Global Warming - solar radiation changes

[Otara]

“Though I consider myself reasonably intelligent, I have to admit that I haven’t been able to figure much of this stuff out. I think a lot of folks who ‘debate’ this are almost taking a ‘faith based’ approach…”

Well we pretty much have to unless we’re specialists in the area, its a huge topic. But for me the starting point is more why wouldnt I believe it any more than I wouldnt believe big bang theory or any other scientific theory thats highly accepted in its field.

And we can still evaluate the strength of the arguments either way, eg the use of generalities vs attention to detail, the claims made ‘all of these scientific fools have missed X obvious fact’, etc etc to make some kind of decision about which side has the better case. Sure they’re heuristics, but they’re fairly reliable ones.

Otara

[Sam_Stone]

@jshore

Sam Stone and xtisme: Thanks very much for the kind words. I really appreciate it and, Sam, I am very glad to hear that I have influenced your thoughts on the issue!

Blush

The reason I wanted to throw props out where they belong is because this issue in particular seems to be heavily distorted by partisan rhetoric and extremism on one side and head-in-the-sand-ism on the other.

Part of the problem is that the science is very complicated, and there are still a lot of things that are not perfectly understood, which gives people on both sides lots of wiggle room to make various claims. When someone comes along and tells me that any scientist who disagrees MUST be a shill for Republicans or big oil, and therfore should be tarred and feathered, my hackles go up. That’s an extremely anti-science thing to say. Dissent should always be welcome, and science does have a history of from time to time getting set on a ‘wrong’ orthodoxy and punishing people who resist it.

On the other hand, we have demogogues on the right who use lame arguments like, “Scientists once believed in global cooling, too” to hand-wave away reams of hard evidence of what is going on. Also a fundamentally anti-scientific way to approach the debate.

Then you’ve got the extremists - the ones on the left who claim that the food chain is going to break down, the oceans are going to rise 50 feet and inundate all coastal populated areas, the gulf stream is going to stop, and life as we know it will end. And on the other side, the people who say, “there is no warming, but even if there was, I like being warm” while glossing over the real risks and economic costs of the problem.

So it’s nice to see someone just stick to the science, admit where the models are weak, explain where the models are strong, etc. Would that we would all debate the issue like that.

Now I’m waiting for the rational debate over what to do about it… Which is inherently even more political and therefore even less likely to have rationality on either side.

[intention]

jshore, first, let me agree wholeheartedly with the other posters regarding your focus on the science and avoidance of personal or non-scientific tangents. Although I disagree with you at many points, I respect your opinion and enjoy the interaction.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming …

@jshore

Hi, intention. It’s good to have you back!

@intention

This explanation, which is repeated at the RealClimate web site, has always mystified me, for several reasons.

1. Why should there be a ~ 1000 year delay between the onset (and end) of the warming at the start of an interglacial, and the associated change in CO2 level? The oceans and the biosphere have responded much more quickly than this to the current rise in CO2.

Well, first of all, there are apparently some issues in resolving the data down to this scale…I.e., it is not trivial to see exactly how the CO2 and temperature scales align because of the different ways in which CO2 and the isotope temperature record are recording in the ice. See here.

See, also, Cuffey and Vimeux, “Covariation of carbon dioxide and temperature from the Vostok ice core after deuterium-excess correction,” Nature 412, 523-527 (2001), which discusses a correction that needs to be made to the isotope temperature record. (I don’t think the correction affects the onset of deglaciation very much although it does affect the onset of glacial.)

That said, the speculation has been that if the 800 year time lag is accurate, this would correspond to some sort of time scale for overturning of the oceans.

Thank you for the reference. Their adjustment doesn’t affect the timing. I have read that it’s related to the time frame for the overturning of the ocean … but why? That’s the part I haven’t been able to find any explanation of. As you say, involving the ocean is “speculation” … which in my world, at least, is a long way from either understanding or science.

@intention

2. According to the Vostok data, temperatures rose from ~ 17,000 to 14,000 years BP, then dropped for about 2,000 years, then started rising again. If rising CO2 were driving the glacial-interglacial transition as you say, why should the temperature drop?

3. Why did the CO2 level continue to rise for ~ 1,000 years after the temperature stopped rising?

@jshore

Is this the so-called Younger-Dryas event? I’m not really up on that…and I am not even sure if that was a global temperature change…Was it? I also don’t know if the Cuffey and Vimeux correction improves the agreement at all. I guess the answer is that I don’t know.

It’s not the Younger-Dryas, just a temporary reversal (if 2,000 years can be called temporary) of the temperature rise from glacial to Holocene. In this case, there’s no lag in the change of the CO2 level, in fact, the CO2 changes about 500 years before the change in the temperature … go figure.

