder) satellite show dense clouds of CO2 emerging from below. This should be just one more nail in the coffin for the well-mixed/long-lived assumption. See RSJ response to James Daniel, 6/17/09, IPCC’s Fatal Errors ; RSJ response to David, 8/24/08, The Acquittal of Carbon Dioxide . {End rev. 3/14/10}.

          http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2007/06/on_why_co2_is_known_not_to_hav.html#more

        • philjourdan says:

          Again, there is no ad hominem there.

          Strike six.

          And he is correct. His hypothesis is the null one, which is correct until disproven. You have done nothing to counter his hypothesis. Anecdotes are not proof.

        • tom0mason says:

          You have no idea!
          I’m saying you are pontificating here, and that get you nothing.

        • tom0mason says:

          “Your argument then is that no amount of evidence of any form could convince you that anthropogenic processes are responsible. And you’re being open-minded?”

          My mind is open.
          Natural variation, not UN-IPCC mandated anti-science.

        • philjourdan says:

          Sorry, no again. His answer is you have to disprove the null hypothesis first. And that is science 101.

        • tonyp says:

          First of all you need to ask of any observed phenomenon. Has this happened previously? In this case the answer is no. Global temperature excursions this abrupt have not happened previously.

          Ok, so it’s unprecedented but can it be explained using existing physics? Yes it can.

          Well I don’t like that explanation so there’s obviously some other phenomenon as yet undiscovered at work. Well… maybe, but if you consistently introduce new phenomena to explain every anomaly you don’t end up with a very robust theory just a sequence of special case hypotheses. So you may think science works the way you say. But I very much disagree.

        • philjourdan says:

          again wrong. The issue is not man releasing Co2. The issue is rising temperatures. And the answer is yes it has. last century. and before that, in the MWP, RWP and Minoan. Plus more going back.

          So the science remains. Until you disprove the null, it remains in effect. And that is the prevailing hypothesis. Not one that has yet to bear out a single prediction correctly. Nor does it care about what you like or do not like. And in reality, neither does science.

          You are consist in being wrong.

        • tonyp says:

          There is no evidence the MWP or LIA represent changes in average global temperature beyond 0.1 degrees C. The LIA northern hemisphere temperatures represent a sequence of regional coolings that is neither contiguous nor synchronous. These localised cooling events are compensated for by warming at mid to low latitudes that preserves the average. The opposite occurs during the MWP. The RWP doesn’t even have that much going for it, This Minoan thing is new but temperature proxy records extend all the way through the Holocene and evidence of something happening is Crete hardly demonstrates a global event.

          On this evidence the current global warming is of unusual size and absolutely unprecedented speed.

        • philjourdan says:

          There is a lot of evidence, which both Gail and I have given you! What you are really saying is that you do not believe any of it. Strike 50 for lying.

          I do not care if you believe it. I gave you the links (as did Gail). You would chose to believe 12 trees from one peninsula in the world as proof that they are not global. I have more evidence than you have trees.

        • mjc says:

          Here’s one on the ‘global’ aspect of the LIA

          Clim. Past, 8, 1223–1238, 2012
          http://www.clim-past.net/8/1223/2012/
          doi:10.5194/cp-8-1223-2012

          http://www.clim-past.net/8/1223/2012/cp-8-1223-2012.pdf

        • tom0mason says:

          Thanks very much.

        • tonyp says:

          They describe the LIA as a global climate event. This is fair. There was large scale regional cooling at high latitudes and warming at mid to low latitudes. So it is fair to say that the climate was different to today. They do not claim however that it represents a global temperature excursion.

        • philjourdan says:

          Might want to show the warming at mid and low latitudes – since no studies show that.

      • tom0mason says:

        “As soon as anthropogenic CO2 became significant it too started to drive climate variation. Natural variation is important, undoubtedly, but it can be demonstrated to not be responsible for recent warming trends.”

        Is an extraordinary and illogical claim, there was a tiny bit of correlation back in 1998-1999 but since there is nothing. Therefore any anthropogenic CO2 was not significant. PERIOD
        Logically

        Correlation implies NOTHING about causation
        BUT
        absence of correlation DISPROVES direct causation.

        • The correlation cannot be judged on time scales of less than 50 years. Short term variations have nothing to do with CO2. CO2 is only a dominant factor on longer time scales.

          Temperature variation outside your house today is not driven by CO2 it’s driven by the sun. Temperature variations on decadal time-scales are driven by large-scale forcing terms such as ENSO and PDO with solar input.

      • tom0mason says:

        “The glacial cycles were driven by naturally occurring variations in CO2 levels.”
        That is one huge pile of steaming pre-fossilized coprolite.
        Not a chance!
        CO2 causes glaciers to vary – hahahahahahahahaha!
        Oh you are someting else…

        • Gail Combs says:

          coprolite?
          Tom are you a geologist by chance?

        • tom0mason says:

          No, just knew some geologist.
          Years ago when I picked up a few pieces of dino cr@p while looking for some obsidian and learned a few phrases.

        • The magnitude of the temperature perturbations due to changes in orbital characteristics and albedo can be calculated directly and are significantly smaller than the observed 8 K oscillation. Therefore there is another mechanism that is responsible that coincides very strongly with the Milankovich cycles. If it is not CO2 what is it? If it is not in Dr Evans’ alternative climate models how are they complete?

        • tom0mason says:

          Dr Evan’s model take a different, unblinker approach from the IPCC’s pre-defined, anti-science idea, so it is probably beyond your anti-science trained intellect.
          But I’d say go to his site, open your mind and be amazed.

          Oh and by the way all your blather about albedo etc., – nice theory, not proof though, just concensus minds’ view of weak minded fools.

          Have you found out what the UN-IPCC’s mandate is yet?

        • Unsubstantiated ad hominem attack. Strike Two.

          I did go to Dr Evans’ site I did look at his model and yes… it was eye-opening but in a far from positive way. He has taken his conclusion made it central to his model and then introduced fudge factors to match the data. Then uses agreement with the data to show how great the model is. And this is apparently impressive.

          I have read the IPCCs model specifications and they are entirely unobjectionable.

        • tom0mason says:

          “He has taken his conclusion made it central to his model and then introduced fudge factors to match the data.”
          A few have tried that line and were found to be wrong, as are you. So now you launch an unsubstantiated ad hominem attack on him because you can not understand what he id doing.

        • philjourdan says:

          Again, your ignorance of the science is not Dr. Evan’s problem. He clearly documented and correctly used the notch filter. It is not a “fudge” factor.

          if you do not understand what you are reading, ask questions. Assuming is your own ignorance, not anyone else’s.

        • philjourdan says:

          BTW: The IPCC does not have any model specifications.

          Stop lying.

        • tom0mason says:

          You tie Milankovich cycles to CO2. Cr@p. What is it if not CO2? That dear boy, is what real scientific investigation is about – not the constant reiteration of a consensus theory. But that takes talent and imagination.
          As you have already been tutored (on this site) about how water’s IR spectrum completely dominates the energy balance of this planet, I can not see that any progress with you on the true nature climate is of any worth, while you continuously blather on about CO2.
          As for Dr. Evan, go and ask him. He is educated in how real science should be done. His site is open to all. Dr. Leif Svalgaard went there and after much tooing and frowing came away (IMO) better for it. Funny that he (Lief) has now readjusted his model. I dare say he gives Dr. Evan no credit but that’s what inflated egos do.
          You have failed to learn because of the fear you have for finding out what the UN-IPCC and their modeled planet is for.

          You appear educated but your consensus view blinds you from others in the field.
          Good luck for the future stay warm!

        • Ok, if it’s not CO2 what is it? How can climate models be complete if they can’t explain the glacial cycles?

          You make a claim about the absorption spectrum of water that is, to put it mildly, widely disputed and then you assert that the more widely held view is the false one. You haven’t proven your position. You’ve presented a fledgling theory that is generally discredited.

          The CO2 theory explains the glacial cycle, it explains recent temperature rise and it’s consistent with the more widely held interpretation of water absorption spectra. You’re replacing one theory with two. It is unscientific to do so unless the data are inconsistent with it which they aren’t – unless of course you limit your attention to mean surface temperature which again is a skewed subset of the larger data-set.

        • tom0mason says:

          “The CO2 theory explains the glacial cycle,…” bullcr#p! No it does not! And it’s not a theory it’s a hypothesis (e.g. a guess)

          Correlation does not equal causation.

          Belief in CO2 is not scientific, no matter how nice your hypothesis seems. It is only an unsubstantiated belief!

        • tom0mason says:

          “…climatologists in the Consensus say that the atmosphere contains 730 Gtons (PgC) of carbon and the uptake to the oceans alone is at least 90 Gtons/year. It’s a ninth grade algebra problem to calculate how long it takes to empty a bucket with 730 units at the rate of 90 units per year. If you throw in uptake by photosynthesis at 120 Gtons/year and perhaps leaf water at the IPCC figure of 270 Gtons/year, thus including everything in the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report, 480 Gtons a year is pouring out of the bucket.

          {Rev. 6/5/09a}

          Turnover time (T) (also called global atmospheric lifetime) is the ratio of the mass M of a reservoir (e.g., a gaseous compound in the atmosphere) and the total rate of removal S from the reservoir: T = M / S. For each removal process, separate turnover times can be defined. In soil carbon biology, this is referred to as Mean Residence Time. AR4, Glossary, p. 948.{end Rev. 6/5/09a}

          Now throw in approximately 100% replenishment, and you have an eleventh grade physics or chemistry problem where the level in the bucket is only slowly changed but the solution is quickly diluted. {Rev. 6/5/09b} This is a different question from residence time, elevated to a mass balance problem. {end Rev. 6/5/09b}

          Regardless of which way one poses the problem, the existing CO2 in the atmosphere has a mean residence time of 1.5 years using IPCC data, 3.2 years using University of Colorado data, or 4.9 years using Texas A&M data. The half lives are 0.65 years, 1.83 years, and 3.0 years, respectively. This is not “decades to centuries” as proclaimed by the Consensus. Climate Change 2001, Technical Summary of the Working Group I Report, p. 25. See The Carbon Cycle: past and present, http://www.colorado.edu/GeolSci/courses/GEOL3520/Topic16/Topic16.html & Introduction to Biogeochemical Cycles Chapter 4, http://www.colorado.edu/GeolSci/courses/GEOL1070/chap04/chapter4.html, UColo Biogeochem cycles.pdf; The Carbon Cycle, the Ocean, and the Iron Hypothesis, http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/carboncycle.htm
          from http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2007/06/on_why_co2_is_known_not_to_hav.html#more

        • philjourdan says:

          Which of the alarmist models explain the glacial cycles?

          Again, none. None of the models are concerned with it. They are SOLELY concerned with CO2’s effect. Which clearly does not explain the glacial cycles (and nothing else either since none of them are even close to accurate).

        • philjourdan says:

          Knowing what it is not, does not tell you what it is, unless you know everything.

          Strike two.

        • tonyp says:

          Yes, but unless you can explain the glacial cycles, which the CO2 hypothesis can, your model is incomplete. Any model that maintains that CO2 does not produce positive feedback is incomplete unless it can explain glacial cycles.

        • philjourdan says:

          Again, wrong. The CO2 cycle does NOT explain the glacial cycles! Not even close! Your opinion is not only wrong, it is not even of this world!

          Strike 32

        • tonyp says:

          Yes. I am not in “this” world where “this” refers to the world you inhabit which is a delusional fiction in which Ayn Rand has something worth saying. I thought you were Galting.

        • philjourdan says:

          Strike 71 & 72 – For the ad hominem and the confusion of me with Gail.

      • Gail Combs says:

        WAIT a SECOND!

        The “official story” is CO2 has been constant around 250 -350 ppm for a gazillion years until nasty evil mankind mucked up the plant kingdom’s death spiral.

        Carbon starvation in glacial trees recovered from the La Brea tar pits, southern California

        • tom0mason says:

          😆

        • That is nonsense. Ice Core data clearly demonstrates substantial oscillations in temperature and CO2 level through the glacial cycles that are highly correlated. See for example

          Petit, J.R., J. Jouzel, D. Raynaud, N.I. Barkov, J.-M. Barnola, I. Basile, M. Benders, J. Chappellaz, M. Davis, G. Delayque, M. Delmotte, V.M. Kotlyakov, M. Legrand, V.Y. Lipenkov, C. Lorius, L. Pépin, C. Ritz, E. Saltzman, and M. Stievenard. 1999. Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica. Nature 399: 429-436.

          I wrote a rather lengthy post earlier that was directed to you that explained this mechanism in detail.

      • Gail Combs says:

        “The glacial cycles were driven by naturally occurring variations in CO2 levels.”

        OK, lets take it that that statement is true DESPITE the fact that CO2 FOLLOWS temperature so you have THIS.

        What makes the CO2 level go up if it is not Henry’s Law?

        • tonyp says:

          I have explained in detail why there is a lag between the initial temperature increase and CO2 production. That lag is not a mystery and has no bearing on the ability of elevated CO2 levels to maintain and amplify a temperature increase through positive feedback. Your statement seems to assert that somehow somewhere I have made a statement that contradicts Henry’s Law. I have not.

        • philjourdan says:

          You have not explained anything. You have opined. Best to learn the difference as that is strike 62.

  24. gator69 says:

    Turnyp says…

    “I am about to wield Occam’s razor. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a fairly safe bet it’s a duck.”

    Hope you did not injure yourself wielding something with which you are do grossly unfamiliar.

    There is nothing unusual about our current global climate, or how we got to this point. Therefore Ockham’s Razor demands that NV be refuted before making a new and dubious claim.

    Please provide even one peer reviewed paper that refutes NV as the cause of recent, or any, global climate changes.

    The IPCC was formed by international politicians, and the ‘scientists’ were instructed to prove that man is responsible for climate change. The IPCC is nothing more than an ad firm, they are paid to sell a message, just like the firm that ran this ad.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKMn-_aQoPk&app=desktop

  25. gator69 says:

    Turnyp bleats…

    “Fascinating inversion. What company is sponsoring the AGW hypothesis and what do they sell?”

    One is GE, who runs ‘Green Week’ on that channel they own, NBC, and they sell wind turbines.

    The largest sponsor is world governments who sell tax schemes. Are you really that stupid? Where does your money come from?

    And again, paper please.

    • Gail Combs says:

      Gator, you forgot to mention the pay back for GE.
      GE — A clean energy revenue machine
      is so large that its annual revenue ($150 billion) is greater than New Zealand’s gross domestic product ($140.43 billion). But GE stands to profit in solving man-man global warming, whereas New Zealand will just pay.

      In 2011 GE generated $21 billion in “clean energy revenue”. (GE Annual Report 2011, p 3).

      GE boast that their “technology helps deliver a quarter of the world’s electricity”. “We are one of the largest clean energy companies in the world” (page 18) “GE wind turbines, among the most widely used in the world, will soon power the largest wind farm in the U.S ”

      Renewable energy is a $250 billion dollar industry that makes about 3% of our electricity

      NAHHhhhh, GE doesn’t have any stake in seeing their Mass Media Propaganda sites push CAGW. MSNBC is really really neutral. And if you believe that I have this goose who lays golden eggs for sale for a very cheap price of $1, 000,000,000.99 – On sale right now. Hurry before someone else buys this very very valuable animal.

      • tonyp says:

        Revenue is different from profit. Last year, GE generated about $15 billion in net profit meaning their various operating expenses amounted to $135 billion. About 10% of their total revenues are profit. In order for the move to renewables to make money for GE you have to demonstrate that they have a higher profit ratio on renewables than they do on conventional technology. You have failed to do that and without that piece your sequence of innuendo and guesswork falls apart.

        For the sake of argument let’s assume that it is. Let’s assume that they make 20% on renewables. So they made $4 billion off renewables last year as opposed to 10% which means their profits increased by $2 billion. An entirely more moderate sum. Out of this they need to pay off MSNBC, other liberal news agencies, over two hundred scientific organisation, hundreds of universities and thousands of individuals. I don’t know what MSNBCs rates for distorting the news are – does anyone here know how much FOX charge? Let’s leave that aside. Once you’ve paid all those bribes and pumped out all that propaganda there’s actually not much profit left. Kind of makes you wonder if it was worth all the effort.

        Last year Exxon made $33 billion in profits down by $11 billion on the year before. So you’re arguing that GE who stand to make maybe by a generous estimate $2 billion (less conspiracy expenses) have more incentive than Exxon have to run a misinformation campaign?

        Your figures on global renewables budget don’t seem reliable.

        What do climate scientists get out of saying people should invest in renewables? Are they being paid? Because I don’t know any climate scientists driving snazzy cars or private jets.

        A lot of funding for anti-anthropogenic climate change activities and publications comes through the Heartland Institute. The Heartland Institute ran public disinformation campaigns to discredit the scientific link between smoking and health risks. They distorted the science, they got pet scientists to make brazen announcements, they published propaganda in the form of pamphlets and books and they obstructed efforts at legislation reform through lobbying.

        An institution with a demonstrable record of trying to subvert science so that people will continue doing something that will kill them so a company can maintain its profit-making potential is not a credible source of science.

        • philjourdan says:

          False analogy. Not all portions of a company make the same margins. So one portion can make all the profit while the others make none. Until you can prove that not all of GE’s profit is from Green energy, you have no case.

          Good luck with that since they do not make it public.

  26. gator69 says:

    Turnyp bleats…

    “One relevant synthesis is:

    Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia
    PAGES 2k Consortium
    Nature Geoscience 6, 339–346 (2013) doi:10.1038/ngeo1797”

    From your reference…

    “we reconstructed past temperatures…”

    How convenient!

    Paper please.

    • I just presented a paper containing data. Okay, you don’t believe it. Fine. Where is the paper demonstrating that LIA does represent a global temperature excursion?

      You cited a series of regional studies. Okay, but that’s a subset of the entire globe. Where is the global analysis that supports your hypothesis? This goes both ways.

      You would prefer other studies?

      Fine:

      Mann, M.E., Zhang, Z., Rutherford, S., Bradley, R.S., Hughes, M.K., Shindell, D., Ammann, C., Faluvegi, G., Ni, F., Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly, Science 326, 1256-1260, 2009

      Mann, M. E., S. Rutherford, E. Wahl, and C. Ammann (2007), Robustness
      of proxy-based climate field reconstruction methods, J. Geophys. Res.,
      112, D12109, doi:10.1029/2006JD008272

      Mann, Michael E., Scott Rutherford, Eugene Wahl, Caspar Ammann, 2005: Testing the Fidelity of Methods Used in Proxy-Based Reconstructions of Past Climate. J. Climate, 18, 4097–4107.
      doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI3564.1

      Finally. Strike 1. This post contains rude ad hominem content. You may desist or continue as you prefer. Once you get to strike 3 your posts will simply be ignored which will probably make both of us happier.

      If you want to talk science talk science. If you want to trade insults you may do so on your own time.

      • gator69 says:

        😆

        Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann is your reference? The same guy who refuses to release his data because he is afraid someone will find something wrong with it? The same guy who was pawned by Richard Muller? The same guy whose hockey stick was removed from the IPCC report? The same guy who campaigned to erase the MWP?

        Total fail.

        Disprove NV, or admit your hypothesis is pure conjecture. The burden of proof is yours to carry.

        • tom0mason says:

          I been waiting for you to notice the Miky Mann, that’s the second one. He’s beyond anything I’ve seen before, a true climate comic. 🙂

        • Unsubstantiated ad hominem attack. Strike 1.

          Every time you dismiss a result because of who said it rather than how it was obtained you demonstrate the depth of your commitment to scientific process. Minimal.

        • tom0mason says:

          McIntyre’s work was not an ad hominem attack.
          http://mcintyremann.com/
          http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/03/proxy-science-and-proxy-pseudo-science/
          Mann shows nothing he hide his data and fights in courts to silence critics about his methods. He and his way is not science it is fascism! “He’s the Lysenko of the modeled world” is an ad hominem attack , and I meant it.

        • Mann’s methods were validated by the North Report, by Wahl and Amman and by subsequent reanalysis of the data using completely different methodologies. If you are so confident in your criticism you should volunteer to stand alonside Steyn, NR, and CEI as Mann sues them for defamation. A lawsuit that is proceeding very smoothly.

          You won’t desist from ad hominem attacks. Strike three… you’re out of there. I have to say I expected you to last longer.

        • So recently, I was talking with a denialist, back and forth, back and forth. until he finally started talking in vaguely sinister terms about the Rothschilds and how they were making money out of AGW. The specifics were a little vague but apparently the Illuminati are involved.

          And at the time I wondered: Where the hell did THAT come from?

          Thank you all for referring Dr Evans’ work to me – because now I have my answer. And if I hadn’t looked into him I would never have realised.

        • tom0mason says:

          Wrong link
          http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/03/proxy-science-and-proxy-pseudo-science/

          Another ad hom. against me… with your conspiricy theory idiot ideas. Funny how only people like you come here shouting the odds over conspiricies. No one else does just the true believer in CO2 and all the fantasies that come with it.

          A little question for your feeble mind, and yes it’s a trick, how fast does the climate change naturally? I just ask to find out what an ignorant person you are < that an ad hom.

        • You had your three strikes Tom. You had the opportunity to be reasonable to be rational and to be polite. You didn’t take it.

        • tom0mason says:

          You lost now run!

        • tom0mason says:

          The great blatherer Anthony Purrcell says –
          “Dr Evans makes an assumption about the cause of recent climate change, notes discrepancy between that assumption and the observational data and back-argues the presence of a masking process. He assigns it to a poorly understood component of the climate system and then demonstrates that once the model which is at this point a sequence of unsubstantiated hypotheses is properly tuned it will fit the data. Look, it fits the data. Yay!”

          But of course he bring those arguments here as he has no moral integrety to confront the real originator of the model. He probably know he would lose even more than he has here.
          A usual it is the cries of the charlatan you hear anywhere but where the chalatan should address them.
          Mr. Purrcell you are a childish coward who is afraid to face Dr. Evan and argue with him about his model.

        • philjourdan says:

          Says the guy who does not understand straw men, ad hominems, non sequiturs, conspiracy theories, anecdotes, and is prone to lying.

          You far exceeded your 3 strikes. Good thing this is not a climate whacko site or you would now be banned.

        • To the moderator: I would like my display name restored to my original choice. If this is not done promptly I will commence legal proceedings.

        • tom0mason says:

          ” I will commence legal proceedings.”

          You lost the plot so now you take the M. Mann option.

          Oh humm 😆

        • philjourdan says:

          His impotent threat matches his intelligence.

        • tom0mason says:

          🙂

        • philjourdan says:

          Now you are merely an idiot. WordPress is doing that. It grabs your login and matches it. The only thing a lawyer is going to do is laugh at your ignorance.

          get a life!

        • philjourdan says:

          Non Sequiturs, ad hominems, conspiracy theories, lies.

          Strikes 10, 11, 12, 13. You have already whiffed an inning and a half.

        • philjourdan says:

          Wahl and Amman (the jesus paper) does not validate Mann’s hokey stick. You really should learn what you are talking about. Nor does the North report (it validates the Wegman analysis). What the North report does say is that the climate (at the time) was unusual. But it in no way validated any of Mann’s work – it debunked it!

          You really are ignorant.

        • philjourdan says:

          No Ad hominem – strike seven

          Multiple strike ones – strike eight.

          You should go in the fan business. You are whiffing every pitch.

  27. Gail Combs says:

    tom0mason says:

    “Why don’t you find some atmospheric physicists and climate scientists who believe your model and get them to construct a climate model based on your interpretation and see how it compares to the existing models. Then we can directly compare the two.” -Tonyp

    It’s on the way, but as the real scientist find it hard to get paid it is mostly unpaid work.
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

    Tom you forgot one.

    Dr. Evans and his Notch-Delay Model

    I just spent an entertaining weekend reading Leif Svalgaard digging a hole deeper and deeper and the engineers at Jo Nova’s burying him – OUCH! (It was a month ago real time.)

    L. S. true colors showed at last. I have never seen him dance on such a hot griddle before. But then he didn’t have the Mods at WUWT protecting him when he outright lied.

    Links to the bash fest are at the above synopsis page next to:
    The Solar Model finds a big fall in TSI data that few seem to know about.

    More strange adventures in TSI data: the miracle of 900 fabricated, fraudulent days.

    If you have the time to read a thousand or more comments start at the top. otherwise go towards the end after Svalgaard repeatedly insulted Dr. Evans and the gloves came off. The aerospace Engineers really tied him in knots.

    Dr. Evans was a gentleman through out, though Jo let her anger show a wee little bit.

    • tom0mason says:

      Sorry Gail I was keeping that in the back pocket.
      Have to turn the head the right way first.

      But otherwise yes. Of course Dr Evan’s model is remarkably different from and IPCC mandate one, in that it has no pre-ordained theory as to why it would work.

      Have you looked at https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/08/10/solar-hockey-stick-found-by-the-hockeyschtick/
      Leif Svalgaard is moving away from the darkside! 🙂

      Ho hum I’ll have to think of another corner to play in.

      • tom0mason says:

        Ooops, me and typos –
        …remarkably different fromand IPCC …

      • Gail Combs says:

        No I hadn’t seen that one yet. So L.S. is moving away from the darkside. I wonder if it is because he got his rear end handed to him and he thinks he has lost his sheepskin.

        What was interesting in the bash fest was L.S. was asked who funded him and the reply was US tax payers. He works at Stanford University, home of Paul Ehrlich, the author of The Population Bomb. He co-authored a couple books with Obama’s science Czar.

        That link has always made me wonder just what his objectives were at WUWT, aside from squashing any talk of “Its the Sun what Done it Gov.” and getting A.W to ban ‘undesirables’ like the ‘slayers’ the word Landershiet, tallbloke, steve……

        • tom0mason says:

          I was just about to look at it. Stanford? Why am I not that surprised. I’m glad he got squished, he needs to have some humility, sooner or later he’ll lose badly, then he’ll learn.
          Rather like the CO2er that’s dancing around here. He’s tried bigging it up because he was part of a large group that wrote an insignificant paper – a paper that was an aggregation of other peoples’ work. The references go on and on. So no original work, or insight.

    • nielszoo says:

      I have to thank you for bringing David’s “stellar” work up in another post here. My reading time is cyclic (depending on my work load) and I missed in when Jo originally posted it. I too spent a large part of the weekend wading through comments (didn’t get through them all) and it reinforces my belief that real science and engineering practices are alive, well and can do good things… if we can get the press and the government funded AGW army out of the way of honest debate.

      • Gail Combs says:

        I have not finished wading through all of David’s work and all the comments. Takes a bit of time for this old brain to wrap around new concepts and the engineers were really out in force on those web pages.

    • philjourdan says:

      Gentleman? More like a saint! And he did modify his model based upon input from at least one source.

      • tonyp says:

        Let us take an existing climate model M.

        Let us add a process f with several tuneable parameters, p. So our new climate model is

        M + f(p)

        Which model will agree better with observations?

        It is a mathematical certainty that the second one will perform at least as well as the first and most likely better. At worst you just choose a set of parameters so that f(p) = 0 so you are guaranteed to perform at least as well as M.

        This is because you have introduced in the new parameters p several more degrees of freedom to fit the data.

        So model 2 fits the data better. Does that mean that it is more physically accurate? Does that mean that the process f exists? No. It is not evidence that process f exists. It is simply a reflection of the mathematics of modelling.

        This is why you should resist the temptation to introduce new processes until it is absolutely necessary. Taken to its logical conclusion you can just introduce an arbitrary number of processes and parameters and fit the data perfectly. That doesn’t make any of the proposed processes real. They have to be confirmed by observation before they’re incorporated into the model. You can’t argue for their physical existence from model results.

        • geran says:

          Purcell, you need to send this entire comment (August 14, 2014 at 1:23 am) to the IPCC.

          If only they would follow that great advice!

        • tonyp says:

          Interestingly, this is exactly what Dr Evans’ model does and everyone is so very impressed with it. Dr Evans has more parameters and more degrees of freedom than existing models, that doesn’t prove that his proposed physics are correct.

        • philjourdan says:

          RIF and RTFM. No one is claiming it is correct. But unlike idiots, we actually are giving him a chance to see if it is correct. Time (and shortly) will tell if he is.

          Strike 36.

        • geran says:

          Interestingly, your view of reality is 180º out-of-phase, upside-down.

          (And don’t try to use living in OZ as an excuse. We get plenty of knowledge folks here that live in OZ, but are “right-side-up”.)

        • philjourdan says:

          Anthony, let us not ASSUME Anything. As they say in the trade, RTFM!

          Your “ASS-uming is only making the former out of you.

          Strike 31

        • tonyp says:

          Did you talk to a statistician yet?

        • philjourdan says:

          Repetition – the lowest form or communication. Strike 64

  28. Gail Combs says:

    Anthony Purcell says: August 11, 2014 at 4:51 am

    If you want to assert natural variability you have to find evidence of a temperature change this abrupt in the climate record….
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    Oh GOOD GRIEF!

    You really do think we are dumber that sheep. (Actually my sheep are smarter that warmist sheeple.)

    Perhaps one of the more poignant moments in all of climate science occurred in 1992, documented by John D. Cox, writing in “Climate Crash: Abrupt Climate Change and What it Means for our Future (John Henry Press, an imprint of the National Academies Press, ISBN: 0-309-54565-X, 224 pages, 2005), which describes the initial discovery of Abrupt Climate Change (ACC) and also introduces a main character, Dr. Richard B. Alley:

    “They knew they had the critical layer of ice in their snow cave [where the ice cores were first processed-wm]. Wanda Kapsner, a Penn State graduate student, had been taking thin sections about every 20 meters along the lengths of core laid out in the cave. She told Alley, ‘This section is in Holocene ice and the next section 20 meters down is in Ice Age ice, and so between these two is where you’re going to find it.’”

    …“’You did not need to be a trained ice core observer to see this,’ recalled Alley. ‘Ken Taylor is sitting there with the ECM and he’s running along and his green line is going wee, wee, wee, wee—Boing! Weep! Woop! And then it stays down.’ Dust in the windy ice age atmosphere lowered the acidity of the core to a completely new state. ‘We’re just standing there and he just draws a picture of it,”’Alley said.”
    ….“In the GISP2 science trench, the tray holding the section of core rolled down the assembly line and then it was Alley’s turn at the ice. “It slides across in front of me and I’m trying to identify years: ‘That’s a year, that’s a year and that’s a year, and—woops, that one’s only half as thick.’ And it’s sitting there just looking at you. And there’s a huge change in the appearance of the ice, it goes from being clear to being not clear, having a lot of dust.”

    William McClenney (geologist)

    The SWITCH from the Wisconsin Ice Age to the Holocene happen in ONE YEAR!

    Then there are Dansgaard-Oeschger oscillations, Bond events and Heinrich events that cause global temps to change 16C and 8C, 10C in dramatically short times.

    Richard B. Alley of the U.Penn. was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, chaired the National Research Council on Abrupt Climate Change. for well over a decade and in 1999 was invited to testify about climate change by Vice President Al Gore. In 2002, the NAS (alley chair) published a book “Abrupt Climate Change:

    . From the opening paragraph in the executive summary:

    Recent scientific evidence shows that major and widespread climate changes have occurred with startling speed. For example, roughly half the north Atlantic warming since the last ice age was achieved in only a decade, and it was accompanied by significant climatic changes across most of the globe. Similar events, including local warmings as large as 16°C, occurred repeatedly during the slide into and climb out of the last ice age.

    ANOTHER QUOTE:

    Holocene temperature history at the western Greenland Ice Sheet margin reconstructed from lake sediments – Axford et al. (2012)….As summer insolation declined through the late Holocene, summer temperatures cooled and the local ice sheet margin expanded. Gradual, insolation-driven millennial-scale temperature trends in the study area were punctuated by several abrupt climate changes, including a major transient event recorded in all five lakes between 4.3 and 3.2 ka, which overlaps in timing with abrupt climate changes previously documented around the North Atlantic region and farther afield at ?4.2 ka…..”
    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379112004209

    • No Gail the Ice Age did not end in one year. That’s not what discontinuities in ice cores mean. They can reflect a change in wind patterns, precipitation patterns or temperature and they cannot be simplistically interpreted as representing a sequence of contiguous years if there is a perceptible change of character. Ice core analysis is, like many other things a speciality.

      Also, temperature changes in any location can be fast, yes. Faster than we’re seeing now. Yes. But just because it happens in one place doesn’t make it global and if you see it somewhere and you don’t see anything special anywhere else then you conclude it was localised.

      Again, trying to extrapolate from global trends from only a few data points is not valid. You need to use as much data as you have.

      • philjourdan says:

        Since the ice age continues, and Gail is well aware of that fact, your problem seems to be one of reading comprehension. She never claimed “ended”. She showed temperature swings magnitudes larger than the current ones in time spans a fraction of the current one to disprove your assertion that the current changes are ‘unprecedented’.

        That is called reading comprehension. Something you should try.

        Strike three. Geran is correct. You do not know anything about the subject.

        • tonyp says:

          We are not in an ice age we are demonstrably in an inter-glacial period. Normally an ice age would be due to commence which in fact makes recent positive temperature trends rather more significant. An Ice Age requires the existence of large accumulations of ice at mid-latitudes. This is not observed. The statement that we are “in an ice age” is false.

        • philjourdan says:

          Wrong again (I should just program a key with that phrase for you). We are in an ice age, currently in an interglacial. However the inter part should have given you a clue (which is why you are clueless). The “inter” part means we are BETWEEN glacial periods. It says nothing about the AGE we are in!

          Strike 33.

          I will say for the last time – ignorance is the lack of knowledge. Stupidity is the rejection of knowledge. Stop rejecting it.

  29. Gail Combs says:

    tonyp says:

    Water vapour cannot provide positive feedback to temperature change because its lifespan in the atmosphere is too short. It only applies its heating effect for a short time and then it is gone….
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    And you expect us to believe that?
    Here is the % change in Albedo from the Earthshine project: GRAPH

    Albedo is Ice Snow, CLOUDS, Green vegetation….. ALL connected to WATER!

    If you bother to look you can see the reversing inflection point in 1997/1998 at the same time as the super El Nino, that the warmists are now wiping out of the temperature record.

    Earthshine Reveals Climate Changes
    California Institute of Technology News Release
    2004 May 27

    ….Precision earthshine observations to determine global reflectivity have been under way at BBSO since 1994, with regular observations commencing in late 1997.

    “Using a phenomenon first explained by Leonardo DaVinci, we can precisely measure global climate change and find a surprising story of clouds. Our method has the advantage of being very precise because the bright lunar crescent serves as a standard against which to monitor earthshine, and light reflected by large portions of Earth can be observed simultaneously,” said Goode. “It is also inexpensive, requiring only a small telescope and a relatively simple electronic detector.”

    By using a combination of earthshine observations and satellite data on cloud cover, the earthshine team has determined the following:

    = Earth’s average albedo is not constant from one year to the next; it also changes over decadal timescales. The computer models currently used to study the climate system do not show such large decadal-scale variability of the albedo.

    = The annual average albedo declined very gradually from 1985 to 1995, and then declined sharply in 1995 and 1996. These observed declines are broadly consistent with previously known satellite measures of cloud amount.

    = The low albedo during 1997-2001 increased solar heating of the globe at a rate more than twice that expected from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This “dimming” of Earth, as it would be seen from space, is perhaps connected with the recent accelerated increase in mean global surface temperatures.

    = 2001-2003 saw a reversal of the albedo to pre-1995 values; this “brightening” of the Earth is most likely attributable to the effect of increased cloud cover and thickness.

    These large variations, which are comparable to those in the earth’s infrared (heat) radiation observed in the tropics by satellites, comprise a large influence on Earth’s radiation budget…..

    Water in all its manifestations has a heck of a lot more to do with earth’s climate than CO2!

    • Dr Evans makes an assumption about the cause of recent climate change, notes discrepancy between that assumption and the observational data and back-argues the presence of a masking process. He assigns it to a poorly understood component of the climate system and then demonstrates that once the model which is at this point a sequence of unsubstantiated hypotheses is properly tuned it will fit the data. Look, it fits the data. Yay!

      Truly, utterly convincing. Science at its hard-headed best, arguing from observations to physical model to model refinement to causation. Well… actually he starts with causation but… same principle

      Let’s assume he’s correct.

      That means that CO2 feedback did not drive the glacial cycles

      If CO2 didn’t drive the glacial cycles what did and why is it synchronised with the Milankovich cycles over half a million years? If your mechanism is solar why is there any correlation with the Milankovich cycles at all?

      In order for the model to work it has to mesh not just with recent trends but with the whole climate record.

      You can take the attitude you don’t know what caused the glacial cycle that’s not your job. But in that case there’s a forcing term capable of producing an 8 degree oscillation that is missing from your climate model. You can hardly argue that your climate model is accurate until that term is identified and incorporated.

      • geran says:

        “Science at its hard-headed best, arguing from observations to physical model to model refinement to causation.”
        >>>>>>>>
        Perfect description of “climate science”. Except, you left out raising taxes as the solution.

      • philjourdan says:

        Try reading what he wrote, not what you handlers said about him.

        As HE states, the proof will be in the model forecasting the future, not in fitting the past. But even in fitting the past, he is way ahead of any CO2 model since they cannot even do that.

    • You see that part about how these albedo effects last a few years and then oscillate back and forth? That is what is called “short time-scales”. Long time-scales would be 50 years or more. So when you have a cloud-driven albedo effect that lasts 50 years we can talk. Until then, thank you very much for proving my point.

      • tom0mason says:

        And you Mr. Purcell are an immoral, imature, coward for this –
        “Dr Evans makes an assumption about the cause of recent climate change, notes discrepancy between that assumption and the observational data and back-argues the presence of a masking process. He assigns it to a poorly understood component of the climate system and then demonstrates that once the model which is at this point a sequence of unsubstantiated hypotheses is properly tuned it will fit the data. Look, it fits the data. Yay!”