@jshore

Well, your number of 13°C per doubling of CO2 isn’t quite as bad as on another messageboard where someone had extended the line from the Vostok record to predict what turned out to be something like 28°C per doubling! Here are the mistakes that I thought that person had made:

1. Nobody is (or should be) claiming that all the temperature rise…or even all after the first 1000 years…was caused by a rise in CO2 levels. In fact, the accepted explanation is that the effect goes both ways. I.e., the initial rise (or fall) in temperature is triggered by the earth’s orbital oscillations. These then cause a change in CO2 levels, which then amplifies the change in temperature. The best estimate is apparently that about 1/2, or a little less, of the change in temperature is due to changes in CO2 and methane concentrations.

(2) The plots from the Vostok ice core show the estimates of the temperature change in that region, which is likely about a factor of 2 or so larger than the global temperature change because of polar amplification.

Given that “polar amplification” has never been observed in the Antarctic, and that the Antarctic currently is not warming, this explanation seems quite doubtful.

@jshore

(3) As you know, the response of temperature to rising CO2 levels is expected to be roughly logarithmic. So…one can’t just extend a straight line to predict the temperature rise from a given increment of CO2. (I doubt you made this mistake, but the guy on this other messageboard had.)

You’re right … I didn’t make that mistake.

@jshore

(4) Because CO2 levels are changing so rapidly, the earth is out of radiative balance and thus the change in temperature has not caught up to the current CO2 levels. Furthermore, we likely have cancelled out some of the warming that would have occurred due to greenhouse gases with our emissions of sulfate aerosols.

Well, OK, but then why did the CO2 change before the temperature at times and after the temperature at times in the Vostok record?

@jshore

Here is Hansen’s calculation of climate sensitivity implied by the ice age vs interglacial temperatures and atmospheric compositions.

Like you, I’m wondering how they calculated the albedo forcing change. There is a very interesting NASA article here showing that the change in ice and snow albedo from the recent warming has been almost entirely negated by an increase in polar cloud albedo. I have commented before about how often clear, complete, well-understood theory is negated by observational evidence in the world of climate, and this is just one more of many examples.

@jshore

The one thing that I always used to wonder is how they could be so confident that the greenhouse gases are contributing about 40% or so to the temperature rise. I.e., it seems like if they are underestimating the ice albedo effects by almost a factor of two, you could do away with the contribution from greenhouse gases almost altogether.

However, the problem with that logic is that it isn’t internally-consistent. I.e., even if the ice albedo forcing was ~6 or 7 W/m2 by itself and it alone produced all of the effects, you still have an implied sensitivity of about 3/4°C per W/m2, which (since we know the radiative forcing due to changes in greenhouse gases), then implies that they play a significant role in contradiction to our initial assumption. So, what you really need is to find some mechanism that resulted in a way-bigger radiative forcing difference between ice age and interglacial than anything that is understood, so that the climate sensitivity is low and thus the effect of the radiative forcing due to CO2 is small. I.e., you need to overthrow pretty much our entire current understanding of paleoclimate. This seems rather unlikely. (I think there are other issues in that it is rather hard in climate models to get the ice ages to be synchronous in both hemispheres when the only forcing is the “trigger” due to orbital oscillations, which vary the distribution of sunlight hitting the earth without causing much change in the total amount. The radiative forcing due to the greenhouse gases is necessary to get things to work.)

While it is comforting to say that “The radiative forcing due to the greenhouse gases is necessary to get things to work”, I fear this proves nothing. All this shows is that we don’t understand the climate system very well.

In addition, it’s easy to say that “we know the radiative forcing due to changes in greenhouse gases”, but we don’t. We have theory, we have models, but we don’t have evidence. That’s why the different models give such different answers to the forcing from GHG changes.

Which is my main point in this whole debate. I’m not trying to bust your chops for not knowing … the truth is, nobody knows. The idea that the science is “settled” is a sick joke. Our understanding of climate is in its infancy. We don’t know why the ice ages occurred when they did, or why sometimes the CO2 leads and sometimes lags the temperature changes. Why did CO2 change before the temperature, with no lag, 12-14,000 years ago, but lag the temperature change 17,000 years ago? We don’t know. Our knowledge of cloud forcing is so poor that we don’t even know if it’s positive or negative, our best models have acknowledged errors in the tens or twenties of watts … and yet scientists talk glibly of “knowing” the forcing from GHGs to a tenth of a watt.

And this is why I am so suspicious of people claiming that the “deniers” should be muzzled, that the debate is over, that it’s all understood well enough to recommend multi-billion dollar action. The action we should take is to continue to work on how we can best respond to drought, famine, flood, and all of the rest of the predicted evils of “climate change”, which we are facing today whether or not climate catastrophe is on the way or not, while struggling to understand one of the world’s most complex systems. The obvious, irrefutable, theoretically sound claim that decreasing ice and snow will decrease albedo turns out to be totally wrong … how can we possibly forecast the next century’s climate?

My best to you,

w.

[intention]

@Otara

“Though I consider myself reasonably intelligent, I have to admit that I haven’t been able to figure much of this stuff out. I think a lot of folks who ‘debate’ this are almost taking a ‘faith based’ approach…”

Well we pretty much have to unless we’re specialists in the area, its a huge topic. But for me the starting point is more why wouldnt I believe it any more than I wouldnt believe big bang theory or any other scientific theory thats highly accepted in its field.