        You are a coward in bringing this here and not to Dr. Evans.
        You should go to him and beg an apology. Thankfully for you, and unlike that other tiresome idiot M. Mann, I doubt he will take you to court.

  30. Gail Combs says:

    KRIGGING (that is the infilling of data)

    Reviewed papers

    Richly embellished with confusing neologisms and singleminded, krige-inspired eponyms, Matheronian geostatistics is taught at the Centre de Geostatistique, Fontainebleau, France, and several institutions of higher learning such as Stanford University, the University of British Columbia, and scores of others. Professional associations such as the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum (CIM), the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (IMM), and the Canadian Councils of Professional Engineers (CCPE) and of Professional Geoscientists (CCPG), have accepted geostatistics as a scientific discipline. Not surprisingly because geostatistical scholars dominate the peer review process at CIM Bulletin, IMM Transactions and the Journal of Mathematical Geology, and reject all criticism with contempt for scientific integrity and professional ethics.

    CIM’s, JMG’s and IMM’s reviews of “Precision estimates for ore reserves”, a paper reviewed, praised and published by Erzmetall 44 (1991) Nr 10, prove beyond reasonable doubt that the geostatistical peer review process is a blatantly biased, shamelessly self-serving sham….. [GEE, that sounds familiar – note Stanford University shows up again.]

    [There is a list of peer-reviewed papers by Dr. Merks on this page]
    http://www.geostatscam.com/reviewed_papers.htm

    About the Author:

    About my work

    I am an author, a consultant, and a lecturer. I am also a man of many monnikers. Statistically dysfunctional scholars and students of geostatistics conferred more than a few. I am an internationally recognized authority on sampling theory and practice for dynamic and static stochastic systems. I apply statistical methods in metrology, the science of measurement technology. I have experience in sampling and weighing of coals, concentrates, industrial minerals, ores, and scores of bulk materials. I worked at the Port of Rotterdam, the world’s largest port for bulk solids and liquids, and at the Port of Vancouver, Canada’s largest port in the Pacific Northwest. A background in analytical chemistry, chemical engineering, mining engineering, and mathematical statistics underpin my career in metrology, the science of measurement, as it applies to the international commodity trade in general, and to mineral exploration, mining, processing, smelting and refining in particular.

    b>I was Vice President, Quality Control Services, with the SGS Organization, a worldwide network of inspection companies that acts as referee between international trading partners. I was Assistant to the Chairman of Cominco Ltd where I reviewed measurement systems and procedures used to determine wet masses, moisture contents and metal grades and contents of mill feed, tailing and concentrates, and compiled an internal manual on weighing, sampling, sample preparation and analysis. In these positions I traveled extensively to coal and hard-rock mines, mineral processing plants, smelters and steelworks, power plants and bulk terminals in different part of the world. I performed technical audits for clients in Australia, Canada, Europe, South America and the USA.

    I used the concept of bias detection limits for statistical risks as a measure for the power of Student’s t-test, the bias test par excellence. I defined the concept of probable ranges as a measure for the limits within which an observed bias is expected to fall. I conceptualized and evaluated a mechanical sampling system for cathode copper that became the de facto standard method at copper refineries in different parts of the world. I designed mechanical sampling systems and modules to routinely select pairs of interleaving primary samples from crushed ore and slurry flows.

    In the early 1990s, I reported to the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum and to the Ontario Securities Commission that geostatistics is an invalid variant of mathematical statistics. I am writing Behind Bre-X; the whistleblower’s story to explain why geostatistics inflates reserves and causes ore deposits to shrink during mining. I am also writing Precision and bias of grades and contents of reserves.…..
    http://www.geostatscam.com/about.htm

    Looks like I will not have to write those papers. A much more qualified individual is already writing them.

    ,b>As a retired QC engineer, who am I going to take seriously, a ” Vice President, Quality Control Services, with the SGS Organization, a worldwide network of inspection companies” or Phil Jones of the CRU who can’t even run an excel spread sheet?

    • Yes, this would be rather more convincing if Dr Merck actually discussed why geostatistics is invalid. His ad hominem allegations agree well with your preconceptions. You find them convincing.

      I will believe him when I see some statistical or mathematical demonstrations of why the discipline is flawed. Quite frankly, this reeks of the same witch-hunt philosophy as the Wegman Report. Wegman was also a statistician you will recall and his condemnation of Mann’s methodology were found to be inaccurate in many places, insignificant in others and Mann’s results stand even when completely different methodologies are applied to the data.

      Only now instead of aiming at Mann the entire field of Earth Science is wrong. Not just climate science let’s be clear. Every single Earth Science result is now in error because the field is bankrupt. Plate Tectonics is wrong, the evidence for that relies heavily on geo-statistics. In fact that’s where geo-statistics was developed. GPS surveys are wrong. Gravity measurements are wrong. The calculation of the geoid is wrong. It’s all wrong.

      It’s a little funny though, geo-statistics was developed in the 60s but suddenly it’s invalid now… seems a bit weird that no-one noticed earlier.

      If only we’d thought to crack open a statistics textbook or talk to a statistician or cross-verify with some observational data.

      Hang on a second… we did all those things.

      Maybe Dr Merck is right, but I’m really not inclined to believe it until I see a demonstration.

      • geran says:

        Purcell knows more about debate than he does about science. He knows how to create straw men, as if the opponent supported the created straw man, then Purcell shoots down the straw man. It’s a debate trick, not science. It’s dishonest, and that makes Purcell dishonest.

        We know them by their debate tricks.

        • This is not a straw man argument. You have to demonstrate that it is by observation and logical causation rather than assertion. As such this qualifies as an unsubstantiated ad hominem attack. Strike Two.

        • philjourdan says:

          Wrong again. A straw man is when you set up your own position, claim it is someone else’s and the proceed to debunk it. Your ignorance of the terms you use is duly noted.

          Strike nine.

        • tonyp says:

          Correct, that’s a straw man argument. And you have to demonstrated by logic and observation that that is what I did rather than simply assert it. So your strike count has no consequences right? I can just ignore that.

        • philjourdan says:

          Anthony, copying my statements and claiming them as your own is called plagiarism. Strike 37

          Only now instead of aiming at Mann the entire field of Earth Science is wrong.

          that is but ONE of the straw men you set up.

          You lie very poorly. That is strike 38.

        • philjourdan says:

          I disagree. He does not appear to know about straw men or ad hominems. He uses them, but does not recognize their usage.

    • Gail,

      If geo-statistics is incorrect then that means that the assertion of unchanged global average temperature is incorrect because it’s based on geo-statistics,

      • Shazaam says:

        Wow, you twist and spin like a political hack!!

        If geo-statistics is incorrect then that means that the assertion of unchanged global average temperature is incorrect because it’s based on geo-statistics, — last I checked the satellite temperature data was not being modified with any “geo-statistics”. All assertions of no warming are based on the satellite data, and the unaltered, raw surface data. It’s only the fraudulent geo-statistics data that purports top show any warming.

        The climatologists need a basic instruments and measurements course (foundation course in the engineering curriculum). The fundamental flaws in their understanding of how to analyze and report the raw data and their subsequent flawed data analysis invalidates their work.

  31. Gail Combs says:

    Anthony Purcell says:
    Gail,

    Yes, noon time values at the equinox. Again, using a subset of the data and not the whole data set skews your result and makes your argument void. If you want to calculate average influx you need to calculate total influx over a period of time and divide by the time period…
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    Thank you Anthony for proving my point.
    You (and Trenbreth) live on a Flat Earth with no weather. I live on an earth that gets a specific amount of energy, ~ 1150 W/m^2 at noon in September at the equator and not some puny 161 W/m^2. smeared all over the globe. The earth I live on is a dynamic heat engine. Yours is a dead flat plate.

    Since the real earth is NOT in equilibrium this makes a big difference. A burner at 400F for 15 to 20 minutes is going to boil my tea water. A burner at 90F forever is not.

    1150 W/m^2 accumulated by the ocean is going to drive the Gulf Stream. It is going to melt the Arctic ice, it is going to form hurricanes and thunderstorms it is going to drive the Hadley cell.

    Since the oceans act as a ‘Capacitor’ accumulating or discharging energy, the amount of energy receive is going to matter -big time. The Earthshine Project showed the cloud cover (that boiling teapot) changed in 1997/1998. You can also see that change in this Graph – % cloud cover at different levels if you look closely.

    The result of that change of energy going into the oceans has been a movement of the Jet Streams around 2000. From 1979 to 2001, the Northern Hemisphere’s jet stream moved northward at an average rate of about 1.25 miles a year. Now it has switch directions. Rutgers has noted over the past two decades the jet stream has weakened and has begun to meander. Of course they blame ‘Gore Bull Warbling” and mankind since that is a lot easier than actually thinking.

    I am sure you will blame it on a CO2 increase also despite the fact it is a SWITCH in directions. But just a comment to think about.

    The Polar vortex cold and snowy weather this winter had the same shape as the Laurentide glacier

    • Gail,

      Tremberth and Fasullo were calculating average ocean temperature increase from energy flux. To do this they calculated total energy input and divided it by time to give an average energy input. This involves a direct integration of energy input over the area of the oceans over the time period in question.

      The ocean dynamical systems you mention are very important in and of themselves and their role in the global climate system but they are already incorporated into this calculation.

      The point of the graphic is to give a snapshot of net effects forcing the system. To do this they used average values. That’s entirely appropriate. When I want to present a graphic of average wealth I don’t pick Donald Trump as my example.

      The Gulf stream is being affected by changes in water density as glacial melting reduces the density of the top-most layer of the ocean. This means that that layer will not sink as readily when it cools at Northern latitudes weakening the over-turning that drives the system.

      The good news is that after a few hundred years the stream will break down completely and New Yorkers will suddenly notice that they’re at the same latitude as Siberia. Ironic isn’t it? The planet warms and Europe and the North-East coast freeze. And yes before you ask… the planet warms it just warms preferentially at low latitudes much more than the global average.

  32. Gail Combs says:

    Anthony Purcell says:

    Gail,

    Tremberth and Fasullo were calculating average ocean temperature increase from energy flux. To do this they calculated total energy input and divided it by time to give an average energy input. This involves a direct integration of energy input over the area of the oceans over the time period in question…..
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    Then the question becomes whether or not Tremberth and Fasullo did the calculation correctly.
    Since credentials seem to matter:
    Dr. Kevin E. Trenberth is a Meteorologist and Atmospheric Scientist (WIKI)
    Fasullo – Ph.D., Astrophysical, Planetary, and Atmospheric Sciences, (1997)

    John Kehr “is a Chemical Engineer by schooling and Research and Development Process Engineer by profession.” He is actively involved with a group called The Right Climate Stuff.
    Unlike Obama’s NASA whose mission is Muslim Outreach, this is a core group of NASA scientists who have taken on

    One More Mission
    There are competing points of view regarding the causes of climate change in our current environment….
    We are gathering together a group of highly educated and experienced scientists & engineers from various disciplines to take on the challenge of evaluating the narratives of both the advocates of AGW and also the skeptics of AGW. A great effort will be made to understand and objectively reconcile the differences by detailed discussions of the conflicting elements of the narratives. We are being successful in our attempt to include members of the study group from both sides of the AGW argument, and we believe this is important to study all appropriate inputs and viewpoints.
    Because the United States and some other nations have prematurely accepted the AGW advocates points of view and conclusions as correct, a large amount of manpower and money is being spent on an attempt to ameliorate the supposed rise in global temperature. And, also because of the colossal impact on national economies needed to make significant climate changes (if this were possible,) we believe it is critical to be certain of the reality of the conclusions on this subject. During the course of the study, reports will be provided for peer review as well as for information to the general public. When we have preliminary reports that are used for studies within the group, these will be password protected until they have reached a mature state….

    “Achievement through Excellence”
    And the motto of the Mission Evaluation Room engineers who supported Flight Operations:
    “In God we trust, all others bring data”
    These were not only words that guided us during Apollo, but more importantly, words that defined how we did our work. This is what made us proud to be called “Astronauts,” and “Rocket Scientists.” We will attempt to adhere to these attitudes in order to achieve the goals of this study group.
    Jim Peacock, Webmaster
    (NASA retired aerospace engineer, USAF R & D, Apollo, Sky Lab, & Space Shuttle)

    John Kehr “was generally neutral about the subject of global warming until he met and married a wonderful woman who challenged him to make a choice.

    There are few things more dangerous than challenging an engineer to make a choice like that on a scientific topic.”

  33. Gail Combs says:

    Now that I have gotten the Who is who out of the way,one side neutral and the other committed to the IPCC, on to The Earth’s Energy Balance.

    The idea behind an energy balance is the conservation of energy. All the energy that enters a system (the Earth for instance) must go somewhere. In the case of the Earth, most of the energy is leaving the Earth. The small amount of energy that does not leave is used (absorbed). For example plants use the suns energy to drive photosynthesis. [most can understand that I hope]

    Ein = Eout + Eabsorbed

    Many papers cover this, but the most commonly cited one today is Trenberth, Fasullo, Kiehl, 2008 (FT08 hereafter). That paper presents a detailed analysis of the Earth’s energy balance and compares it to others. The overall summary of the energy balance is presented in a single graphic….

    This is reasonably accurate, but it is also entirely misleading. The two large energy flows named Surface Radiation and Back Radiation are different from all the others. They are not measures of energy transfers, but of radiative flux (also called forcing). As I have described before, there is a difference between energy transfers and radiative flux. Two objects at the same temperature have zero net energy transfer and as a result, will not change temperature. As the surface of the Earth and the atmosphere above have a small temperature difference (to be shown in a later article), there is little energy transfer between the two…..

    If the overall energy balance for the surface of the Earth is performed using only NET energy transfers, then the result would be as follows:

    Ein = Eout + Eabsorbed

    Solar Absorbed = Thermals + Evaporation + Radiative + Net Absorbed

    161 W/m2 = 17 W/m2 + 80 W/m2 + 23 W/m2 + 40 W/m2 + 1 W/m2

    This does properly balance in with the other portions of the overall energy balance. The difference that this makes is it changes the apparent value of radiative transfer to the atmosphere. The total energy transferred from the surface to the atmosphere is 120 W/m2. That is 74.5% of the energy that the sun transfers to the surface of the Earth. If the flux values used by FT08 are used, then the amount transferred from the surface to the atmosphere is 453 W/m2, which is 2.8 times the amount of energy that the surface absorbs from the sun.

    From a practical point of view it is unreasonable that the surface of the Earth transfers more energy to the atmosphere than the sun transfers to the Earth. That is really the main problem with the FT08 and any balance that uses radiative flux (forcing) instead of transfer of energy.….

    John is nice enough to explain what he means by difference between energy transfers and radiative flux, to those of us who are not working Chem Engineers. (I had Thermo but a LOOOOoooong time ago as a chemist.)

    This is a continuation of the series on Radiative Heat Transfer (RHT). The purpose of the series is to use normal life experiences to explain RHT. In this article I will explain the difference between “forcing” and the transfer of energy. They seem similar, but they are different.

    A useful situation to explain the difference is a cool afternoon with a partly cloudy day. The temperature is 10 °C (50 °F). Based on the previous article that temperature means that the air has a “forcing,” or radiative flux of 364 W/m2. As a normal human your surface temperature is 35 °C and your “forcing” level is 511 W/m2.

    What is happening? Based on previous discussions your are losing energy to the air around you. Depending on the person, it could be a little chilly. Fortunately it is a partly cloudy day. When the sun is out, it feels much warmer.

    Interestingly enough, the suns energy is much less than the “forcing” from the air around you. For a cool autumn day the sun is likely providing 100 W/m2 of energy. The difference is the sun is transferring energy to the objects that it reaches. Warming can only happen when energy is transferred. So the sun can warm you up, even though the energy value for the sun is less than the “forcing” of the air around you.

    How long does it take to notice if a cloud blocks the sun? I know I feel the difference instantly. That is because RHT is instant (speed of light, but for humans that is close enough). When the sun is behind the cloud, your body changes from getting energy from the sun, to losing energy to the air around you. From receiving 100 W/m2 to losing about that much (depending on what you are wearing)…..

    That is the difference between energy transfer and “forcing.” One is simple and direct. Energy is flowing and the temperature of something is changing. The other is the potential for heat transfer. If a person were placed in space, that potential heat transfer would become an actual heat transfer of 511 W/m2. That would cool a person down very quickly.

    That is why the 364 W/m2 of potential heat transfer from air that is 10 °C will not warm you up, but the actual heat transfer of 100 W/m2 from the sun will. The effect from the forcing is that without it you would lose heat even faster. It does not warm you, but it limits the amount of energy that you lose.

    According to the energy balance of the IPCC (by way of Kiehle and Trenberth) the atmosphere provides the surface of the Earth with 324 W/m2, but that value is a “forcing” and not an energy transfer. That is equivalent to a temperature of 1.8 °C. On average the sun provides 168 W/m2 of energy to the surface of the Earth. Based on appearances, the atmosphere is providing more energy to the surface of the Earth than the Sun…..

    That is why I used the autumn equinox solar energy, the actual 1150 W/m^2 and not Trenbreath’s mythical flat-earth value of 161 W/m^2. That is real energy transfer direct to the oceans and not a “potential for heat transfer” over the entire earth’s surface.

    Does this matter or am I picking nits?

    Yes it does matter because the “potential for heat transfer” to space (~3 K) of equitorial deserts at 313.15 K. ( 40 °C, 104 °F) is not the same as the “potential for heat transfer” of Vostok at 184.0 K ( ?89.2 °C ?128.6 °F)

    • tonyp says:

      Let me summarise this analysis.

      Atmosphere and surface are close in temperature – we will prove that later – as a result there will be no flow between them. So we set surface radiation to zero. But we keep back-scatter at non-zero because even though there’s no surface radiation there will be back-scatter.

      When you do that it turns out that the surface is receiving nearly 3 times as much heat as arrives from the sun. Those guys are such idiots!

      Read it again, read my summary, tell me what I’m missing.

      The section about the distinction between radiative flux and energy transfer is entirely spurious. This does not prevent them from adding back-scatter (333) directly to incoming energy (120) to derive their total (453) incoming energy. So if that addition is valid why would surface radiation be any different?

      They set surface radiation to zero. Which is really quite fascinating because that is directly observed by satellite readings so the assertion that it just doesn’t exist is kind of ballsy. How did they come to that conclusion.

      They say atmosphere and surface are close in temperature and therefore there will be no energy transfer. I find this statement implausible. Clearly there is heat flow between atmosphere and surface. This is how hot water drives convection cells. The convection of the heated air away from the surface maintains a significant temperature differential. Conversely cells of hot still air at the centre of high pressure cells can encounter eddies of cold water and heat transfer must occur there. The idea that this does not occur seems like an unfounded assertion. Especially since heat transfer from the oceans to the atmosphere is the primary mechanism by which weather systems form and evolve.

      I therefore don’t see the rationale for setting surface radiation to zero. And the idea that “we’ll prove this later” seems more than a little hand-wavy.

      I’m not a fan of algebra by position. I don’t like being forced to guess what variables have what values from their position in the equation. I also note that there are three terms on the right hand side of the equation and then 4 numbers on the line below. What is the extra term?

      This calculation is anyway spurious. The central problem here is that they’ve set surface radiation to zero. But they keep the back radiation term at non-zero.

      Also what does the percentage value have to do with anything?

      The whole thing is written in deliberately disjointed style to make what they are doing hard to follow because if they let you see exactly what they’re doing you would ask awkward questions.

      None of this has any bearing on your chosen value for energy flux.

      Let me make an analogy. Surface gravity can be measured by a gravimeter and it can be estimated from the passage of satellites. But gravimeters include the effect of surface motion so you should ignore them and assume surface gravity is zero and then the satellite gravity is out of whack. So I decided to use gravity measurements from the moon landings.

      None of it makes the least bit of sense. Nothing is a logical consequence of anything else. They’re completely unrelated.

  34. Gail Combs says:

    Luckily WIKI has come to my rescue and I do not have to dust off my old physics and thermo books and try to get this concept across. (Thank goodness, A good teacher I am not.)

    There is quite a bit of math and formulas so I am not going to reproduce much of the article here. However the take away is

    The Stefan–Boltzmann law, also known as Stefan’s law, describes the power radiated from a black body in terms of its temperature. Specifically, the Stefan–Boltzmann law states that the total energy radiated per unit surface area of a black body across all wavelengths per unit time (also known as the black-body radiant exitance or emissive power), , is directly proportional to the fourth power of the black body’s thermodynamic temperature T…..
    Temperature of the Earth

    Similarly we can calculate the effective temperature of the Earth TE by equating the energy received from the Sun and the energy radiated by the Earth, under the black-body approximation. The amount of power, ES, emitted by the Sun is given by…..

    So, yes the actual temperature at different locations is going to matter because of the T^4 in the equation. This means you really need to integrate over the entire surface not add and divide.

    Average thermometer reading is an absolutely rotten measure of the heat energy to begin with. Among other things it completely misses the latent heat of vaporization if the air has a high humidity. The difference between a humid area and a desert shows latent heat of vaporization can change the temp reading by an order of 10C.

    John Kehr also discusses the Temperature Dependence of the Earth’s Outgoing Energy

    I have been involved in some pretty extensive discussions with the TRCS [The Right Climate Stuff linked above] group over the past few weeks. The posts lately have been offshoots of that discussion….

    What determines how quickly the Earth loses energy? There is a simple answer and a complex answer to that. Since the Earth can only lose energy to space by infra-red (IR) transmission, the simple answer is that the Earth’s temperature determines the rate of energy loss since it is temperature that determines the intensity of the IR transmission as shown in the Stefen-Boltzmann Law. [graph shown]

    If the NH directly lost energy to space at rates associated with those temperatures, the Earth would be a much colder place. This is where the importance of the atmosphere comes into play. It acts as an intermediary by taking the higher energy from the surface, but losing energy at a lower rate, but the temperature of the atmosphere still determines the rate of energy loss. This is easily shown by comparing the measured out-going long-wave radiation (OLR) to the absolute surface temperature. [graph shown]

    This clearly shows that the warmer the Earth is, the faster it is losing energy to space. The measurements fit the theory very nicely here. It is possible from this to show the correlation between the surface temperature of the NH and the OLR.

    What this indicates is that for each 1K increase in temperature, there will be an associated 2.2 W/m^2 increase in the OLR. There can be no more an effective feedback mechanism than this for regulating the Earth’s temperature. There are many reasons for this, but the best is simplicity. The warmer the Earth is, the faster it loses energy (which means it cools down faster)….

    Based on the OLR measurements, the Earth was losing 2.6 W/m^2 more over the 5 year period from 2007-2011 than it did in the 5 year period from 1979-1983. The satellite temperature difference for those two periods show that the later period was 0.27 °C warmer….

    While the Earth has been warmer over the past 10 years than it was 30 years ago, it is also losing energy at a higher rate, even though the CO2 level is higher now. Energy is what matters and if the Earth is losing it faster now than ever before (based on an entire 34 years of satellite data), then it doesn’t look like CO2 is doing a very good job at slowing the rate of energy loss. Conversely it appears that the tried and true Stefen-Boltzmann law is working just fine….

    • tonyp says:

      The guy you’re quoting here is playing word games.

      Newton worked out that the rate of change of temperature is proportional to temperature. What does that mean? That means the hotter you are the faster you lose energy. Or to put it another way if you’re losing energy faster you’re hotter than you used to be.

      So the reassuring tone that CO2 is not stopping us from losing heat is a nonsense. CO2 is making the lower atmosphere hotter so it loses heat faster. That’s what being hotter means.

      Note that: lower atmosphere.

      The total energy outflow of the Earth is by definition equal to energy input from the sun + a small absorption term due to plant photosynthesis but that’s really tiny and basically energy out = energy in. If this weren’t true the Earth would heat up or cool down until it was. The amount of energy arriving from the sun has not changed significantly in the last decade. If anything it’s falling a little so we might expect a little cooling. Instead we’re seeing warming and we’re seeing a more rapid flux of heat out of the lower atmosphere which can only happen if the lower atmosphere is warmer.

  35. Gail Combs says:

    Anthony Purcell says:

    No Gail the Ice Age did not end in one year. That’s not what discontinuities in ice cores mean. They can reflect a change in wind patterns, precipitation patterns or temperature and they cannot be simplistically interpreted as representing a sequence of contiguous years if there is a perceptible change of character. Ice core analysis is, like many other things a speciality.

    Also, temperature changes in any location can be fast, yes. Faster than we’re seeing now. Yes. But just because it happens in one place doesn’t make it global and if you see it somewhere and you don’t see anything special anywhere else then you conclude it was localised. Again, trying to extrapolate from global trends from only a few data points is not valid. You need to use as much data as you have.

    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

    HMMMmmm, Too bad no one bothered to informed Dr Alley of that.

    Dr. Richard B. Alley of the U.Penn. was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He chaired the National Research Council on Abrupt Climate Change. for well over a decade and in 1999 was invited to testify about climate change by Vice President Al Gore. In 2002, the NAS (alley chair) published a book “Abrupt Climate Change:
    Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises ( 2002 )
    (wwwDOT)nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10136&page=1

    . From the opening paragraph in the executive summary:

    “Recent scientific evidence shows that major and widespread climate changes have occurred with startling speed. For example, roughly half the north Atlantic warming since the last ice age was achieved in only a decade, and it was accompanied by significant climatic changes across most
    of the globe. Similar events, including local warmings as large as 16°C, occurred repeatedly during the slide into and climb out of the last ice age.”

    In his book, The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future Richard Alley, one of the world’s leading climate researchers, tells the fascinating history of global climate changes as revealed by reading the annual rings of ice from cores drilled in Greenland. In the 1990s he and his colleagues made headlines with the discovery that the last ice age came to an abrupt end over a period of only three years….
    (wwwDOT)amazon.com/Two-Mile-Time-Machine-Abrupt-Climate/dp/0691102961

    So I am willing to change my “One year” to Three years or even as Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said, to “Within a decade” It still means within my life time and not some nebulous gradual change.

    However if you want more world wide examples of “Abrupt Climate Change”….

    Lisiecki and Raymo (Paleooceanography, 2005) produced an exhaustive analysis of 57 globally distributed deep ocean cores reaching back about 5 million years.

    Photo

    GRAPH
    LR04 ?18O from Lisieki and Raymo (2005) correlated to the temperature anomaly inferred from the deuterieum concentration in ice cores from EPICA Dome C, Antarctica (Jouzel et al., 2007). The main orbital (purple), tectonic (brown) and oceanic (blue) events are indicated. The orange box represents the start of the onset of the Northern Hemisphere glaciations. 100 kyrs and 40 kyrs correspond to the orbitally-driven glacial/interglacial cycles period. This period changed from 41 kyrs to 100 kyrs during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition toward 1 Ma (MPT).

    But that graph is ‘a bit coarse’ so how about Bond Events?

    A Pervasive Millennial-Scale Cycle in North Atlantic Holocene and Glacial Climates
    Gerard Bond,* William Showers, Maziet Cheseby, Rusty Lotti,
    Peter Almasi, Peter deMenocal, Paul Priore, Heidi Cullen,
    Irka Hajdas, Georges Bonani

    ABSTRACT
    Evidence from North Atlantic deep sea cores reveals that abrupt shifts punctuated what is conventionally thought to have been a relatively stable Holocene climate. During each of these episodes, cool, ice-bearing waters from north of Iceland were advected as far south as the latitude of Britain. At about the same times, the atmospheric circulation above Greenland changed abruptly. Pacings of the Holocene events and of abrupt climate shifts during the last glaciation are statistically the same; together, they make up a series of climate shifts with a cyclicity close to 1470 +/- 500 years. The Holocene events, therefore, appear to be the most recent manifestation of a pervasive millennial-scale climate cycle operating independently of the glacial-interglacial climate state. Amplification of the cycle during the last glaciation may have been linked to the North Atlantic’s thermohaline circulation.

    ….Hence, contrary to the conventional view, the North Atlantic’s Holocene climate must have undergone a series of abrupt reorganizations, each with sufficient impact to force concurrent increases in debris-bearing drift ice at sites more than 1000 km apart and overlain today by warm, largely ice-free surface waters of the North Atlantic and Irminger currents. The ice-rafted debris (IRD) events exhibit a distinct pacing on millennial scales, with peaks at about 1400, 2800, 4200, 5900, 8100, 9400, 10,300, and 11,100 years ago….

    We argue that the immediate cause of the Holocene ice-rafting events was a series of ocean surface coolings, each of which appears to have been brought about by a rather substantial change in the North Atlantic’s surface irculation. The most consistent evidence of ocean surface coolings is the succession of prominent increases in Globigerina quinqueloba …. Although some of the faunal shifts are not large, all are defined by more than one species, and they are correlative at two widely separated sites. Moreover, because the foraminiferal concentrations increased markedly during most events….

    Loess geochemistry and Cenozoic paleoenvironments
    Abstract
    Loess-soil sequences are among the best terrestrial records of paleoenvironments. Those in northern China provide a 22 million-year (Ma) geological history of the Asian deserts (dust sources), winter monsoon (dust carrier) and summer monsoon (moisture carrier) winds, and the regional vegetation. [Well there is your dust source, at least one of them] Loess geochemistry represents one of the most dynamic research fields in loess-based Paleoclimatology. Some of the most frequent approaches are reviewed here with emphasis to the loess deposits in China.

    1. Introduction
    …loess-soil sequences are regarded as one of the best terrestrial records of paleoenvironments. World’s longest loess records locate in the Loess Plateau in northern China. They include the well-known Quaternary (0-2.6 Ma) loess-soil sequences (Liu, 1985; Ding et al., 2001a), the eolian Red Clay (2.6-8.0 Ma) in the eastern Loess Plateau (Ding et al., 2001b), and the Mio-Pliocene loess-soil sequences in the western Loess Plateau (22-3.5 Ma) (Guo et al., 2002; Hao and Guo, 2004). Their combination provides a near continuous terrestrial record of climates for the past 22 Ma….
    GRAPH [age 200 (Ka) to 700 (Ka)]
    (wwwDOT)geochemsoc.org/publications/geochemicalnews/gn143apr10/loessgeochemistryandcenozo/

    Abrupt Temperature Changes in the Western Mediterranean over the Past 250,000 Years

    Predictable orbital variations led to insolation changes, which triggered less frequent but very intense oscillations. Accordingly, the last glacial inception (substage 5d) has been attributed to a connection between orbital forcing and thermohaline circulation beyond a freshwater threshold within the ocean-atmosphere-sea-ice system
    (wwwDOT)sandiego.edu/~sgray/MARS350/pleist2.pdf

    Seven glacial cycles in the middle-late Pleistocene of northwest Europe: Geomorphic evidence from buried tunnel valleys
    Margaret A. Stewart* and Lidia Lonergan†

    Abstract

    The deep-ocean marine isotope record and the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps record numerous glacial and interglacial cycles since the middle Pleistocene, and yet evidence for similar numbers of ice-sheet advances over the continent and shallow shelves of northwest Europe is absent. Here, we document seven generations of regionally correlatable subglacial tunnel valleys that record the geomorphic imprint of ice sheets traversing the North Sea basin between ca. 500 and 40 ka, consistent with that predicted by proxy records of glacial and interglacial climate change. …. Our data provide the most complete documentary evidence for repeated advance and retreat of the northwest European ice sheets since the middle Pleistocene, and for the first time indicate that terrestrial ice-sheet advances in the North Sea can be matched in number with the cold events recorded in oceanic and/or ice-core proxies of climate change over the past 500 k.y.
    GRAPH
    http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/39/3/283.abstract

    Do you really want me to keep digging into the over three hundred papers I have sitting on my computer?

  36. tonyp says:

    Gail,

    Let me make a quick observation.

    You just quoted a paper about ice rafted debris associated with rapid change in North American ice sheet volume. You are trying to use it to prove a sudden temperature increase during the Late-glacial.

    How then do you come to the conclusion that the massively increased sea ice around Antarctica is not associated with a rapid change in ice volume and is in fact a sign of cooling?

    How are these two positions from identical observations not directly contradictory?

    Regardless. The existence of ice rafted debris does not constrain the magnitude or rate of the driving temperature increase. Temperature proxies are available for these periods and they do not show sharp jumps of a degree or so in the space of a few decades,

    The rest of your examples are regional not global. Indeed, the ice rafted debris could be the result of a regional effect. It’s not clear.

  37. Gail Combs says:

    Anthony Purcell says:

    I suggest you take your claim about IR and H2O overlap to Dr Brown. Because Dr Brown states explicitly that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That cannot be the case if it has no effect on global temperature.

    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

    Now isn’t that an interesting piece of misdirection.

    Let me repeat it for the others who might be reading: “..Dr Brown states explicitly that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That cannot be the case if it has no effect on global temperature.

    Dr. Brown, in my above quotations is talking about the CO2 and “Back Radiation” NOW at ~400 ppm in the troposphere and the fact it is saturated at ground level. He is saying that the energy goes from CO2 ===> N2 and O2 via collision thereby warming the atmosphere near the surface. It is NOT doing “Back Radiation” because CO2 never gets a chance to lose a photon before it collides and loses the energy in that way.
    ….

    Anthony, in 1970 I was required to know what the IR absorption peaks were for all the organic radicals by heart. At one point I could glance at an IR “fingerprint” and tell you if it was Nylon 6, Nylon 6/6 or Nylon 11.

    I actually hate the term ‘Greenhouse Gas” I think it is not only idiotic but very misleading. But then I cringe when I hear “chemical” used to mean man-produced or when someone tells me they have a “thoroughbred” teacup poodle. (How in heck do you crossbreed a tiny dog and a race horse… Is Monsanto up to something they didn’t tell us about?)
    ………..

    So you are saying – CO2 is a greenhouse gas because it has an effect on global temperature.

    So let’s look at the earth’s atmosphere with that definition in mind.
    SPECTRA:
    N2
    (77% of Atmosphere)

    O3

    O2

    ( Oxygen = 21% of Atmosphere)

    H2O
    (~1% of Atmosphere)

    Argon

    (0.93% of Atmosphere)

    And finally in trace amounts,
    CO2

    Spectrum taken from Nimbus II over equator. (0.04% of Atmosphere)

    (To evade the WordPress boot into moderation, continued in next post.)

  38. Gail Combs says:

    Lets get the “Atmosphere is Inert” except for CO2, H2O and O3 fallacy out of the way first:

    NASA:
    ..Of particular importance is the sun’s extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation, which peaks during the years around solar maximum. Within the relatively narrow band of EUV wavelengths, the sun’s output varies not by a minuscule 0.1%, but by whopping factors of 10 or more. This can strongly affect the chemistry and thermal structure of the upper atmosphere….

    …Several researchers discussed how changes in the upper atmosphere can trickle down to Earth’s surface. There are many “top-down” pathways for the sun’s influence. For instance, Charles Jackman of the Goddard Space Flight Center described how nitrogen oxides (NOx) created by solar energetic particles and cosmic rays in the stratosphere could reduce ozone levels by a few percent. Because ozone absorbs UV radiation, less ozone means that more UV rays from the sun would reach Earth’s surface.

    Isaac Held of NOAA took this one step further. He described how loss of ozone in the stratosphere could alter the dynamics of the atmosphere below it. “The cooling of the polar stratosphere associated with loss of ozone increases the horizontal temperature gradient near the tropopause,” he explains. “This alters the flux of angular momentum by mid-latitude eddies. [Angular momentum is important because] the angular momentum budget of the troposphere controls the surface westerlies.” In other words, solar activity felt in the upper atmosphere can, through a complicated series of influences, push surface storm tracks off course.….
    science(DOT)nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08jan_sunclimate/

    Energetics of the Mesosphere and Thermosphere

    ….Virtually all solar photons at wavelengths less than 102.5 nm are absorbed by the major constituents of the thermosphere, N2, 02, and O, leading to ionization of the absorbing species. The photoionization event splits the energy the absorbed of photon approximately equally into two channels shown schematically in Figure 1; the kinetic energy of the ejected fast photoelectron and the chemical energy of the ion product. The latter can be regained in recombination with of an electron.

    The ejected fast photoelectron slows down by Coulomb collisions with the ambient thermal electrons of the ionosphere and by elastic and inelastic collisions with the neutral particles. Fast-photoelectron/thermal-electron collisions result in a local heating of the background ionospheric electron gas,which in turn is directly transferred to the neutral gas by collisions, thus providing the thermal energy to the neutral gas. Also the fast photo-electrons may be sufficiently energetic that on collisions with neutrals, they can cause further ionization, creating more electron-ion pairs, they may excite intern
    al atomic levels of an atom or molecule.
    These excited levels can then be either deactivated by collisions with neutral particles, excess the energy appearing local thermal energy of the particles
    ….
    https://agu.org/books/gm/v087/GM087p0001/GM087p0001.pdf

    So by your definition the only one of the major atmospheric gases that is not a “Greenhouse Gas” is the inert gas Argon at 0.93% of the Atmosphere.
    …..

    GRAPH of spectra of solar radiation and out going Infrared Radiation Ref. Barry & Chorley

    Note the chart in the right hand corner. The incoming solar energy provides much more energy per wavelength than the outgoing IR per wavelength. (Another one of those glossed over points.)

    This graph allows you to see the individual absorption bands in relation to each other. Graph
    However it does not give the same shape as the last graph so does not indicate the energy per wavelength.

    If you put both of those graph in your head it becomes clear that water DOES overlap the CO2 wavebands except in the tail of the IR outgoing radiation.

    So as I said water vapor is the Elephant in the room. It’s Dead Jim, the bands are already saturated and additional CO2 just raises the emissions height in the main band.***

    *** 95% of the radiant energy is absorbed by CO2 at pre-industrial levels leaving a maximum of just 5% for any increase – Physicist Dr. Clive Best

  39. Gail Combs says:

    tonyp says:

    The guy you’re quoting here is playing word games…..

    That is really really rich.