…

Otara

Ummm … perhaps because we have no general theory of climate?

We don’t have a clue why the climate does many things that it does. We can’t predict next month’s weather. We don’t know whether more clouds will warm or cool the planet. In fact, not only do we have a very poor understanding of the climate system, we don’t even have accurate measurements of many of the critical variables, including the surface temperature, the downwelling radiation, the absorption of CO2 by the biosphere, and dozens of other important factors.

The illusion that climate science, which is in its infancy, is like some other theory that is “highly accepted in its field”, is one of the more pernicious fallacies of the whole discussion.

w.

[Otara]

“We don’t have a clue why the climate does many things that it does.”

Any field of research can have multiple things it doesnt know and still be able to make reliable predictions about others.

Your apparent unwillingness to acknowledge that there are areas that it does offer some utility in and focussing on where it cant makes me doubt your position - as said above, the opposite side seems to be willing to say where its models are weak or strong, while you appear to be trying to attack the entire field with this line of argument.

Now this isnt proof in itself, but its an example of why I find one position more convincing that the others. One side is being self critical while the other isnt - generally I find the self critiquing one more persuasive, as its inherently more likely to notice errors in its position and correct them.

Otara

[intention]

Otara, thank you for your post. You say “Any field of research can have multiple things it doesnt know and still be able to make reliable predictions about others.”

Perhaps you could provide some examples of this, both from climate science and any other field of your choice.

For example, in climate science, the prediction has been made many times that reducing Arctic snow and ice will markedly decrease the earth’s albedo, leading to positive feedback … but NASA has recently shown this to be untrue.

Yes, it is possible that at its current state of understanding, climate science may be able to make reliable predictions. I do not deny that (as you claim), and have never done so, but you are missing the problem … I’m interested in knowing how you think we can distinguish these reliable climate predictions from those, like my example above, which people like yourself have touted as 100% reliable, but which have turned out to be totally false.

How can we tell which is which in advance? To paraphrase your unpleasant and untrue claim about me, “your apparent unwillingness to share your secret method of telling which predictions will eventually turn out to be reliable makes me doubt your position” …

In any case, I await your examples of reliable and unreliable predictions made by climate science, along with any hints about how we can tell the difference in advance.

w.

[tagos]

@intention

For example, in climate science, the prediction has been made many times that reducing Arctic snow and ice will markedly decrease the earth’s albedo, leading to positive feedback … but NASA has recently shown this to be untrue.

That’s not an accurate way to state the results. The Earth Observatory found that increased cloud cover, clouds being a major reflector, masked the effect of changes in polar ice and snow. This may be connected with increased water vapour.

Clouds function as reflective and greenhouse, depending on altitude and at the moment we don’t know what the net outcome will be.

Cirrus Clouds and Climate

The greenhouse effect is weak for low altitude clouds, so their albedo effect dominates and they cool the Earth’s climate. In contrast, cold high altitude cirrus clouds may either cool or warm the climate. They have a strong greenhouse effect, which may outweigh their albedo effect losses. As the importance of both opposing effects depends critically on little understood cirrus properties, theoretical calculations of the climatic effects of cirrus are controversial. The main uncertainty stems from a current inability to calculate the scattering of sunlight in cirrus clouds, since they contain a multitude of ice crystal shapes and sizes, and are irregular in structure

That does not change the current overall understanding that the planet albedo is in decline or that global warming has a large man-made component.

Earth Observatory

There are factors in Earth’s climate system that influence how much sunlight our world reflects back to space versus how much it catches and stores in the form of heat. Any significant changes in the brightness of the land surface or in the extent of clouds and aerosols in the atmosphere affect how much sunlight Earth reflects, which, in turn, affects the climate system. A drop of as little as 0.01 in Earth’s albedo would have a major warming influence on climate—roughly equal to the effect of doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which would cause Earth to retain an additional 3.4 watts of energy for every square meter of surface area.

In the May 6, 2005, issue of the journal Science, the CERES Science Team reported Earth’s shortwave albedo has been steadily declining since the Terra CERES instrument began making the measurement in February 2000. Over the 4-year span (2000 through 2004), the CERES instrument measured an albedo decrease of 0.0027, which equals 0.9 watt of energy per square meter retained in the Earth system. The CERES Team is currently unsure what caused this decline in albedo.

This is a good NASA summary on the complexities of factors impacting on climate

Summary

Business-as-usual scenarios, which have an additional human-made forcing of about 3 W/m2 in the next 50 years, provide a useful warning about the potential for human-made climate change. Our analysis of climate forcings suggests, as a strategy to slow global warming, an alternative scenario focused on reducing non-CO2 GHGs and black carbon (soot) aerosols. Investments in technology to improve energy efficiency and develop non-fossil energy sources are also needed to slow the growth of CO2 emissions and expand future policy options. The increase of climate forcing would be less than or about 1 W/m2.