    On the one side we have the NASA scientists and engineers who put a man on the moon, and their hand picked VOLUNTEERS. These VOLUNTEERS out of concern for their country are doing the due diligence that the US government PAID lackeys did not.

    And on the other hand we have a government grant sucking co-author of Chris Turney. That is the same Chris Turney who put pleasing a Green Party politician, Janet Rice, ahead of the safety and wellbeing of the people he was in charge of. The same Chris Turney who mucked up the schedules of other scientists waiting on supplies. The same Chris Turney who cost tax payers million and inconvenienced not one but FOUR different countries….

    There are times I really hope I am around to watch the next glaciation hit. Even Woods Hole Observatory says “… climate can shift gears within a decade, establishing new and different patterns that can persist for decades to centuries…. the concept remains little known and scarcely appreciated in the wider community of scientists, economists, policy makers, and world political and business leaders. Thus, world leaders may be planning for climate scenarios of global warming that are opposite to what might actually occur….”

    If Ruddiman’s “Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis” is correct, the ONLY thing keeping us out of the next ice age is Carbon Dioxide. Also we are not out of the woods by a long shot . The Milankovitch Cycle low point will continue for 65 thousands years. (Lisiecki and Raymo 2005)

    WORSE we are already past the half-precession point which was during the Little Ice Age. The Eemian, the interglacial just before the present one, had two thermal pulses (warm periods) before the Big Drop and so did MIS11 the closest Analog to the Holocene. Earth is now exiting that second thermal pulse, the Modern Warm Period following the Medieval Warm Period . So the real debate should be WHEN the Holocene will end and what the heck we are going to do about it. Unless of course your goal is to kill off a large chunk of the Great Unwashed as fast as possible.

    I have no offspring and it isn’t so much that I think CO2 could actually prevent the next glacial inception, it’s the entertainment value of watching the progressives tying themselves in knots by either do the wrong thing or, at best, an intellectually impotent thing and knowing all these rabid activists lemmings are most likely in for a very rude awaking perhaps even sooner that I think.

    So I am ever hopeful glacial inception will provide the evolutionary cattle prod to smarten up the human race. It certainly needs it from the examples that I have seen. Ice ages have a tendency to cause major increases in the humanoid braincase so I am ever hopeful.

    And do not forget we are probably looking at a grand solar minimum in the next couple of decades:
    In the paper in Nature Geosciences, “Regional atmospheric circulation shifts induced by a grand solar minimum,” Celia Martin-Puertas et al. took a meticulous look at annual sediment deposits in a German lake from 3,300 to 2,000 years ago. They analyzed the sediment layers—called varve—carefully measuring proxies for solar irradiance. This is what they found and their major conclusion:

    Here we analyse annually laminated sediments of Lake Meerfelder Maar, Germany, to derive variations in wind strength and the rate of 10Be accumulation, a proxy for solar activity, from 3,300 to 2,000 years before present. We find a sharp increase in windiness and cosmogenic 10Be deposition 2,759? ±? 39 varve years before present and a reduction in both entities 199? ±? 9 annual layers later. We infer that the atmospheric circulation reacted abruptly and in phase with the solar minimum. A shift in atmospheric circulation in response to changes in solar activity is broadly consistent with atmospheric circulation patterns in long-term climate model simulations, and in reanalysis data that assimilate observations from recent solar minima into a climate model. We conclude that changes in atmospheric circulation amplified the solar signal and caused abrupt climate change about 2,800 years ago, coincident with a grand solar minimum.
    http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/earths-climate-follows-suns-uv-groove

    There are plenty of scientists who have noted we are exiting a Grand Solar Maximum and maybe heading into a Grand Solar Minimum. You can go look them up yourself. I have finished spoon feeding a closed mind.

    • nielszoo says:

      Nicely done… gonna save this one.

    • tonyp says:

      Gail,

      I note that you chose not to address the direct self-contradiction. I note that you chose not to address the fact that you were hoodwinked in the analysis of Fasullo and Trenberth 2008.

      I am very impressed that you could recognise IR fingerprints. That’s very impressive.

      Now you’ve put a lot of information up there and I’m going to tear it apart in one paragraph.

      – Analysis Commences
      You can measure surface radiation flux – 396 Watts per square metre. You can measure the radiation flux at the top of atmosphere – 40 Watts per square metre. You can measure net temperature increase in the atmosphere and work out how much the atmosphere absorbs – 23 Watts per square metre. That leaves 333 Watts per square metre unaccounted for. Now since it doesn’t make it to the top of the atmosphere and it isn’t absorbed into the atmosphere the difference is either due to back scattering or it’s due to energy stealing pixies.
      – Analysis Ends

      I am not convinced Dr Brown is saying what you think he’s saying but if he is then he has a significant problem because basic arithmetic of direct observables shows that back-scatter is non-zero and in fact it’s really quite large.

      There is nothing inherently wrong with analysing from quantum scale and seeing if that agrees with macroscopic processes but where the macroscopic effect behaves in a certain way arguing that it doesn’t because quantum physics says different is futile. I can directly infer the properties of the macroscopic process from observables. If your theoretical expectation disagrees with that then you’ve missed something.

    • philjourdan says:

      Gail:

      I have no offspring

      Here is the duplicity of the alarmists.
      #1: You are good! You are not overpopulating the world, and your Carbon footprint is small. You are a poster child of what they want.
      #2: We must do it for…. THE CHILDREN.

      If everyone was their poster child, there would be no children. They are very duplicitous.

  40. Latitude says:

    tonyp says:
    August 10, 2014 at 11:52 am

    Water vapour cannot provide positive feedback to temperature change because its lifespan in the atmosphere is too short. It only applies its heating effect for a short time and then it is gone.

    In order to consistently increase water vapour levels a sustained temperature increase must be applied and maintained. In that circumstance there will on average be more water vapour and there will be a resulting amplification. Critically, that amplification is not large enough to significantly increase the saturation level of the atmosphere with respect to water vapour. Which is to say, Water vapour can’t drive up temperature by enough to increase the amount of water vapour.

    The situation is different with CO2. If CO2 levels become elevated they will remain so for time scales of centuries. So even a brief temperature increase that raises CO2 levels will leave that CO2 active for a much longer period during which time the CO2 can achieve more significant temperature increase, more than enough to liberate additional CO2. This establishes a positive feedback loop.

    Water vapour levels can only be driven by sustained temperature change and their effect on temperature cannot liberate enough additional water vapour to initiate a feedback loop. CO2 levels can be increased for long periods by brief temperature pulses and that additional timespan is long enough that the resulting heating will liberate more CO2 initiating a positive feedback loop.
    ===
    This is about the more idiotic thing I’ve ever heard…..

    CO2 is not linear…it’s logarithmic

    …and yes, increased water vapor results in temperature increases which result in higher water vapor which result in higher temps which result in higher humidity…..dew point

    Dwell has nothing to do with it…..

    • Gail Combs says:

      You know what is really horrifying about this discussion? This guy is an example of today’s Academics.

      • Shazaam says:

        Yeah,

        Though his claim of being a government employee explains much. Government employees who don’t drink the kool-aid and toe the government line don’t advance much.

        And modeling satellite orbits is soooo complex. Most variables are static. Yeah the orbits may be extremely complex, but that’s what computers are for. Outside the random CME, it has to be the 2nd most boring job ever.

        That explains all the blind spots to real instrumentation issues. Models are just so perfect without any messy, dirty reality to intrude.

        Have fun with that over-educated idiot. He believes in government data and government statistics.

        ’nuff said.

      • Latitude says:

        Gail, I don’t think he really is who he says he is…..if not, he dove in the shallow end too many times

        • Gail Combs says:

          Latitude,
          Actually all the double speak, attacks and twisting and turning reminds me of a bureaucrat/dis-ino agent.

          I unfortunately had the displeasure of working for a retired government chemist for a short while. Not only was the guy dumber than a brick, he made the mistake of jumping in and taking sides in a turf war without figuring out what was going on first.

          He tried to prevent my lab analysis reports from going out to marketing to help production make marketing look bad. He did this by requiring all reports to marketing go through him before being sent to marketing.

          What he didn’t realize was I also made a copy of the hand written report and passed it to the VP of marketing whose secretary then typed it up for his guys.

          Six months later when the ex gov’t turkey tried to fire me because “She is not doing the work” It blew-up in his face. Personnel found all my reports sitting in his desk and he was fired instead of me. The VP of Marketing grabbed the opportunity to expose ‘The Plot’. And real ruckus ensued.

          The second time I worked for a retired government bureaucrat he was hired as a plant manager. The guy was SOooo bad they had to move him to an undisclosed location because of all the death threats against him.

    • tonyp says:

      The logarithmic nature of the feedback does not change that there is still feedback. Also since water is much more abundant it is much closer to saturation and its feedback, which is still logarithmic, is much weaker than that of CO2. Finally water vapour is restricted to the lower portions of the atmosphere and its effect on temperature is therefore more limited.

      None of which changes the central point. Water vapour can’t boot-strap itself to an increase. CO2 can.

      • Latitude says:

        Anthony, I’m sorry, you’re an idiot…

        “Water vapour cannot provide positive feedback to temperature change because its lifespan in the atmosphere is too short. It only applies its heating effect for a short time and then it is gone.”

      • Latitude says:

        Anthony, you keep digging your hole…..

        “Finally water vapour is restricted to the lower portions of the atmosphere and its effect on temperature is therefore more limited.”

        You are not even aware that the most effects of global warming is modeled from water vapor in the stratosphere?.. that stratospheric water vapor has been dropping?…and that lowering of stratospheric water vapor is the excuse for the “pause” in global warming…

        BTW…dunno if you know….but the stratosphere is not the lower portion of the atmosphere

        • tonyp says:

          Partial pressure of water drops to zero at altitude of 60km. The exopause is at an altitude of 800 km. 800 >> 60.

        • tom0mason says:

          The phallus’s fallacy is he HAS to use the unproven (consensus) idea of positive feedback to sustaining his catastrophic (bootstrapped, hahaha moron’s word) meltdown. Then says water can’t do this.
          Yes latitude he is a troll, (strike 99, :lol:) And is full of it. Looking at what the idiot has written I note –
          So logically CO2 wacks in all this heat (heat from where?) and the planet melts because all the time water just sits there doing nothing (?) No convection lofting ground level heat up to the troposphere and beyond. No it just sits there as billions of liters of oceans just getting warm. Ignore the FACT that water in the atmosphere has been PROVEN to absorb IR radiation so much better than CO2. Moron asserts – No the CO2 does this because “…water is much more abundant it is much closer to saturation and its feedback, which is still logarithmic, is much weaker than that of CO2. ” <- Some would say that assertion is questionable I say it is an outright lie! Show the data for that moron! (he can't because as I discovered he does not understand how IR reacts with matter, therefore he IS a scientifically suspect moron)
          Also CO2, as shown by the satallite data radiates heat OFF the planet, at the higher altitudes.

          The other dumb thing this troll moron neglects is that nature, not human's supplies the CO2. Humans are a very minor bit part player in driving up the planet CO2 level (maybe as high as 5%, or as low as 1%). Study after study shows this. But of course the troll chooses to ignore such work as Murry Salby and his work as it is too scienific to read up, acknowledge, or use. Maybe he should look-up David Butman work instead.
          I like what Polyakov has as an aside, in his paper "Recent Changes of Arctic Multiyear Sea Ice Coverage and the Likely Causes" about Butman's work –

          These rivers breathe a lot of carbon.” —David Butman , a doctoral student at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, who coauthored a recent article published in Nature Geoscience showing that rivers and streams in the United States are “supersaturated” with carbon dioxide (CO2) compared to the atmosphere, releasing an amount of CO2 equivalent to a car burning 40 million gallons of gasoline (enough to fuel 3.4 million car trips to the moon).
          Butman and coauthor Pete Raymond, a Yale professor, measured temperature, alkalinity, and pH from samples of more than 4,000 U.S. rivers and streams, and also studied the morphology and surface area of the waterways. They fed this data into a model to determine the flux of CO2 from the water and found that the amount of CO2 given off by rivers and streams “is significant enough for terrestrial modelers to note of it,” according to Butman.
          The study revealed that the CO2, after being released by decomposing plants, is making its way from the ground into the rivers and streams.
          The researchers also determined that an increase in precipitation caused by climate change will create a cycle that to increasing amounts of CO2 in the waterways and subsequently in the atmosphere. (Source : Yale University)

          So it’s just nature, WATER, and most probably the sun.

        • Latitude says:

          Tom, according to Anthony….global warming hypothesis is not possible

        • Shazaam says:

          Actually, if one were to scrape-up all of tonyp / Anthony Purcell’s leavings on this post, that particular novice troll was all over the place and contradicting previous posts with abandon.

          Toto should post more lists of the manifold climatology prediction failures. It seems quite a sensitive spot for the government acolytes. And there is so much material.

  41. mjc says:

    tonyp says:
    August 13, 2014 at 2:05 am

    The accuracy or otherwise of GCMs should be adjudicate on time scales of 30-50 years not 18 where small scale perturbations can remain significant. Clearly more significant than the modellers anticipated.

    Which clearly indicates that the models are not infallible and that there is need for, at the very least, an examination of what went wrong with it (in this case them, since none of them anticipated these ‘small scale perturbations’). And since this ‘small scale perturbation’ is more than half the ‘minimum’ time (60%) of what the ‘evaluation period’ should be, it can actually be a ‘major perturbation’.

    • Gail Combs says:

      “The accuracy or otherwise of GCMs should be adjudicate on time scales of 30-50 years not 18 where small scale perturbations can remain significant.”

      mjc, That is called moving the goal posts. Something the Warmist liars are noted for.

      Here are the original statements made by Warmists and why Skeptics are saying 17 years means:

      G A M E O V E R !

      1. Prof. Phil Jones saying in the Climategate emails – “Bottom line: the “no upward trend” has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.” Also see: interview with Judith Curry and Phil Jones

      2. Ben Santer in a 2011 paper “Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.” link

      3. The NOAA falsification criterion is on page S23 of its 2008 report titled The State Of The Climate

      ENSO-adjusted warming in the three surface temperature datasets over the last 2–25 yr continually lies within the 90% range of all similar-length ENSO-adjusted temperature changes in these simulations (Fig. 2.8b). Near-zero and even negative trends are common for intervals of a decade or less in the simulations, due to the model’s internal climate variability. The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, [Maybe THAT is the 95% the IPCC is now talking about.] suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.

      4. We are looking at no changes in temperature over a period longer than the 10 years that James Hansen once said would show the models wrong;

      So the falsification criteria is 15 years to 17 years. That is why we start at the present and count backwards. Once we hit 17 years The Goose is Cooked. Unfortunately the Goose seems to be a zombie and keeps rising from the dead.

      Anyone have silver bullets, garlic and a wooden stake?

  42. Shazaam says:

    While you wait on that novice troll to locate the next package of content to cut and paste and post without comprehension.

    We ought to focus on expanding this list:

    1) Antarctic sea ice extent is at a record high
    2) Arctic sea ice extent is the highest in ten years
    3) Parts of Antarctica had their coldest June ever
    4) The US is having one of its coldest summers ever
    5) The North Pole is having its coldest summer ever
    6) Satellites show no warming for 17 years.

    7) Every one of the climate models has utterly failed to predict reality.
    8) NOAA and NASA have been detected adjusting the historical temperature data down and recent temperature data up. What is their official justification for this?

    It ought to be quite a long list soon. Toto has been very busy.

    • Gail Combs says:

      It is a bit complicated but the equatorward movement of the Jet streams and the change from zonal to a meridional pattern. The recent ‘Polar Vortex’ mimics the Laurentide ice sheet which brings up the intreging possibility that during glacials the Jet streams remain in a meridional pattern.

      Also the possible switch from an El Niño dominated ENSO to a La Niña dominated ENSO.

      The Antarctic the Antarctic Circumpolar Current splits at Cape Horn and one branch of Antarctic cold water runs up the side of the coast of South America as the Humboldt Current ===> ENSO

      We know the Antarctic sea ice has been expanding and as RACookPE1978 (with tongue firmly wedged) mentioned on WUWT: “…So, we need (43.5 – 33.0) Mkm^2 of extra sea ice or 10.5 above today’s maximum. Antarctic sea ice has been expanding right under 1.0 Mkm^2 per year through all seasons of the year -even the melt season at minimum sea ice extent for 3 years now, so we’ll be set to freeze Cape Horn in about 10 years….

      But it is worse than you think!

      At today’s levels of BOTH minimum AND maximum extent in the Antarctic seas, today’s (and last year’s!) record breaking sea ice extents DO reflect much more solar energy than the exposed waters! At the edge of the Antarctic sea ice at 60 – 70 south latitude, ALL YEAR, every day, the record-breaking Antarctic sea ice extents IS reflecting MORE solar energy and IS cooling the planet down even more.

      And thus we slide quickly into the next major ice age.

      (Richard Courney calls him on his statement)
      ….Oh, you are absolutely right – It is more of a amusing (or mirror-image) question than a “important” but it does show off the CAGW’s religious obsession with Arctic sea ice reduction in the past few years. Alas, it IS more important in that Arctic sea ice cannot reflect solar energy (it is so far north at sea ice minimums that further ice loss only increases heat loss from the planet), but Antarctic sea ice record-setting highs ARE at latitudes where solar lost due to albedo changes ARE significant.

      The math is relatively simple. Double check it you wish….”
      That is a composite of three comments. Cook has studied the subject in depth from what I have read of his comments.

      • tonyp says:

        The increase in Antarctic sea ice is not a consequence of any temperature fall it is a result of increased discharge of ice out of the glaciers of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet resulting from warmer basal conditions and the penetration of warm water under the glaciers to weaken the ice-bedrock interface.

        The albedo effect of the Antarctic sea ice is a fourth order effect and is not going to precipitate an ice age as you frequently and erroneously claim.

        The similarity in pattern between a modern weather system and the Laurentide ice sheet has about as much to do with ice ages as the existence of a face-like structure on Mars demonstrates the existence of Martians. Humans are good at spotting and recognising patterns and images – that does not make them related. This effect is known as pareidolia.

        • philjourdan says:

          A common, and stupid, assumption. The temperature of Antarctica has not gone above freezing. The mass is being lost through sublimation. And volcanism (which only affects the west part). The sea ice is being created because it is below freezing.

          Physics 101. Strike 62.

      • philjourdan says:

        The recent ‘Polar Vortex’ mimics the Laurentide ice sheet

        That struck me as well. Plus the late thaw of the Great lakes. It seems we have a clue on the mechanics of the ice sheet. Now we just need to find out the time table and cause.

        • Gail Combs says:

          Agreed.

          That is why I have been looking at solar/ozone/ wind/Antarctic Circumpolar Current (West Wind Drift) and Drake Passage ====> ENSO There is some tantalizing research in that area but nothing really firm yet.

          I put in a comment about those factors but WordPress kicked it into moderation (too many links) so we will have to wait for Steve to get home from work before it gets posted.
          ……
          In response to one of my comments at WUWT Dr Robert Brown responded with this information.

          (note for Tonyp)
          The IPCC actually said in the Science Report in TAR:

          “in climate research and modeling we should recognise that we are dealing with a complex non linear chaotic signature and therefore that long-term prediction of future climatic states is not possible”

          IPCC 2001 section 4.2.2.2 page 774

          Back to Dr Brown and his comment on Chaos Theory

          More properly, not necessarily bistable — it could even be multistable. But the current data from the last five million years strongly supports bistability — one has to go back to the Eocene fifty million years ago to find a distinct third phase (if it is really distinct) and as you pointed out in later posts, the continents were in a different position then and that apparently matters far more than “just” CO_2.

          Personally, I don’t think we understand any of this yet. Not even close. Milankovitch is a glib hypothesis, but one with many open questions (such as why the period of glaciation changes over the Pliestocene.

          If I had to try to muse on the probable nature/structure of the poincare cycles that describe the climate, it would be something like two major attractors but with NUMEROUS lesser attractors in the neighborhoods of the major attractors and with slow processes — e.g. Milankovitch — driving the actual motion and stability of the attractors themselves. As the interglacial draws to a close, the warm phase simply becomes less and less stable. Depending on pure chaotic chance, motion around the attractor will eventually carry the system into a state where transition to the cold phase attractor becomes likely — just enough positive feedback from e.g. glaciation albedo that glaciation becomes favored. Again depending on pure chaotic chance, the transition can be anything from very rapid and sudden to slow and with many bobbles.

          Empirically, the bobbles are a lot more likely in cold phase, though. The warm to cold transition is more usually quite rapid in geological time.

          I sometimes wonder why people do not try to match up a chaotic oscillator in N dimensions that has the right qualitative properties to describe this. Sure, it is blatant numerology, but if a good heuristic numerical model was found that had the right properties, it might give us insight into the underlying critical dimensionality, which in turn might give us insight into how many independent variables are important in the PRIMARY baseline evolution of the locally stable attractors themselves. rgb

          Take that info about the idea of the climate as a “Complex nonlinear multivariate systems… exhibiting “strange attractors”” and a possible bistable climate and look at this data.

          First look at this information from NOAA. It give you a feel for how close to glaciation we are.

          Depth of the last ice age – around 463 Wm?2
          NOW (modern Warm Period) 476Wm-2
          Holocene peak insolation: 522.5 Wm-2

          The earth is now receiving ~ 13 Wm?2 more insolation than it did during the last Ice Age compared to ~46 Wm?2 less insolation than it did during the Holocene Optimum.

          Then look at the values given in the fall 2012 paper “Can we predict the duration of an interglacial? “
          This paper, gives the calculated solar insolation for termination of several interglacials. Current value is given as insolation = 479 W m?2.

          MIS 7e – insolation = 463 W m?2,
          MIS 11c – insolation = 466 W m?2,
          MIS 13a – insolation = 500 W m?2,
          MIS 15a – insolation = 480 W m?2,
          MIS 17 – insolation = 477 W m?2,

          The current insolation is within the window for interglacial termination and the window varies by 37 Wm-2. This seems to indicate the Milancovitch cycle brings the earth near a strange attractor and other factors add up to kick the climate out of orbiting the warm strange attractor into orbiting the cold strange attractor. The Dansgaard-Oeschger events also indicate other factors kick the climate from one attractor to the other and it ain’t CO2.

          Now all we have to do is figure out what those other factors are instead of wasting time chasing Unicorn Farts and Fairy Fog.

  43. mjc says:

    9) There iis enough recent research to cast doubt on the accepted prehistoric CO2 record.
    10) Past warm periods were real and global. The same for cold periods

  44. gator69 says:

    Turnyp says:
    August 12, 2014 at 5:22 am
    “Strikes two and three in the one post and you are out of there gator. But thank you for playing.

    Hurl insults on your own time.”

    This is my own time moron. Your insistence on pushing this global warming BS is an insult to everyone with a functioning brain.

    You deny natural variability and excuse all the fudging and errors if your warmist priests. I showed you evidence of a global LIA, and you balked because we did not have established global weather stations at the time. What a poor attempt to deny a well established event.

    I can also provide documentation of the MWP, but why cast pearls before swine?

    Got faith? 😆

    • tom0mason says:

      IMO we’ve been feeding the troll.
      ““Strikes two and three in the one post and you are out of there gator. But thank you for playing.
      … thank you for playing.”
      …for playing.”
      There is no reason with the troll, and it will make no difference what you say.
      So, you could tell him to Fucough, or not if you want to play this as fun game …
      Either way enjoy

      • Shazaam says:

        Agreed.

        That one was reveling in the attention. And when pinned down on behavior or facts, screamed foul. Childish…. and appears to have many shared characteristics and mannerisms of another troll lurking Toto’s site…..

        Just sayin’

        • tom0mason says:

          🙂

        • Gail Combs says:

          “Childish,” that is completely insulated from reality by Mommy and Daddy then Academia and then the gov’t bureaucracy seems to be a characteristic of Warmists.

          Only a stalk raving mad idiot or someone very ill informed would go along with a program designed to cast them out of a nice warm nest into a pack of hungry lions with no weapons. Make no mistake, if you kill the economy, you kill tax revenue and the first to go will be the non-essential jobs (like academia) as the government downsizes.

          Unfortunately that is what cutting CO2 emissions by 83% will do to most people in the USA kick them out of the warm nest. There is all ready an estimated 2 trillion dollar Underground Economy and many are Going Galt (And yes my husband and I have gone Galt.)

          The warmist blind followers can not connect the dots and see if you strip CO2 emitting energy sources you are doing the equivalent of tossing buck naked people out into the wilderness with NO survival skills, No teachers, No tools.

          They are also completely blind to the fact that when the populus finally wakes up and realizes the extent of the scam, some of the looser screws are going to want real revenge and are going to go hunting. The targets are not going to be the wealthy who are well insulated but the ‘scientists’ whose rear ends are hanging in the breeze, who have been promoting this crap.

          If they are very very lucky, people will take Oliver M’s position. If they are not so lucky they will find themselves sacrificed like a Bernie Maddoff. If they are really unlucky they will find themselves facing a Rodney King repeat or worse.

        • tonyp says:

          A Randian. Go Gail! You Galt the hell out of yourself. I’m sure by the end of the week we’ll all be begging you to come back. Strikes one two and three in the one post! Way too much deranged conspiracy theory for me.

        • philjourdan says:

          Strike 63 for more mindless and infantile ad hominems.

          Her views have never been a secret. You can disagree. But petty ad hominems do nothing except show your immaturity.

        • tom0mason says:

          The trolls are out in. I’ve just been at Joanna Nova (http://joannenova.com.au ) site, the place is crawling with them. Even that to$$er Appel typing straight from the sphincter.

          Oddly they are trying to use exactly the same attack mode and subject.

        • philjourdan says:

          Which article? Connolley has been polluting the place since his site went belly up. And there are a couple of others that continue to trash it when they can (a new one today – Vince Whirlwind). But I have not see apple.

        • tom0mason says:

          http://joannenova.com.au/2014/08/its-an-unsettling-climate-for-skeptical-scientists-like-murry-salby/

          Trolls noted but possibly others

          Craig Thomas
          William Connelley
          Dav Apple
          Very simillar questions, and answers.

        • philjourdan says:

          Thanks. Missed that one. Apple is slithering as usual.

        • tom0mason says:

          What’s new – was he hssthing too?
          As I alway imagined he has a lisp.

        • philjourdan says:

          Maybe his stage name is Krepke.

        • tom0mason says:

          🙂
          The Big Bang Theory and all that.

        • Gail Combs says:

          I am not surprised Appell has been there pretty much from the beginning along with their resident trolls.

          After watching Jo Nova’s clowder of engineers deal with Svaalgard, I would just sit back and watch the fun.

          Dr Evans has come up with a model. The model has made a specific prediction. Now we sit back and wait a couple years at most.

          Since ALL the IPCCs Climate models have been falsified. The scramble to wash the egg off the faces of scientists, academics and politicians will be real fun if Dr. Evans Model is not falsified.

          MORE POPCORN!

  45. Gail Combs says:

    tonyp says:

    We are not in an ice age we are demonstrably in an inter-glacial period….
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    Actually you screwed up that terminology which is really strange for some one who is supposed to be a Quaternary Scientist. Even I, a chemist with only couple of 1960s geo courses under my belt know the terms.

    Utah Geological Survey
    What is an ice age? An ice age is a long interval of time (millions to tens of millions of years) when global temperatures are relatively cold and large areas of the Earth are covered by continental ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within an ice age are multiple shorter-term periods of warmer temperatures when glaciers retreat (called interglacials or interglacial cycles) and colder temperatures when glaciers advance (called glacials or glacial cycles).

    At least five major ice ages have occurred throughout Earth’s history: the earliest was over 2 billion years ago, and the most recent one began approximately 3 million years ago and continues today (yes, we live in an ice age!).

  46. Gail Combs says:

    Tonyp:

    “…Finally water vapour is restricted to the lower portions of the atmosphere….

    Latitude says:

    “…..You are not even aware that the most effects of global warming is modeled from water vapor in the stratosphere?.. that stratospheric water vapor has been dropping?…..”

    Actually you are both correct, sort of. Most water stops at the tropopause. That is why thunderclouds are anvil shaped with a flat top.

    However some water does get into the stratosphere mostly in the tropics.
    Contributions of Stratospheric Water Vapor to Decadal Changes in the Rate of Global Warming

    Interannual Changes of Stratospheric Water Vapor and Correlations with Tropical Tropopause Temperatures

    you can slog through these papers:

    Toward an Understanding of Vertical Momentum Transports in Cloud-System-Resolving Model Simulations of Multiscale Tropical Convection
    ABSTRACT
    This study examines the characteristics of convective momentum transport (CMT) and gravity wave momentum transport (GWMT) in two-dimensional cloud-system-resolving model simulations, including the relationships between the two transports. A linear group velocity criterion is shown to objectively separate CMT and GWMT. The GWMT contribution is mostly consistent with upward-propagating gravity waves and is present in the troposphere and the stratosphere. The CMT contribution forms a large part of the residual (nonupward-propagating contribution) and dominates the fluxes in the troposphere. Additional analysis of the vertical sensible heat flux supports the physical interpretation of the two contributions, further isolating the effects of unstable convection from vertically propagating gravity waves.

    The role of transient and nonconservative (friction and diabatic heating) processes in generating momentum flux and their dependence on changes in convective organization was assessed using a pseudo-momentum budget analysis. Nonconservative effects were found to dominate the transports; the GWMT contribution involved a diabatic source region in the troposphere and a dissipative sink region in the stratosphere. The CMT contribution was consistent with transport between the boundary layer and free troposphere via tilted convection. Transient buoyancy–vorticity correlations highlighted wave sources in the region of convective outflow and the boundary layer. These sources were akin to the previously described ‘‘mechanical oscillator’’ mechanism. Fluxes associated with this upper-level source were most sensitive to convective organization, highlighting the mechanism by which changes in organization are communicated to GWMT. The results elucidate important interactions between CMT and GWMT, adding further weight to suggestions that the two transports should be linked in parameterization.

    On the interaction between the stratosphere and troposphere during the warming of December 1967-january 1968
    Abstract

    Calculations of the transfer of kinetic energy from the troposphere to the stratosphere by means of the pressure-interaction term are carried out for the mid-winter stratospheric warming of 1967-1968. This term is computed in the wave number domain for the 100 mb level by means of the Eliassen and Palm (1960) approximation. There appears to be a distinct correlation between the stratospheric kinetic energy per wave number at the 10 mb level and the energy transfer by that wave number at the 100-mb level. A comparison of the magnitude of the energy flux for 1963 versus that for this later warming suggests that this term is of the same order as the remaining terms in the kinetic energy equation calculated by Perry (1967). Results obtained using this approximation appear to give good agreement with those obtained by direct calculation of the vertical velocity field.

  47. Gail Combs says:

    tonyp says:
    August 13, 2014 at 12:54 am

    You might like to find an example and demonstrate its inaccuracy rather than make a blanket unsupported assertion….
    >>>>>>>>>>>>
    Here you go Tony, some real time data that shows WHY the “infilling and other dicey methods are invalid. There is a range of ~ 7°F in about a 30 mile radius. infilling is something like 500 kilometers There is no way the numbers are accurate to more than +/- 5°F especially when MOST of the “official data stations” are only good to 2°C if that.
    For the USA:
    6.2% of stations =/> 5°C
    64.4% of stations =/> 2°C
    21.5% of stations =/> 1°C
    and only 7.9% of stations are have an error less than 1°C
    AND the US data is SUPPOSED to be the best data available. In otherwords the Climastrologists are blowing smoke. Their data is CRAP. They can not draw the conclusions from it they assert.
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    Data from the area around my home in the sunny south -mid NC USA. @ 7:34 AM EDT (GMT -0400)
    Temp. Dew Pt Humidity Wind Pressure Precipitation Elevation Updated
    ____________________________________________________________________
    60.0 °F 58 °F 94% 30.01 in 0.00 in / hr 415 ft 37 min 32 sec ago
    59.5 °F 58 °F 97% 29.99 in 0.00 in / hr 381 ft 3 sec ago
    59.1 °F 56 °F 93% 30.02 in 0.00 in / hr 344 ft 1 sec ago
    60.8 °F 54 °F 81% 30.05 in 0.00 in / hr 381 ft 1 sec ago
    61.0 °F 59 °F 96% 29.94 in 0.00 in / hr 407 ft 3 sec ago
    60.1 °F 60 °F 98% 30.02 in 0.00 in / hr 249 ft 38 min 8 sec ago
    61.0 °F 59 °F 97% 30.01 in 0.00 in / hr 617 ft 2 min 54 sec ago
    60.9 °F 59 °F 99% 30.08 in 0.00 in / hr 692 ft 3 min 3 sec ago
    66.3 °F 60 °F 85% 29.98 in 0.00 in / hr 489 ft 5 min 15 sec ago
    58.7 °F 57 °F 97% 29.89 in 0.00 in / hr 522 ft 3 min 3 sec ago
    56.0 °F 55 °F 99% 30.01 in 0.00 in / hr 422 ft 6 sec ago
    62.0 °F 59 °F 92% 30.00 in 0.00 in / hr 561 ft 2 min 44 sec ago
    59 °F 57 °F 93% 29.95 in 0.00 in / hr 593 ft 1 hr 1 min 8 sec ago
    56.3 °F 56 °F 99% 30.01 in – / hr 348 ft 38 min 31 sec ago
    58.4 °F 56 °F 100% 30.01 in 0.00 in / hr 469 ft 4 sec ago
    58.1 °F 58 °F 98% 30.02 in 0.00 in / hr 318 ft 39 min 17 sec ago
    58.4 °F 58 °F 98% 30.02 in 0.00 in / hr 318 ft 40 min 25 sec ago
    61.3 °F 60 °F 97% 61.51 in 0.00 in / hr 371 ft 3 min 6 sec ago
    61.0 °F 59 °F 98% 30.02 in 0.00 in / hr 348 ft 14 sec ago
    63.1 °F 36 °F 38% 29.82 in 0.00 in / hr 388 ft 2 sec ago
    58.2 °F 56 °F 95% 30.03 in 0.00 in / hr 486 ft 2 min 20 sec ago
    60.3 °F 58 °F 95% 30.03 in 0.00 in / hr 367 ft 2 sec ago
    64.0 °F 57 °F 83% 29.74 in 0.00 in / hr 417 ft 1 sec ago
    60.1 °F 57 °F 91% 30.02 in 0.00 in / hr 308 ft 8 sec ago
    62.0 °F 58 °F 93% 30.02 in 0.00 in / hr 476 ft 2 sec ago
    57.2 °F 57 °F 99% 29.82 in – / hr 335 ft 37 min 50 sec ago
    62.5 °F 60 °F 95% 30.09 in 0.00 in / hr 358 ft 9 sec ago
    63.5 °F 60 °F 97% 30.53 in 0.00 in / hr 318 ft 3 min 3 sec ago
    62.6 °F 56 °F 87% 30.51 in 0.00 in / hr 390 ft 2 min 8 sec ago
    57.9 °F 55 °F 89% 29.71 in – / hr 397 ft 43 min 13 sec ago
    60.6 °F 59 °F 98% 29.92 in – / hr 407 ft 4 min 0 sec ago
    60.7 °F 58 °F 97% 30.03 in 0.00 in / hr 410 ft 27 sec ago
    65.2 °F 60 °F 86% 30.00 in 0.00 in / hr 433 ft 2 sec ago
    65.7 °F 59 °F 79% 29.63 in 0.00 in / hr 486 ft 4 min 2 sec ago

    • tonyp says:

      This is, like, most of the results you claim. Gibberish.

      • philjourdan says:

        So the truth comes out – you are incapable of reading simple data! Strike 73

        You are down to the last inning. I have never seen anyone rack up strikes as fast as you. Perhaps if you stayed away from childish insults and juvenile straw men, you would not be whiffing so often.

        • Gail Combs says:

          Phil,
          Perhaps we should go easy on the guy. I think he is an academic who was out of a job and offered a job as a paid disinformation internet shill. The requirements of course are a talent for writting bafflegab and who is better at that that academics?

          He was assigned this site on a trial basis and given the pig shit he is spewing, is flunking that trial badly.

          No doubt if he flunks it is back to the unemployment line or worse posting comment at Huffn’Puff and the Groiniad.

        • philjourdan says:

          I can say I have seen worse posters. But I have never seen more arrogant ones. if he got even ONE thing correct, his arrogance may be justified. But the only thing he is good at is his arrogance!

          That is why he is unemployed. He pissed off every employer that would have him, before they learned he was dumb as a stump.

        • Shazaam says:

          @Gail, I have no problem with them reassigning these useless academic specimens to re-education at troll central…. If they are getting paid for this crap, that would indeed be “progressive employment”.

          It’s the deliberate attempts to confuse and distort the issues and facts that annoys me. http://robertringer.com/beware-the-debater/

          This particular troll deliberately misunderstood comments, deliberately distorted issues and apparently was only interested in stirring the pot and playing troll baseball.

          It’s talking points were cut and pasted from somewhere in troll central without comprehension and when confronted, it just skipped off to do more of the same elsewhere.

      • Gail Combs says:

        And that like most of your replies is out right PIG SHIT.

        You asked for an“an example” and to “demonstrate its inaccuracy”

        Well guess what I just did.

        Those numbers are a copy and paste from Wunderground. They are real time data for weatherstations in my nearby area.

        The maximum distance between those stations is 34.1 miles

        If you do not like the format then complain to Dr Jeff Masters. As I said I am NOT spoon feeding you. I am not going to pretty up the data. If you are incapable of reading a listing of data then you certainly are no scientist.

        • tom0mason says:

          And lo, the great Tonypee, the master of turgid cuteth and pasteth, did typeth, and from his exulted high computer he enscribe the words thusly

          “This is, like, most of the results you claim. Gibberish.”

          And again the lowly peasants were striken for they knew their truth was true. Cowering together they realized that they had offended his awsome, grandiloquent, magnificence.
          They spoke the sacred words to appease the offended scribbler of distended prose.
          “Bollocks!” they entone.