A key feature of this strategy is its focus on air pollution, especially aerosols and tropospheric ozone, which have human health and ecological impacts. If the World Bank were to support investments in modern technology and air quality control in India and China, e.g., the reductions in tropospheric ozone and black carbon would not only improve local health and agricultural productivity, but also benefit global climate and air quality.

Non-CO2 greenhouse gases are probably the main cause of observed global warming, with CH4 causing the largest net climate forcing. There are economic incentives to reduce or capture CH4 emissions, but global implementation of appropriate practices requires international cooperation. Definition of appropriate policies requires better understanding of the CH4 cycle, especially CH4 sources.

Climate forcing by CFCs is still growing today, but, if Montreal Protocol restrictions are adhered to, there should be no net growth of the CFC forcing over the next 50 years. A small decrease of the CFC forcing from today’s level is possible.

Tropospheric O3 increases in business-as-usual scenarios, which assume that CH4 increases and that there is no global effort to control O3 precursors. The human health and ecological impacts of O3 are so great that it represents an opportunity for effective international cooperation. At least it should be possible to prevent O3 forcing in 2050 from exceeding that of today.
Further Information

A description of how this study has been reported in the news and received by the scientific community can be read in Discussion of “An Alternative Scenario”.

Carbon dioxide will become the dominant climate forcing if its emissions continue to increase and aerosol effects level off. Business-as-usual scenarios understate the potential for CO2 emission reductions from improved energy efficiency and decarbonization of fuels. Based on this potential and current CO2 growth trends, we argue that limiting the CO2 forcing increase to 1 W/m2 in the next 50 years is plausible.

Indeed, CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use declined slightly in 1998 and again in 1999, while the global economy grew. However, achieving the level of emissions needed to slow climate change significantly is likely to require policies that encourage technological developments to accelerate energy efficiency and decarbonization trends.

Climate forcing due to aerosol changes is a wild card. Current trends are uncertain even in the sign of the effect. Unless climate forcings by all aerosols are precisely monitored, it will be difficult to define optimum policies.

We argue that black carbon aerosols, via several effects, contribute significantly to global warming. This suggests one antidote to global warming, if its impacts begin to increase. As electricity plays an increasing role in future energy systems, it should be relatively easy to strip black carbon emissions at fossil fuel power plants. Stripping and disposing of CO2, though more challenging, provides an effective backup strategy.

[Otara]

“Perhaps you could provide some examples of this, both from climate science and any other field of your choice.”

Im not trying to convince you Im right.

My comments were on who I find more persuasive when Im having to evaluate areas I dont have a lot of knowledge in. So obviously I cant tell you which areas of climatology are less or more reliable - I only know that I’m more inclined to trust a position that has made efforts to identify which are which and admit that they exist, than a position that doesnt appear to.

Trying to debate me with specific examples wont change my position on that, and frankly I cant see the point in it - if you’re seriously questioning that I suspect our value positions are so far apart that we’re just going to end up talking past each other even more than we seem to have already. Im even wondering if you’re confusing me with someone else because you seem to think Im taking positions I never have.

Im offering heuristics that I find are pretty reliable in regards to which position is more likely to be right in a debate. If you dont think they’re reliable, well fair enough, its hardly surprising given what side you appear to be on with this particular example. But you’ll have to offer more than you have so far before I’ll stop using them as a starting point.

Otara

[intention]

Otago, in other words, you don’t have any evidence, but by gosh, you’ve got your beliefs …

You are the one that claimed that climate science, despite its flaws, could make “reliable predictions” … but you are unable to point to even one.

I fear I don’t find that too convincing.

w.

[Baldwin]

I know this subject (AGW) gets raised a lot on the SDMB; I hope that continues, and wish there were more reasoned, logic-based, apolitical discussion in the public arena.

[intention]

tagos, thank you for your observations. You say:

@tagos

That’s not an accurate way to state the results. The Earth Observatory found that increased cloud cover, clouds being a major reflector, masked the effect of changes in polar ice and snow. This may be connected with increased water vapour.

Clouds function as reflective and greenhouse, depending on altitude and at the moment we don’t know what the net outcome will be.

Cirrus Clouds and Climate

That was exactly my point. I’m sorry if I didn’t make it clear in that particular post that it was the cloud feedback offsetting the ice albedo, I thought it was covered because I had said it in a previous post.

I have stated several times on these boards that as the earth warms, cloud cover would increase, and that would increase the albedo. I’m glad to be proven correct in this example, and I urge you to consider the larger implications of that finding.

The problem is that simple, incontrovertible physics is not sufficient to predict the response of the planet to any given change, because of the complexity of the climate system and particularly because of the existence of known and unknown feedbacks. It’s not enough to say “physics shows that additional CO2 will warm the earth” as though that were the end of the story.

This makes any projection much less than reliable, in clear contradiction to Otara’s claim that even partial understanding allows us to make “reliable predictions”. (I called Otara “Otago” in my previous post, my apologies, it’s 3 AM here.) We simply do not understand the system well enough to predict its future evolution.

@tagos

That does not change the current overall understanding that the planet albedo is in decline or that global warming has a large man-made component.

Earth Observatory
This is a good NASA summary on the complexities of factors impacting on climate

Your citations prove my point quite nicely. Clouds are the biggest factor in the regulation of the climate, and as you say, “at the moment we don’t know what the net outcome will be.” The albedo decreased from 2000 on, as you state, but it was increasing from 1995 to 2000, and we don’t have any idea why either change occurred.

Given those huge uncertainties, and given the incredible complexity of the climate system, how can we make “reliable predictions”? We don’t even know what the driving forces are. We’ve just established in the last couple of months that DMS, the precursor for what is probably the largest source worldwide of the cloud nuclei that control cloud formation, is produced by plankton … care to guess how many GCM models include that forcing? It has just been experimentally determined in the last few months that cosmic rays, as long suspected, do indeed affect cloud cover … how many GCM models include that forcing?

The IPCC rates the Level of Scientific Understanding (LOSU) of the majority of the forcings they include in their deliberations as either “Low” or “Very Low”. And that, of course, doesn’t include the recently discovered forcings that they don’t consider in their report (e.g., plant-generated methane, plankton derived DMS, cosmic rays), and obviously their grading of LOSU can’t include any unknown forcings.

Once again, given all of that, how can anyone possibly think that we can make “reliable predictions”? Yes, some of the predictions currently being made may be reliable … but which ones? Are NASA’s “business as usual” projections, which don’t even attempt to calculate the cloud cover, and which assume (despite lack of knowledge) that increasing clouds warm the earth, reliable or not? We simply don’t know.

All the best,

w.

[tagos]

@intention

Once again, given all of that, how can anyone possibly think that we can make “reliable predictions”? Yes, some of the predictions currently being made may be reliable … but which ones? Are NASA’s “business as usual” projections, which don’t even attempt to calculate the cloud cover, and which assume (despite lack of knowledge) that increasing clouds warm the earth, reliable or not? We simply don’t know.

All the best,

w.

Yet temperatures continue to rise, sea level continues to rise and the best science and majority informed opinion says its due in significant part to human activity. Your position amounts to crossing your fingers and hoping things turn out okay. Even if there is uncertainty the sensible thing is to take precautions. Buy fire insurance instead of hoping for no fires. Positive feedback loops are inherently chaotic and just hoping that somehow something will happen, like increased cloud cover, to balance everything out is verging on magical thinking.

It’s just as likely more unexpected crap will happen - like the steppes melting and releasing methane, or the oceans and forests going from carbon sink to carbon source. It is crazy to gamble on this and sensible to invest in new technologies and new industries.

The models might not be perfect but we have to go with the science as is and the scientific consensus is overwhelming. They do not believe gaps in the model are going to overturn the consensus.

Improved models: same results

Now, current state-of-the-art climate models include fully interactive clouds, oceans, land surfaces and aerosols, etc. Some models are starting to include detailed chemistry and the carbon cycle.

<snip>

1. Clouds affect the heating and cooling of the atmosphere
   For example, on a cloudy day, less radiation (heating) from the sun reaches the Earth’s surface and we feel cool.

On the other hand, on a cloudy night the heat generated during the day is trapped and the temperature near the surface remains relatively warm.

However, it is not just the amount of cloud that is important, but also the detailed properties of the cloud. Thin cirrus cloud high up in the atmosphere has a different effect on climate to thick cloud nearer the Earth’s surface.

<snip>

5. The chemistry and carbon cycle determine how much carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere
   Currently the biosphere (plants, soils, phytoplankton) absorbs half of the carbon dioxide that man produces.

The latest climate model predictions suggest that this will not continue indefinitely and that some parts of the biosphere (in particular soils) could start to release carbon if temperatures increase too much.

<big snip>

The latest climate models predict similar possible global average temperature changes to models used five or 10 years ago, ranging from 1.6-4.3C (2.9-7.7F) in the current best estimates using a mid-range emissions scenario.

However, we are much more confident about these ranges. Using Hadley Centre models we have even been able to start to assign probabilities to more dangerous high temperature changes at the upper end of this range that could arise if climate turns out to be very sensitive to increased greenhouse gases.

And models are making successful predictions

Predictions

Running the clock forward: in 1988, James Hansen of NASA GISS fame predicted [PDF] that temperature would climb over the next 12 years, with a possible brief episode of cooling in the event of a large volcanic eruption. He made this prediction in a landmark paper and before a Senate hearing, which marked the official “coming out” to the general public of anthropogenic global warming. Twelve years later, he was proven remarkably correct, requiring adjustment only for the timing difference between the simulated future volcanic eruption and the actual eruption of Mount Pinatubo.