          🙂

        • Gail Combs says:

          😈

        • Gail Combs says:

          😈

        • tonyp says:

          Gail,

          Data collection depends on the rate at which the data are collected and the rate at which the observable is changing. Now a machine might give an instantaneous reading of 35 units at a timestamp. But the surrounding however many time observations may give a reading of 34 units. We can conclude then that the reading at the timestamp was a result of machine error and weight it accordingly. There are multiple mathematical procedures for that.

          If you have multiple sources of error you can apply multiple corrections with the effect that the time series will adjust on different time-scales. This is not fudging the data. That is error-detection and remediation.

          Some time doen the road you may discover some genius installed a water heater or air conditioner unit next to your thermometer and you may have to revise or simply discard the entire data set. Maybe the thermometer developed a bias.

          As a consequence observed quantities are always being revised as weighting systems integration techniques and statistical methods are adjusted and refined.

          That seems dodgy to you. Get Phil to explain it.

          Now on the subject of pig-shit.

          Have you considered how big your conspiracy of corrupt scientists is?

          200 scientific associations worldwide. Let’s guess 800 conspirators for each of them. 500 universities let’s say 60 people each. 20 different satellite programs, with say half the satellite and instrument technicians and all the data analysts, a total of 1500 per mission. The editorial staff of all the major journals, maybe a thousand all up.

          That’s a grand total of 211,000 people who need to be directly corrupt or grossly incompetent and that seems a pretty conservative estimate considering what you’re asking for. And none of them have flipped and brought the evidence of the conspiracy with them? No payment schedules no emails or letters, no recordings of meetings with GE execs or Rothschilds representatives or whoever.

          And that… that seems realistic. To everyone here.

        • philjourdan says:

          Show us where those 800×200 scientists have EVER published a paper on the subject. Strike 79

          Your problem is that you think all those idiots did their own research. Do you think that Obama really did go to Pakistan to kill Bin Laden? Or did he rely on the word of others? Tick tock, the clock is moving – answer it.

          So the conspiracy theory is yours alone. Strike 80.

          One strike away now.

  48. Gail Combs says:

    Tonyp:
    So the atmosphere is not heating up as quickly as it was. But it is still heating up.

    And yet again. If you incorporate ocean heat the warming has sped up.
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    The various data sets show a PAUSE in the temperature for up to 17 years 10months (RSS) Do you not understand the word PAUSE?
    Cambridge Dictionary:

    pause
    noun
    B2 a short period in which something such as a sound or
    an activity is stopped before starting again:

    Translation the WARMING HAS STOPPED!
    …..
    OCEANS
    US EPA “…This graph shows how the average surface temperature of the world’s oceans has changed since 1880. This graph uses the 1971 to 2000 average as a baseline for depicting change….” GRAPH
    NOTE: According to the EPA, which is obviously pushing CAGW, ocean temp has flat lined the same way the air temperature has..

    Climate models over estimate global ocean temperature and there for FAILS: GRAPH

    Peer-reviewed paper:

    Nonstationarity versus scaling in hydrology
    ABSTRACT
    The perception of a changing climate, which impacts also hydrological processes, is now generally admitted. However, the way of handling the changing nature of climate in hydrologic practice and especially in hydrological statistics has not become clear so far. The most common modelling approach is to assume that long-term trends, which have been found to be omnipresent in long hydrological time series, are “deterministic” components of the time series and the processes represented by the time series are nonstationary. In this paper, it is maintained that this approach is contradictory in its rationale and even in the terminology it uses. As a result, it may imply misleading perception of phenomena and estimate of uncertainty….

  49. Gail Combs says:

    What heats the oceans at depth?

    Solar radiation: GRAPH
    IR radiation is limited to warming the surface. (we are talking in the micron range and not the meter range.)

    NASA ocean surface salinity map “NASA’s new Aquarius instrument has produced its first global map of the salinity, or saltiness, of Earth’s ocean surface”

    NOAA: All About Sea Ice
    ….Sea ice also affects the movement of ocean waters. When sea ice forms, most of the salt is pushed into the ocean water below the ice, although some salt may become trapped in small pockets between ice crystals. Water below sea ice has a higher concentration of salt and is more dense than surrounding ocean water, and so it sinks. In this way, sea ice contributes to the ocean’s global “conveyor-belt” circulation. Cold, dense, polar water sinks and moves along the ocean bottom toward the equator, while warm water from mid-depth to the surface travels from the equator toward the poles….
    …New ice is usually very salty because it contains concentrated droplets called brine that are trapped in pockets between the ice crystals, and so it would not make good drinking water. As ice ages, the brine eventually drains through the ice, and by the time it becomes multiyear ice, nearly all of the brine is gone. Most multiyear ice is fresh enough that someone could drink its melted water. In fact, multiyear ice often supplies the fresh water needed for polar expeditions….

    The Thermocline: GRAPH Shows most of the ‘heat’ in the oceans is in the top 500 meters.
    Thermocline and salinity explanation from MarineBio Organization.

    Temperature and density share an inverse relationship. As temperature increases, the space between water molecules increases—also known as density, which therefore decreases. If the temperature of water decreases its density increases, but only to a point. At a temperature of 4°C pure water reaches its maximum or peak density, cooled further it expands and becomes less dense than the surrounding water which is why when water freezes at 0°C it floats….. Various events can contribute to change in the density of seawater.

    Salinity can decrease from the melting of polar ice or increase from the freezing of polar ice. Evaporation increases salinity and density while the addition of freshwater decreases salinity and density.
    The ocean water is constantly churning underneath, bringing nutrients up to the top. The difference in density of cold water versus density of warmer water is responsible for ocean currents and upwelling. Warm seawater floats and cold (4°C), dense (1 g/cm3), seawater sinks, so ocean temperatures also vary across the surface and into the depths.
    Seawater is saturated with salts at 35 ppt and at 4°C the salinity causes the density to actually be 1.0278 g/cm3. This slightly heavier density is another contributing factor to upwelling as it causes the water molecules to roll over each other.

    Temperatures range from -2°C to 28°C in most cases, but are hotter near hydrothermal vents or closer to land. Salinity is usually 35 ppt (parts per thousand), but can range from 28-41 ppt and is highest in the northern Red Sea.
    When the temperature, density or salinity of a layer changes rapidly, this region is referred to as a cline. Thermoclines, or areas of rapid change in temperature… Areas of rapid change in density are pycnoclines and areas of rapid change in salinity are haloclines.

    Thermoclines occur a short distance offshore when the shallow surface water is heated by the sun, resulting in warm, less dense, water staying at the surface and the sinking of cold, dense water. A seasonal thermocline is formed when surface water is cooled, and sinks to the bottom resulting in a mixing of the layers. The approaching cool weather impacts primary production in the euphotic zone by cooling the surface water and bringing phytoplankton with nutrients to the creatures below. Shorter days and lower angles of sunlight limit the growth rate of the phytoplankton, which in turn limits the primary production and growth rate of organisms higher on the food chain.
    A new thermocline is created in the spring when the increase in sunlight results in less mixing and a “bloom” in phytoplankton. The waters turn from blue to green as the increase in the number of phytoplankton dissolving inorganic nutrients causes an increase in chlorophyll biomass. Herbivorous zooplankton biomass also begins to increase, providing food for an entire food web above that depend on the energy they provide.
    During the summer, the phytoplankton absorb most of the dissolved inorganic nutrients from the surface waters and are consumed by the zooplankton, decreasing the rate of photosynthesis. Vertical mixing ceases and phytoplankton, which remain in the upper layers, become nutrient-limited. The cycle starts all over in the fall when the surface water cools, churning the deeper, nutrient-rich waters into the depleted surface waters. Nutrients become available again and the phytoplankton blooms in great quantity during the spring after the intense winter mixing. Fall and summer are the least plentiful months due to the less active summer waters.

    The seasonal cycle of phytoplankton growth is an amazing demonstration of the complex and interwoven physical, chemical and biological processes of the ocean. Dr. Sean Chamberlin has described this phenomenon in the following paragraph:
    [Professor Sean Chamberlin teaches oceanography, meteorology, marine biology @ Univ of California. he has written textbooks and papers on oceanography
    .]

    “The onset of vertical stratification is a physical process stimulating a biological process called primary productivity. This biological process known as phytoplankton photosynthesis affects a chemical process which is the concentration of inorganic nutrients. As photosynthesis proceeds, the concentration of inorganic nutrients diminishes. In an ironic twist of fate, the chemical processes (the rate at which new inorganic nutrients are made available) take over the biological processes (rates of photosynthesis). In another interplay of processes, we can also see how biological processes (increases in chlorophyll, detritus, and bacteria, important components of light absorption) affect a physical process (the penetration of light into the water column). Geological processes such as the weathering of rocks are also involved as the ultimate source of all the nutrients in the sea, and thus, geology affects biology. One of the oceans’ and nature’s most fascinating characteristics is the interplay between these processes and how a large stationary rock on land can affect a tiny floating microscopic plant in the ocean!”

    Thermohaline circulation simply refers to global density-driven circulation of the oceans. Heat (thermo), and haline (density) are the two main factors determining the density of seawater. As you may remember, temperature and density share an inverse relationship so when the surface currents (i.e. the Gulf Stream) flow towards the poles from the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, they are cooled and flow downhill into deep water basins forming the North Atlantic Deep Water. These currents resurface in the northeast Pacific Ocean 1,200 years later. Ocean water from all of the ocean basins mixes thoroughly, carrying heat energy and matter in the form of solids and gases, making Earth’s ocean a global system. As you can see, the state of this thermohaline circulation, sometimes called the global conveyor belt, can have an enormous impact on the climate of our planet…..

    • tonyp says:

      Gail,

      There is nothing in your quote that demonstrates that hotter air won’t heat the oceans.

      You do this consistently. You quote massive long passages that have nothing whatever to do with what you’re trying to demonstrate. There is not a single sentence in that entire piece about IR. Nor is there a statement that suggests hotter air is in no way responsible for heating of the oceans. If there is try highlighting it rather than random passages about nothing in particular.

      • Gail Combs says:

        tonyp says:
        Gail,
        There is nothing in your quote that demonstrates that hotter air won’t heat the oceans…. There is not a single sentence in that entire piece about IR. Nor is there a statement that suggests hotter air is in no way responsible for heating of the oceans….
        >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
        Tony if we make simple statement you attack. If we back those statements up with papers, you attack.

        So lets do it real simple.

        #1. Dr Brown (and others) show that the IR emitted by the earth and ‘captured’ by CO2 is not re-radiated back towards earth but is passed to N2 and O2 via collisions. IR radiation is relatively ‘weak’ energy wise compared to UV or EUV and CO2 is 0.004% (400 ppm – 360 ppm) of the atmosphere so you are not talking huge amounts of energy to begin with. STRIKE ONE

        #2. Neither the Atmospheric temperature nor the Sea Surface temperature has changed in over a decade. STRIKE TWO

        #2. The CO2 wavelength IR energy, what there is of it, is ONLY imparted to a thin skin on the surface. STRIKE THREE

        #3. The sun’s energy that most effects deep ocean temperature EUV, has changed by as much as 100% according to NASA. STRIKE FOUR

        #4. The Argo buoys sample the upper 750 meters of the ocean and have seen no real sign of the “missing Heat’ STRIKE FIVE

        There was a comparatively minor warming in the Northern Hemisphere at depths of 0-2000 meters from 2005 to 2012. But the upper 700 meters in the Northern Hemisphere cooled. graph If anything, this profile of warming points fingers at EUV as the culprit and not IR.
        The North Indian Ocean basically ends in the tropics with the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, both bordering Asia. This tropical location is where the most warming is seen. GRAPH
        The the North Pacific on the other hand shows COOLING. GRAPH

        This newer Graph (0-700M) shows the same ‘PAUSE’ seen in the atmospheric and SST graphs and so does this Graph (0-700M) Actually the second graph of the tropical pacific shows COOLING.

        Since the ASSumption is that CO2 is well mixed in the atmosphere the ‘heating’ should be seen iniformly in all ocean basins but it is not. It is seen in the tropics where the effect of the sun’s energy is the greatest. If anything, these profiles of warming/cooling points fingers at solar energy/UV as the culprit and not Earthshine/IR.
        H/T Bob Tisdale for all his work on this subject.

        #5. SALINITY changes are the primary method for deep ocean over turning and that is very very cold, very salty water sinking at the poles. STRIKE SIX

        #6. Even your buddy, Trenberth says ENSO IS FUELED BY SUNLIGHT
        Trenberth et al. (2002) The evolution of ENSO and global atmospheric surface temperatures

        The negative feedback between SST and surface fluxes can be interpreted as showing the importance of the discharge of heat during El Niño events and of the recharge of heat during La Niña events. Relatively clear skies in the central and eastern tropical Pacific allow solar radiation to enter the ocean, apparently offsetting the below normal SSTs, but the heat is carried away by Ekman drift, ocean currents, and adjustments through ocean Rossby and Kelvin waves, and the heat is stored in the western Pacific tropics. This is not simply a rearrangement of the ocean heat, but also a restoration of heat in the ocean. Similarly, during El Niño the loss of heat into the atmosphere, especially through evaporation, is a discharge of the heat content, and both contribute to the life cycle of ENSO.

        If you are going to try and argue with us ‘amateurs’ you really do need to have a much broader, more in-depth knowledge and understanding of the subject matter.

        • philjourdan says:

          is this one of those puzzles where you figure out what is wrong? Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! (ala Horschack).

          you got 2 number 2s.

        • Shazaam says:

          @phil — Now you’ve gone and done it. You’ve stolen tonypee’s thunder….

          You’ve left him with nothing!!!

        • tonyp says:

          ENSO is driven by sunlight and that relates to long term trends how?

          Overturning is partially driven by salinity. I said as much earlier. How does that prove there is no ocean warming?

          The Argo data do show heating so that’s just false.

          The thin heating would be relevant if it weren’t for wave action which moves heated surface layers to depth.

          Funny, I thought you said NASA were completely unreliable. And a quantity can change by up to 100% without exhibiting a long term trend. You might like to plot the function sin(x) to see how that works. The implicit assumption that it has changed by 100% linearly is baseless.

          Dr Brown can argue with the 333 Watts per square metre of surface radiation that vanishes between the surface and the top of atmosphere. If that is not back-scatter where did the energy go? You can argue from quantum mechanical principles that something shouldn’t exist but if observed macroscopic processes directly contradict that result you’re wrong.

          And none of that matters to you. If you read it, you don’t comprehend it.

          You can’t see the logical disconnect between ENSO and long term trends. I cannot state it any plainer. They’re completely unrelated. Oscillations and linear trends have nothing to do with one another.

          The existence of another contributor to overturning (salinity) somehow means that the other term (heat) is irrelevant or doesn’t exist or isn’t changing. How? How did that conclusion follow? It’s like saying that because I put both butter and flour into a cookie recipe increasing the amount of flour won’t change anything. You can do that experiment at home. It obviously does!

          The Argo data goes down to 2700 m just with lower spatial resolution and it clearly shows a warming trend in the upper 700, and between 700m and 2700m.

          And yes, quantum analysis is important but quantum physics has been used to demonstrate all sorts of stuff that turns out not be true. Here I have observations that demonstrate pretty conclusively that back-scatter exists and is large. So Dr Brown’s assertion that it just doesn’t happen (if indeed that is what he says) seems to be on pretty shaky ground.

          And again, it doesn’t matter how compelling or how obvious the flaws in your position are you’ll skip away happily to some other paper quote an irrelevant 2 or 3 thousand words without demonstrating any real comprehension of the logical relationship between the components of the argument and come to some ridiculous conclusion like using solsticial heat-flux at noon is way better than using a global average.

          And I’ve actually been very patient for nigh on a week now and enough is enough. You and your confreres have been rude, inflammatory, and painfully resistant to logic. So the period where I was restrained is over.

        • philjourdan says:

          You were never restrained. However it can be arranged. See you local mental institution.

      • geran says:

        Okay, we’ve been warned. Purcell is not going to go easy on us now.

        (Slight delay until I stop laughing….)

        Here is who this guy is. As others have noticed, he is a troll. A troll yes, but he is a PAID troll. He’s a research “assistant”.

        Check it out:

        http://rses.anu.edu.au/people/tony-purcell

        • Shazaam says:

          And he’s so damned thick that I still say he’s missing his calling as a tele-marketer.

          Or maybe a phys-ed teacher.

        • Gail Combs says:

          Oh he is very definitely a paid dis-info agent and one of the most incompetent I have run across.

          If this guy is a Dr. in Geodynamics & Geodes, a research assistant, they certainly haven’t bothered teaching him anything. – Like how to think his way out of a paper bag. I certainly hope they do not let him touch anything with out direct supervision.

          I mean look at this:

          …..Overturning is partially driven by salinity. I said as much earlier. How does that prove there is no ocean warming?

          The Argo data do show heating so that’s just false.

          The thin heating would be relevant if it weren’t for wave action which moves heated surface layers to depth…..

          He started out with CO2 is causing the oceans to warm and completely switched topics and then switches back again.

          So the 0.004% additional CO2 in the last few decades that heats a few molecules deep in the ocean is going to make a measurable difference when compared to the 1150Wm2 of solar radiation at noon at the equator. An amount of energy that is going to vary just with the amount of cloud cover? A cloud cover that has been proven by different methods to have varied during the time in question? And some how that tiny amount of energy is going to be detectable instead of swamped by noise? And it is some how going to be transported to thousands of feet deep? Where no one is going to be able to detect it?

          Please note he completely misses the point that the equatorial oceans show the warming where the oceans further from the equator do not.

          So tell me hot shot How does CO2, the EVENLY distributed green house gas, manage to heat unevenly? – you can not invoke warming of the sea by sunlight now, that is cheating because the Climastrologers said TSI is constant.

          So tell me how the null hypothesis – the SUN warmed the oceans, as Hansen and the marine biologists state is proved WRONG? Remember YOU have to prove the null hypothesis wrong, I do not have to prove it is correct.

          OH – and do not forget that the EPA GLOBAL Sea Surface temperature shows there has not been any warming for the same time span as the RSS air temperature data.

          So you have to explain the ‘PAUSE’ not only in the air temperature but also in the EPA’s SST.

        • Shazaam says:

          Gail,

          He is the perfect template for a “political boss” in academia. And he undoubtedly works for one given his demonstrated mental agility.

          And I will wager that underling/toady to a political boss the best he is capable of as well.

        • Gail Combs says:

          Shazaam, you are correct. He is a template for a ‘Political Boss’ Not an honest bone in his body just a slimy toadying, thing that twists and turns with the political wind.

          It is a perfect description for that piece of government slime mold I once worked for.

  50. Gail Combs says:

    Tonyp

    Gail,

    Let me make a quick observation.

    You just quoted a paper about ice rafted debris associated with rapid change in North American ice sheet volume. You are trying to use it to prove a sudden temperature increase during the Late-glacial.

    How then do you come to the conclusion that the massively increased sea ice around Antarctica is not associated with a rapid change in ice volume and is in fact a sign of cooling?

    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

    AHHhh, but Tony I do think that is a sign of cooling!