And let’s face it, every year of increasing global mean temperature is one more year of success for the climate models. The acceleration of the rise is also playing out as predicted, though to be fair, decades will need to pass before such confirmation is inarguable.

Putting global surface temperatures aside, there are some other significant model predictions made and confirmed:

* models predict that surface warming should be accompanied by cooling of the stratosphere, and this has indeed been observed;
* models have long predicted warming of the lower, mid, and upper troposphere, even while satellite readings seemed to disagree -- but it turns out the satellite analysis was full of errors and on correction, this warming has been observed;
* models predict warming of ocean surface waters, as is now observed;
* models predict an energy imbalance between incoming sunlight and outgoing infrared radiation, which has been detected;
* models predict sharp and short-lived cooling of a few tenths of a degree in the event of large volcanic eruptions, and Mount Pinatubo confirmed this;
* models predict an amplification of warming trends in the Arctic region, and this is indeed happening;
* and finally, to get back to where we started, models predict continuing and accelerating warming of the surface, and so far they are correct.

It is only long-term predictions that need the passage of time to prove or disprove them, but we don’t have that time at our disposal. Action is required in the very near term. We must take the many successes of climate models as strong validation that their long-term predictions, which forecast dire consequences, are accurate.

If we seek even more confidence, there is another way to test a model’s predictive power over long time periods: hindcasting. By starting the model at some point in the past – say, the turn of the 20th century – and running it forward, feeding it confirmed observational data on GHG, aerosol, solar, volcanic, and albedo forcing, we can directly compare modeled behavior with the actual, observed course of events.

Such testing has been done Graphs here

Figure 4: Simulating the Earth’s temperature variations, and comparing the results to measured changes, can provide insight into the underlying causes of the major changes.
A climate model can be used to simulate the temperature changes that occur both from natural and anthropogenic causes. The simulations represented by the band in (a) were done with only natural forcings: solar variation and volcanic activity. Those encompassed by the band in (b) were done with anthropogenic forcings: greenhouse gases and an estimate of sulphate aerosols, and those encompassed by the band in (c) were done with both natural and anthropogenic forcings included. From (b), it can be seen that inclusion of anthropogenic forcings provides a plausible explanation for a substantial part of the observed temperature changes over the past century, but the best match with observations is obtained in (c) when both natural and anthropogenic factors are included. These results show that the forcings included are sufficient to explain the observed changes, but do not exclude the possibility that other forcings may also have contributed. The bands of model results presented here are for four runs from the same model. Similar results to those in (b) are obtained with other models with anthropogenic forcing.

We can take action to combat global warming and the world would be a better place if we did.

Honestly - at this stage denying a significant man-made component to GW is getting close to total denial wrapped up with the worst of conspiracy thinking - odd notions of scientists faking it all to win grants. That deniers have to go to the lengths of deceit thay do - as in the Swindle documentary speaks volumes.

To put off action now on the off-chance that models and scientific consensus is going to be proven spectacularly wrong when models are improved further would be an insane gamble.

But taking it seriously we get new technologies, new industries, new science and with the return of oil to being shit in the ground, a better geo-political reality.

So - small gamble with pay-offs or big gamble with catastrophic consequences?

The fact that despite the impact of clouds on polar albedo the Earth is getting less reflective indicates that positive feedback loops are not net beneficial. These is no basis on which to gamble.

[intention]

tagos, thank you for the time and effort that you have put into your thoughtful post. However, it contains so many errors that I’m not sure where to start.

Let me begin with your misapprehension of my recommendations. You seem to think that I advocate doing nothing (“Your position amounts to crossing your fingers and hoping things turn out okay.”) This is a gross mis-representation of what I have repeatedly written on this forum. I am getting rather bored with explaining my position, as I have stated it so many times, but I will do so again, and again, until you actually notice.

All of the evils that are supposed to come from your forecast climate catastrophe are with us today. We have droughts, floods, famines, rising sea levels, hurricanes, illnesses, heat spells, cold snaps, and everything else which the catastrophists predict, and we have them today. Right now.

What I recommend is that we work on protecting people from these real present dangers now. Today. This is the no-regrets option, in that we are working on real problems now, and if they should worsen in the future, we will be that much better prepared to deal with them then. If the claims of the AGW folks are correct, these outcomes are inevitable no matter what we do. They say that because of the CO2 already added to the atmosphere, the die is already cast. If those claims are true, what I propose is very important. And if they are not true, what I propose is also very important. Thus, no regrets.

Second, I recommend that we subject the climate models to the usual, normal, industry-standard verification and validation (V&V) and software quality assurance (SQA) that is routinely performed on every other piece of mission critical software that we use today. You would not dream of flying on an airliner whose control software had not been subjected to V&V and SQA. We use these tools on software for space missions, airliners, transit systems, submarines, and every other application where human lives or large amounts of money are at stake.

Yet despite this routine use of V&V and SQA for mission-critical software, you seem to be quite happy to recommend multi-billion dollar expenditures based on software which has not had even the most primitive forms of V&V and SQA. This attitude amazes me.

Third, we need to have the climate scientists observe the scientific norms of openness regarding data and methods. To take one example of many, the HadCRUT3 temperature dataset created by Dr. Phil Jones of the Hadley Centre is one of the most quoted datasets used to show the size of the global warming. But when Warwick Hughes asked Dr. Jones for a list of the stations used to create the dataset, Dr. Jones replied "“Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.” (This comment has been confirmed by Dr. Jones).

This comment reveals a dangerous and all too common misunderstanding of the scientific process among climate scientists. Science proceeds as follows:

1. A scientist comes up with a finding.

2. Other scientists try to see if they can find something wrong with the finding.

3. If no one can find anything wrong with the finding, it stands … and if something wrong is found, the finding falls.

Clearly, Dr. Jones is unwilling to submit his results to the normal scientific process … and although we do not know why he doesn’t want anyone to see what the Wizard of Oz is doing, his refusal raises grave doubts.

Unfortunately, this is far from an isolated incident. The amount of data which climate “scientists” have refused to reveal is staggering, with Michael Mann, Osborne, Briffa, and Lonnie Thompson among the worst offenders. You are proposing betting billions of dollars on “scientists” who are very unwilling to show how they got their results. To me, that makes no sense at all.

I’ll discuss some of the other errors in a subsequent email, but I wanted to get your misunderstanding of my position out of the way first. I never cease to be surprised at the willingness of the AGW supporters to demonize their opponents, from calling us “deniers” (with the intended Holocaust denial overtones) to pretending that I advocate inaction. I have been active in, and have advocated action regarding the environmental problems for forty years, likely since before many of you were born, and I see environmental protection as crucial to our future survival. To imply otherwise is both untrue and distasteful.

However, I also am very doubtful about poor, untested models, about scientists who hide their results and dissemble about their methods, and about simplistic explanations of one of the most complex systems that mankind has ever studied. Call me crazy, but I prefer facts and evidence to theory and bad models.

We have a limited amount of money. I’d rather spend it actually helping the poor face a difficult planet and thus preparing for possible future problems, rather than waste it on trying to stop what may not be the cause of those possible problems. NASA has said that landuse changes may have a greater impact on the climate than CO2. The truth is, we don’t know what is causing the current warming, and pretending that we do means that any money spent on fixing what we believe to be the problem could be totally wasted.

This is not recommending inaction. It is recommending action which we know will produce results, rather than throwing money at unsupported theories.

More to follow, thanks again for your post …

w.

[Sage_Rat]

@intention

Unfortunately, this is far from an isolated incident. The amount of data which climate “scientists” have refused to reveal is staggering, with Michael Mann, Osborne, Briffa, and Lonnie Thompson among the worst offenders. You are proposing betting billions of dollars on “scientists” who are very unwilling to show how they got their results. To me, that makes no sense at all.

Cite that there is a majority of climate scientists hiding their work? Is most of the science in the IPCC report hidden, and only results published? Other large studies?

Picking out four names out of hundreds isn’t an argument. Oh great, 4% of scientists have shoddy work that they don’t want to show off. Woot.

[Sage_Rat]

Missed the five minute edit deadline, but simply, peer reviewing discounts what you are saying. You can’t say that any peer reviewed work is unreliable because the methodology of the study hasn’t been made public. The simple fact that it is “peer reviewed” means specifically that the methodology has been made public and gasp reviewed.

[intention]

Cite for where I said that a majority of climate scientists are hiding their work?

One scientist hiding his work is too many, in particular when that scientist is an IPCC lead author, and the work becomes a major icon of the climate debate …

Plus, it is quite clear that the majority of climate scientists have not had the balls to decry this type of behavior. How 'bout you? You seem, like the majority of climate scientists, to think this is no big deal … heck, it only involves the guy who runs the major record of the earth’s climate, and the guy whose bogus work is repeatedly cited as showing this to be the warmest time in a thousand years, what’s a little criminal behavior between friends?

w.

[Sage_Rat]

@intention

Cite for where I said that a majority of climate scientists are hiding their work?

Well if you think that the majority are releasing their data and methodology for peer review, then why do you think that the majority of scientific thought on the issue is bogus?

Plus, it is quite clear that the majority of climate scientists have not had the balls to decry this type of behavior. How 'bout you? You seem, like the majority of climate scientists, to think this is no big deal … heck, it only involves the guy who runs the major record of the earth’s climate, and the guy whose bogus work is repeatedly cited as showing this to be the warmest time in a thousand years, what’s a little criminal behavior between friends?

So then you are saying that the IPCC report was not peer reviewed? They accepted this one guy’s findings into the report without checking it?

Just because he doesn’t want to bother himself with a couple of idiots doesn’t have much to do with the scientific solidity of the data.

Look up the attacks on the Ann Frank diaries on the Wikipedia. Eventually they had to make it illegal to say that the diaries were forgeries simply because they’d already been proven to be real four or five times and having to deal with conspiracy-advocacy idiots every couple of years, and redoing all the same tests, was a waste of time and just giving the idiots free press time.

[intention]

@Sage Rat

Well if you think that the majority are releasing their data and methodology for peer review, then why do you think that the majority of scientific thought on the issue is bogus?

So then you are saying that the IPCC report was not peer reviewed? They accepted this one guy’s findings into the report without checking it?

Just because he doesn’t want to bother himself with a couple of idiots doesn’t have much to do with the scientific solidity of the data.

Look up the attacks on the Ann Frank diaries on the Wikipedia. Eventually they had to make it illegal to say that the diaries were forgeries simply because they’d already been proven to be real four or five times and having to deal with conspiracy-advocacy idiots every couple of years, and redoing all the same tests, was a waste of time and just giving the idiots free press time.

Sage, I appreciate your post. However, you seem to be confusing peer review with the scientific process. All peer review can do in the best of cases is to ensure that there are no obvious errors. Peer reviewers are unpaid, and often (and justifiably) devote very little time to reviewing any given paper.

And in the worst of cases, the review is done by somebody who firmly believes in whatever the paper says, and thus does only the most trivial and incomplete review.

Replicating or thoroughly investigating scientific results, on the other hand, is a lengthy and time-consuming process. Unfortunately, it can’t be done when someone like Michael Mann refuses to reveal his methods and data. That’s the scientific process, which he tried to quash by hiding the facts. This has nothing to do with peer review, and everything to do with honesty and transparency.

Whether Michael Mann wants to deal with “a couple of idiots” is not up to him. It’s part of the scientific process of verifying whether a paper has merit. In this case, the “couple of idiots” showed clearly that Mann’s paper contained significant, large, and devastating errors which completely invalidated all of the paper’s conclusions. The findings of the “couple of idiots” have been checked and verified by other scientists, and found to be 100% correct.

See, that’s the thing about science that you don’t seem to get. If someone finds errors in your paper, it doesn’t matter if they’re an idiot, an idiot savant, a paid provocateur, or a Nobel Prize winner. If your paper is wrong … it’s wrong.

It was very foolish and short-sighted of the IPCC to allow Michael Mann, as a lead author, to shamelessly promote his own deeply flawed paper (which had just been published, and had not been subjected to the normal scientific process, but only to peer review) in the IPCC Third Annual Report.

However, given the track record of the IPCC … it was not entirely unexpected or surprising.

What is surprising, however, is that after the findings of the “two idiots” have been upheld by the NAS Panel, the Wegman Report, and other scientists, and after Michael Mann publicly stated that it was “intimidation” for people to make the normal scientific request of him that he reveal his data and methods, and after repeated attempts to find errors in the “two idiots” work have failed, that there are still folks out there who are willing to defend Mann’s paper and his actions …

I strongly encourage you to read up on the whole question of the Hockeystick, as it is clear that you have many misconceptions about the issues involved. A very good place to start is here. If you think you have found any errors or mis-statements in the paper, please let me know, as I would be happy to discuss them. That’s how science progresses, not through peer review, but through transparency and open public discussion of the issues.

w.

[Sage_Rat]

Ok, well then let’s talk about the “scientific method.”

In the scientific method, nothing is true until it has been independentally researched by several people using different methods.

We’ll take for instance holocaust denial. Holocaust deniers have a method whereby they find a single weak data source, and announce vocally that “everything rests on this one data source.” So they prove that a census of the Jewish people in 1927 wasn’t very good or such. Well great. So you’ve proved that a single item of evidence among hundreds isn’t very strong. What about the other several hundred? Eye witness accounts? Mass graveyards? Other censuses that aren’t doubtful?

So you say that Michael Mann’s “Hockey Stick” has been proven false? No. What was proven was that he wasn’t a very good mathematician. People using his same data, and minus his programming errors, were able to figure out a better extrapolation of the hockey stick. But no one has come to any other conclusion except that there is a hockey stick growth to the temperature of the Earth. And that’s just reusing his same methodology, but minus the programming error. Independentantly of Mann, other studies into the temperature of the Earth through history have been done, using different methods and data sources. Overall there’s lots of different graphs that all show the exact same thing even though most of those aren’t related to one another.

But most amazingly is that without anyone having any access to Mr. Mann’s methods nor data, several people have been able to verify his data and redo it correctly, including your idiots. Amazing how all this data magically beamed itself into lots of other people’s hands, when as you have told us all, it is kept secret.

[intention]

Sage, I’ll make the offer to you again. Read the paper, and if you find anything wrong with it let me know.

The Hockeystick has not been replicated by others as you claim. They have all used the same bristlecone proxies, proxies which the NAS report said should not be used in temperature reconstructions. If you use them, you get hockeysticks … which only proves that garbage in really does equal garbage out.

My advice is that you research and read extensively about the subject before you write further. An excellent summary of the failed argument that you are advancing is available here. As it is, you’re just revealing the paucity of your knowledge of the matter.

w.