    I will only post a very small part of my collection of papers on Drake Passage, Humboldt current, the West Wind Drift, the Antarctic winds, ozone and solar changes. Since none of the research fields are CO2, the data is sketchy and at times contradictory, but intriguing none the less.

    Since you are supposedly up on Quaternary Science, I will skip the effects of the opening of Drake passage and the current Ice Age.

    F. H. Haynie, a retired EPA research scientist made this comment on January 18, 2014:

    If I were asked to pick a single point on earth that most likely has the greatest effect on global weather and climate, it would be 0 and 90W (Galapagos). This is where El-nino winds, the deep sea Cromwell current, the Panama current, and the Humboldt current meet. These flows are not constant and each has different cycles and those cycles are not constant. Cycles on cycles create extremes in weather and climate. These extremes have an effect globally. I suspect these cycles are also controlling our observed atmospheric concentration of CO2. CO2 is very likely a lagging indicator and not a cause of climate change.

    The Humbolt current “is a cold, low-salinity ocean current that flows north along the west coast of South America from the southern tip of Chile to northern Peru.” WIKI and a MAP

    Since I have an interest in the water going through Drake Passage at the tip of South America, I will add the Cape Horn Current. “…The Cape Horn Current is a cold water current that flows west-to-east around Cape Horn. This current is caused by the intensification of the West Wind Drift as it rounds the cape….” WIKI

    From another source: CHAPTER 31 OCEAN CURRENTS: TYPES AND CAUSES OF CURRENTS (Maritime Safety Information) I start at the begining of the passage which talks of the southern Atlantic. The chapter also has a map that shows that some of the cold water heads up along the west coast of South America.

    …That branch of the South Equatorial Current which curves toward the south off the east coast of South America, follows the coast as the warm, highly-saline Brazil Current, which in some respects resembles a weak Gulf Stream. Off Uruguay it encounters the colder, less-salty Falkland or Malvinas Current forming a sharp meandering front in which eddies may form. The two currents curve toward the east to form the broad, slow-moving, South Atlantic Current in the general vicinity of the prevailing westerlies and the front dissipates somewhat. This current flows eastward to a point west of the Cape of Good Hope, where it curves northward to follow the west coast of Africa as the strong Benguela Current, augmented somewhat by part of the Agulhas Current flowing around the southern part of Africa from the Indian Ocean. As it continues northward, the current gradually widens and slows. At a point east of St. Helena Island it curves westward to continue as part of the South Equatorial Current, thus completing the counterclockwise circulation of the South Atlantic. The Benguela Current is also augmented somewhat by the West Wind Drift, a current which flows easterly around Antarctica. As the West Wind Drift flows past Cape Horn, that part in the immediate vicinity of the cape is called the Cape Horn Current. This current rounds the cape and flows in a northerly and northeasterly direction along the coast of South America as the Falkland or Malvinas Current….

    Drakes Passage.
    Drake Passage and palaeoclimate

    ABSTRACT: The effect of Drake Passage on the Earth’s climate is examined using an idealised coupled model. It is found that the opening of Drake Passage cools the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere by about 3°C and warms the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere by nearly the same amount. This study also attempts to determine whether the width and depth of the Drake Passage channel is likely to be an important factor in the thermal response. A deeper channel is shown to produce more southern cooling but the magnitude of the effect is not large. Channel geometry is relatively unimportant in the model because of a haline response that develops when the channel is first opened up.

    Introduction
    South America and Australia separated from Antarctica between 20 and 40 million years ago, isolating Antarctica and the South Pole behind a continuous band of ocean water. The palaeoceanographic record shows that this separation led to the accumulation of glacial ice on Antarctica and an abrupt cooling of the ocean’s deep water (Kennett, 1977). Both effects persist to this day. The palaeoceanographic record gives every indication that the isolation of Antarctica was a major step in climate evolution.

    Today, the band of open water around Antarctica is most restricted between the tip of South America and the Palmer Peninsula, a feature known as Drake Passage. In one of the earliest scientific papers written about the output of an ocean general circulation model, Gill and Bryan (1971) showed how a gap such as Drake Passage alters the ocean’s meridional circulation and heat transport. With Drake Passage closed, the ocean transports heat southward by moving warm water poleward near the surface. Cooling at the Antarctic margin leads to deep-water formation and the northward flow of cold water at depth. With Drake Passage open, warm upper ocean water from the north is unable to flow into or across the channel because there is no net east–west pressure gradient to balance the effect of the Earth’s rotation. The ocean’s ability to transport heat southward is thereby diminished. Cox (1989), England (1992) and Mikolajewicz et al. (1993) carried out similar experiment…..

    Research on Drakes Passage today: http://climate.gmu.edu/research/drake.php

    …Significance

    The experiments address a fundamental question of how the circulation of the ocean works. Since the global overturning circulation is apparently sensitive to wind even in regions where the ocean has eastern and western boundaries, it may be influenced by wind outside the Drake Passage latitudes. However, our results indicate that the unique geometry of the Drake Passage latitudes does make the global circulation – and perhaps the climate of the North Atlantic – especially sensitive to wind there.

    Effect of Drake Passage on the global thermohaline circulation
    Abstract-
    The Ekman divergence around Antarctica raises a large amount of deep water to the ocean’s surface. The regional Ekman transport moves the upwelled deep water northward out of the circumpolar zone. The divergence and northward surface drift combine, in effect, to remove deep water from the interior of the ocean. This wind-driven removal process is facilitated by a unique dynamic constraint operating in the latitude band containing Drake Passage. Through a simple model sensitivity experiment WC show that the upwelling and removal of deep water in the circumpolar belt may be quantitatively related to the formation of new deep water in the northern North Atlantic. These results show that stronger winds in the south can induct more deep water formation in the north and more deep outflow through the South Atlantic. The fact that winds in the southern hemisphere might influence the formation of deep water in the North Atlantic brings into question long-standing notions about the forces that drive the ocean’ thermohaline circulation….

    Ozone has been linked to the band of westerly winds that swirls around Antarctica. Those winds have grown stronger and moved poleward over the past several decades. Those winds drive the Circumpolar Current. (West Wind Drift)

    ABSTRACT
    Surface westerly winds in the Southern Hemisphere have intensified over the past few decades, primarily in response to the formation of the Antarctic ozone hole, and there is intense debate on the impact of this on the ocean overturning circulation and carbon uptake. Here, we use measurements of CFC-12 made in the southern oceans in the early 1990s and mid- to late-2000s to examine changes in ocean ventilation. Our analysis of the CFC-12 data reveals a decrease in the age of subtropical mode waters and an increase in the age of circumpolar deep waters at similar depths, and suggests that the formation of the Antarctic ozone hole has caused large-scale coherent changes in the ventilation of the southern oceans.
    http://eaps-www.mit.edu/paoc/events/sls-darryn-waugh-jhu-changes-ventilation-southern-oceans-due-stratospheric-ozone-depletion

    The following scientists actually did field research in this study on atmospheric circulation shifts.

    06 May 2012 Nature Geoscience | Letter Regional atmospheric circulation shifts induced by a grand solar minimum

    ABSTRACT
    Large changes in solar ultraviolet radiation can indirectly affect climate by inducing atmospheric changes. Specifically, it has been suggested that centennial-scale climate variability during the Holocene epoch was controlled by the Sun. However, the amplitude of solar forcing is small when compared with the climatic effects and, without reliable data sets, it is unclear which feedback mechanisms could have amplified the forcing. Here we analyse annually laminated sediments of Lake Meerfelder Maar, Germany, to derive variations in wind strength and the rate of 10Be accumulation, a proxy for solar activity, from 3,300 to 2,000 years before present. We find a sharp increase in windiness and cosmogenic 10Be deposition 2,759? ±? 39 varve years before present and a reduction in both entities 199? ±? 9 annual layers later. We infer that the atmospheric circulation reacted abruptly and in phase with the solar minimum. A shift in atmospheric circulation in response to changes in solar activity is broadly consistent with atmospheric circulation patterns in long-term climate model simulations, and in reanalysis data that assimilate observations from recent solar minima into a climate model. We conclude that changes in atmospheric circulation amplified the solar signal and caused abrupt climate change about 2,800 years ago, coincident with a grand solar minimum.

    The effect of solar activity on the polar vortex, Michele Casati gave me this link after I commented on his site.

    http://strat-www.met.fu-berlin.de/labitzke/moreqbo/MZ-Labitzke-et-al-2006.pdf

    Abstract
    We have shown in earlier studies the size of the changes in the lower stratosphere which can be attributed to the 11-year sunspot cycle (SSC). We showed further that in order to detect the solar signal it is necessary to group the data according to the phase of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO). Although this is valid throughout the year it was always obvious that the effect of the SSC and the QBO on the stratosphere was largest during the northern winters (January/February).

    Here we extend our first study (Labitzke 1987) by using additional data. Instead of 30 years of data, we now have 65 years. Results for the entire data set fully confirm the early findings and suggest a significant effect of the SSC on the strenght.

    Essentially the polar vorticies (Usually two high pressure interacting with one massive low.) are a massive Heat Transfer in action. This is one of the major driving forces of our planets cooling system and appears to be directly related to upper atmosphere cooling. The air exchange allows black body radiation high into our atmosphere and escape into space. In times of low solar output the upper atmosphere cools and the down welling of cold interacts with the up welling of warm. It causes two distinct areas of rotation, one warm and one cold.

    This shoving match soon enlarges to the point the rotation is unstable and like a top is shoved OR wanders off point. When this happens the vortex weakens or collapses and the upwelling warmer air rushes over the top of the low disrupting it briefly. After a short period the upper cold air forces its way to the earths surface while the earths rotation resumes the low pressures rotation and the process essentially starts over.

    If you look into the history presented by JTF these major cooling spells, sub arctic air intrusion and record breaking low temps have been during times of low solar output and colder air aloft over the poles. During times of higher solar activity the air masses above the poles is warmer and the reduced differential does not allow these vorticies to grow in size. (and incidentally tropical vorticies increased in size)

    One could hypothesize that a cooling planet will have greater differential above the poles and thus cooling would be thrust outward to the equator. Even though the temps (at the poles) may moderate, the globe as whole is cooling. Inversely, if the air above the poles is warmer due to an active solar cycle, ADO, PDO, etc the warming reduces the temperature imbalance (at the poles) and thus the polar vortex is reduced in size keeping cooling localized.

    The climate has changed due to the weakest solar magnetic cycle in 100 years. The solar heliosphere pressure is reduced by 40%. Due to the reduced pressure in the solar heliosphere the magnetic field intensity of solar wind burst has dropped by a factor of two. Solar wind burst remove (or at least did remove before the reduction in the solar heliosphere pressure) cloud forming ions in higher latitudes of the planet and in the equatorial regions by creating a space charge differential in the ionosphere. The process where solar wind bursts remove ions from the atmosphere is called electroscavenging.

    If you read through Tinsley and Yu’s review paper there is an explanation as to how an increase in ions in the atmosphere results in more extreme winter storms. There is also on explanation as to why there was the highest amount of cloud cover in the Arctic in the summer of 2012, which resulted in the greatest recovery in sea ice in recorded history. It’s the sun.

    “In a winter cyclone the primary driver of the dynamics is the baroclinic instability in the winter circulation, with the storm extracting vorticity from the latitudinal shear in the circulation, and converting it to the vorticity of the cyclone. The effective diabatic heating associated with precipitation and reduced cooling of entrained air amounts to an increase in potential vorticity and uplift in the air mass, and is likely to concentrate the vorticity near the cyclone center. In addition, by enhancing the feedback processes inherent in the baroclinic instability, it can increase the overall vorticity of the cyclone. It has been demonstrated analytically by van Delden [1989] and from numerical storm simulations by Zimmerman et al. [1989] and Mallet et al. (1999) that a positive feedback exists between the storm dynamical configuration and the diabatic processes. Thus precipitation changes explain the many reported examples of correlations of the vorticity area index (VAI) with GCR flux change and Jz reviewed by Tinsley [2000].”
    http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/pdf/Atmos_060302.pdf

    Kirkland, Matt W.; Tinsley, Brian A.; Hoeksema, J. Todd
    Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 101, Issue D23, p. 29689-29700, 1996.
    DOI: 10.1029/96JD01554

    Abstract
    Evidence has accumulated for the past two decades demonstrating a correlation between Earth transits of the heliospheric current sheet (HCS) and changes in winter tropospheric vorticity. These correlations persisted for a few years following the Agung and El Chichón volcanic eruptions, but were significantly weaker at other times. This suggests that the missing link in a physical mechanism explaining the correlation may involve volcanic aerosols and their effect on cloud microphysics, via atmospheric electricity. An analysis of 500-mbar northern hemispheric vorticity for the 1991-1994 winter periods following the Pinatubo eruption shows a similar correlation between tropospheric vorticity and Earth transits of the HCS, supporting the previous interpretation.

    Atmospheric Dynamical Responses to Solar Wind Variations on the Day-to-Day Timescale.
    Tinsley, B. A. [[email protected]]
    American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2001, abstract #A11A-0031, 2001

    Abstract
    In the early 1970s it was shown by John Wilcox and associates and verified by Colin Hines that the strength of winter storms across the northern hemisphere decreases at times of solar wind ‘sector boundary’ crossings. These are now known as heliospheric current sheet (HCS) crossings, and correspond to the extension of the coronal streamer belt passing over the Earth, with reductions in solar wind velocity by about 10%. The strength of winter storms is objectively evaluated by the vorticity area index (VAI) calculated from gridded geopotential height data sets. It was shown by Tinsley, Hoeksema, Baker and Kirkland in the mid-1990s that this VAI response (the Wilcox effect) tracks the decrease in MeV electron flux precipitating from the magnetosphere, with a lag of less than a day. The MeV electron flux is strongly correlated with solar wind velocity, and together with its associated X-ray Bremsstrahlung modulates the stratospheric vertical column resistance. For winters when the column resistance is unusually high because of a high mixing ratio of H2SO4 from volcanic eruptions, the ionosphere-earth current density Jz is modulated by these stratospheric resistance variations. The winter storm response can be understood in terms of a general theory (Tinsley, Space Sci. Rev., 94, 231-258, 2000), and it involves changes in cloud microphysics and precipitation from the storm systems at mid-high geomagnetic latitudes, due to electroscavenging by cloud droplets. The electroscavenging rate tracks the Jz changes. There is a similar effect from reductions in tropospheric resistance associated with changes in cosmic ray flux during magnetic storms, first noticed in
    the 1960s by Walter Orr Roberts and associates. The Roberts and Wilcox effects are part of a more general influence of solar activity affecting Jz and clouds, which is part of an even more general influence of electroscavenging on clouds. The precipitation changes associated with cosmic ray and Jz changes have been evaluated by Kniveton and Todd (GRL 28, 1527-1530 and 3279). In winter storms the VAI response arises from a redistribution of vorticity within the storm because of diabatic heating changes. The storm vorticity changes have longer term dynamical and climatic consequences.

    Solar asymmetry, QBO and climate
    http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/SPARC/SPARC2000_new/PosterSess3/Session3_3/Georgieva/doklad.htm

    ABSTRACT
    One of the main problems in solar-climatic influences is the instability of the relations found. Different authors have reported both positive and negative correlations between solar activity and surface air temperatures. We have performed a detailed study making use of global, hemispheric and zonal temperature estimations, as well as of data from individual meteorological stations with long measurement records, to show that the sign of the correlation changes regularly in consecutive centennial solar cycles and seems determined by the North-South asymmetry of solar activity: the correlation is positive when the Northern solar hemisphere is the more active one, and negative when more active is the Southern solar hemisphere. On the other hand, the sign of the correlation between solar activity and different climatic elements reveals a similar dependence on the phase of the quasibiennial oscillation of stratospheric winds (QBO). QBO signals have been identified in a number of geophysical parameters, e.g. sea level pressure, ozone distribution, Earth’s rotation, and its existence has been shown in solar activity parameters as sunspot numbers, solar radio flux at 10.7 cm, green coronal activity, solar neutrino flux, etc. In the present paper we show that QBO exists in solar North-South asymmetry as well, and discuss the relation between the quasibiennial oscillation in solar asymmetry and in stratospheric zonal winds, and its possible implications on climate.

  51. Gail Combs says:

    Steve, my last comment, on August 14, 2014 at 2:21 pm disappeared down the WordPress black hole.

  52. Gail Combs says:

    tonyp says:
    Yes. I am not in “this” world where “this” refers to the world you inhabit which is a delusional fiction in which Ayn Rand has something worth saying. I thought you were Galting.
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    Nice one tony.

    Seems you haven’t even figured out what galting is.

    HINT: The entire USSR went ‘galting’ and that is why it crashed and burned.

    ‘galting’ has always been the fly in the ointment.

    • tonyp says:

      The USSR went Galting? That’s right Gail, that’s exactly what happened. Thank you, always good to start the day with a nice laugh.

      • Gail Combs says:

        Yes the USSR populus went Galt.

        Involvement in the underground economy had become a fact of Soviet existence by 1980. Economic activities regarded as normal in market economies not only were prohibited under Soviet law, but also carried heavy penalties. The acquisition of consumer services (repairs of appliances and autos, medical services) and residential housing, the resale of scarce consumer goods, trade in western consumer goods such as blue jeans or cigarettes were on a par with criminal activities such as the narcotics trade and moonshine liqueur. Virtually every citizen became a de facto criminal in the quest for a more comfortable life.

      • Shazaam says:

        Governments can only exist with the consent of the governed. When the people withdraw their consent, things get very, very difficult as now the population must be forced to comply. Result is that the government is generally ignored. Perhaps you could study how effective governance in Argentina is?

        Oh wait, if you can’t model it, it doesn’t exist.

  53. tom0mason says:

    Just as a reminder the subject heading says –

    1. Antarctic sea ice extent is at a record high
    2. Arctic sea ice extent is the highest in ten year
    3. Parts of Antarctica had their coldest June ever
    4. The US is having one of its coldest summers ever
    5. The North Pole is having its coldest summer ever
    6. Satellites show no warming for 17 years.

    Yet the scamsters at NOAA/NASA claim Earth is experiencing the hottest weather ever. What a complete load of crap, and astonishing that they have the gall to make such claims – particularly after talking about polar amplification all these years.

    They simply come up with a magic formula to generate the desired results, and turn a blind eye to the fact that it doesn’t make any sense.

  54. Gail Combs says:

    philjourdan says: @ August 15, 2014 at 1:59 pm

    Show us where those 800×200 scientists have EVER published a paper on the subject.
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    AHAH yes, a twist on the 97% of …. lie.

    What is never mentioned is there are no grant funds if you do not kiss the feet of the CAGW Grant Gods and they ONLY give out grants to those who support the political position.

    US Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told a gathering of Interior Department staffers on July 31 “I hope there are no climate change deniers in the Department of Interior.” And people have been fired if they let their views be known in Academia or even in industry.

    People can no longer publish their views on the internet because hiring employers troll the net looking for excuses not to hire.

    It is getting as bad as being a Jew in Germany before WWII.

  55. cdquarles says:

    I too have had a reply go into the bit-bucket. Oh well.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *