How unstable the climate can be

[Starving Steve]

Re: How unstable the climate can be

Just for the public's interest in this debate about global warming and its cause, a great site to visit on the internet is:

http://www.friendsofscience.org/

For those who may want to peruse the climate statistics at San Francisco International Airport, or at their nearest climate station, a great site to visit on the internet is:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mtr

For those who may want to listen to Dr. Bill Wattenburg of UC Berkeley speak on the issues of man-made global warming and also nuclear power, listen to KGO Radio on Saturday nights and Sunday nights, at 10PM.

http://www.kgo.com/

[mooncliff]

Steve is going to LOVE this

If I may just ask a few Joe Six-pack type of questions:

Since the Earth is supposed to be getting warmer, why for almost a century, has no new record high global temperature been recorded? Why for almost a century has no new record low temperature been recorded on Earth? Why are winters generally warmer than decades ago, and why are summers generally cooler than decades ago?

My global filth hypothesis (of blanketing in the upper atmosphere) nicely explains why summers are cooler and winters are warmer. It also nicely explains why days are cooler and nights are warmer. It also nicely explains why no new global temperature records have occurred. It also nicely explains why weather records are becoming rather boring, each year of record is a re-play of some prior year in the records. It also explains why so little actual warming in the global mean temperature on Earth is occurring.

The AGW hypothesis does not explain the climate data as well as my simple-minded hypothesis. Plus the AGW hypothesis depends upon modelling results for support. The AGW hypothesis also rests upon a hidden hockey-stick or feed-back loop mechanism to explain what is happening, whereas my filth hypothesis does not.

So guess which theory gets published? :rolleyes:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/11/climate-hack

If you have been to science grad school, you will know that scientists form tunnel-vision echo-chamber mafias at each institution. Many will cling to wrong notions, no matter what, until they die. Many are also plain stupid.

I hate to tell you, but after having spent several thousand hours on global warming, I at least know that it is REALLY complicated. It is, however, a basic fact that for most of its history, the climate of the Earth was really unpleasant. It is also a fact that the arctic has suddenly started melting. Climate is more complicated than brain surgery or drug trials because of the huge number of feedbacks. If you were going to perform brain surgery on your child, you would spend several thousand hours trying to understand the procedure, no? You would not start out with an emotional "Well, let's just go in there and rip out that tumor", now would you?

What I find disturbing (in all human activity) is the need to prove oneself right, consequences be damned, lack of caution, and lack of caring.

If you were living on your own planet far far away, well, you may certainly do as you please. Ignorance, however pure, does not trump hundreds of millions of man-hours spent trying to figure out complex systems. Whether it would be expensive to fix does not change the actual temperature of the Earth. I note that the anti-global-warming people do not say exactly what higher carbon dioxide will in fact do. Is the effect zero? Does it cool the Earth off? Does it make the Earth trivially warmer? It makes the Earth a lot warmer, but that is a good thing? What? All of the above?

Why do you not argue that Viagra does not work? Or that airplanes don't fly because you don't understand aeronautics? The possibility of global warming disturbs some people because it would mean that they are partly to blame and because it might cost money to fix; they then proceed to warp and block out anything that causes discomfort, and then pat themselves on the back for having done so. This is the "I like it so it is true; I don't like it so it is a lie" fallacy that has caused so much suffering in human history. The world does not have to be the way it is; it could be MUCH better. The main stumbling block is not being willing to tolerate a little mental discomfort and get over ourselves.

In order to colonize Mars, we could sprinkle soot over the poles (as is happening in Siberia by soot from coal fired plants) and build factories to pump out greenhouse gases (as we are already doing here). This would warm Mars in a few hundred years, melt the ice to produce lakes, and make the atmospheric pressure rise to a reasonable level. Suppose the value of a terraformed Mars were say 1 quadrillion dollars, and each citizen of Earth would receive a fair share. Everyone would argue it would not work? I think not.

In every single human endeavor, if you start out with what you want and then warp everything you see to make it fit, you will at best be from time to time right for the wrong reason. I stopped doing that when I was about ten years old when I realized it did not often yield desired results.

I have not read the emails, but they sure look juicy. I am sure there are many strange things in them. If the hackers want to show that there is a vast conspiracy, they are going to have to get a lot more information from multiple institutions. The temperature of the Earth will do what it will with no regard to the emotions of humans.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Steve is going to LOVE this

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/11/climate-hack

If you have been to science grad school, you will know that scientists form tunnel-vision echo-chamber mafias at each institution. Many will cling to wrong notions, no matter what, until they die. Many are also plain stupid.

I hate to tell you, but after having spent several thousand hours on global warming, I at least know that it is REALLY complicated. It is, however, a basic fact that for most of its history, the climate of the Earth was really unpleasant. It is also a fact that the arctic has suddenly started melting. Climate is more complicated than brain surgery or drug trials because of the huge number of feedbacks. If you were going to perform brain surgery on your child, you would spend several thousand hours trying to understand the procedure, no? You would not start out with an emotional "Well, let's just go in there and rip out that tumor", now would you?

What I find disturbing (in all human activity) is the need to prove oneself right, consequences be damned, lack of caution, and lack of caring.

If you were living on your own planet far far away, well, you may certainly do as you please. Ignorance, however pure, does not trump hundreds of millions of man-hours spent trying to figure out complex systems. Whether it would be expensive to fix does not change the actual temperature of the Earth. I note that the anti-global-warming people do not say exactly what higher carbon dioxide will in fact do. Is the effect zero? Does it cool the Earth off? Does it make the Earth trivially warmer? It makes the Earth a lot warmer, but that is a good thing? What? All of the above?

Why do you not argue that Viagra does not work? Or that airplanes don't fly because you don't understand aeronautics? The possibility of global warming disturbs some people because it would mean that they are partly to blame and because it might cost money to fix; they then proceed to warp and block out anything that causes discomfort, and then pat themselves on the back for having done so. This is the "I like it so it is true; I don't like it so it is a lie" fallacy that has caused so much suffering in human history. The world does not have to be the way it is; it could be MUCH better. The main stumbling block is not being willing to tolerate a little mental discomfort and get over ourselves.

In order to colonize Mars, we could sprinkle soot over the poles (as is happening in Siberia by soot from coal fired plants) and build factories to pump out greenhouse gases (as we are already doing here). This would warm Mars in a few hundred years, melt the ice to produce lakes, and make the atmospheric pressure rise to a reasonable level. Suppose the value of a terraformed Mars were say 1 quadrillion dollars, and each citizen of Earth would receive a fair share. Everyone would argue it would not work? I think not.

In every single human endeavor, if you start out with what you want and then warp everything you see to make it fit, you will at best be from time to time right for the wrong reason. I stopped doing that when I was about ten years old when I realized it did not often yield desired results.

I have not read the emails, but they sure look juicy. I am sure there are many strange things in them. If the hackers want to show that there is a vast conspiracy, they are going to have to get a lot more information from multiple institutions. The temperature of the Earth will do what it will with no regard to the emotions of humans.

A note to NASA and the science-fiction dreamers in universities to-day:

Rather than spend one quadrillion dollars on an experiment to terraform Mars, or rather than spend whatever on trying to terraform the Moon, my more modest, and maybe more cost-effective suggestion, would be to try to terraform parts of the Earth, especially the vast Sahara Desert in North Africa.

Why not increase rainfall by cloud seeding, for example? Or why not de-salinate sea-water on a scale ten-fold what we have now in Isreal? Or why not divert the Nile River into the Sahara Desert, rather than allow the Nile to dump into the Mediterranian Sea?

In California, for example, why not divert the gigantic Eel River southward to solve the water crisis in the rest of the state? And why not dam the Eel River and generate power? And why not build more hydro-electric dams and atomic power plants in California and really solve the energy and water shortage in a big way?

Isreal now makes fresh water from sea-water for $0.52 per cubic metre. Perhaps a plant in California to de-salinate sea-water on a scale ten-fold the size of the one in Isreal might bring the cost of de-salinization down significantly. And atomic power might help lower the cost of de-salinization even further.

So the day could come, in the not too distant future, when California and Baja California could prosper and bloom. That is the kind of terraforming that is really achieveable in our own time.... The only question is, do we have the will?:rolleyes:

[icm63]

Re: How unstable the climate can be

NO MATTER IF CLIMATE IS GETTING HOTTER OR COOLER..

ITS NOT MAN MADE..

The SUN is 98%, volcanic eruptions are 1.999%

Everything else is .00001%

[mooncliff]

Re: How unstable the climate can be

Because of changes in circulation in the north Atlantic, the Earth entered a 1,300 year ice age WITHIN MONTHS. An example of how unstable the climate can be and how warming can result in abrupt cooling.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...in-months.html

Lots of interesting concepts if you have not heard of the Younger Dryas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas

Oh, boy, of course this is not good. But on the basis of a few documents, Mish has now decided that the whole global warming thing is a scam. How can you come to that conclusion in one day? Reasonably, that would take several years. Mish has chosen this conclusion not because he has actually evaluated what is going on (because I submit that that is impossible in one day) and is instead asserting that this is true because he wants it to be true. This absolves him of all responsibility, and it means that he will not have to pay for it. So why is the arctic melting and is now navigable? If in fact Mish cannot explain things like the Earth's albedo, variability in solar output, atmospheric aerosols, thermohaline circulation, etc., of the top of his head, I suggest he is jumping to a conclusion because he likes it. Isn't that what the entire FIRE industry was doing? What are we supposed to do later if warming continues? I think this is clearly an instance of not knowing what you don't know, not liking something, and choosing what you like, because it is not possible to evaluate this in one day.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogsp...g-is-scam.html

[stetts]

Re: How unstable the climate can be

NO MATTER IF CLIMATE IS GETTING HOTTER OR COOLER..

ITS NOT MAN MADE..

The SUN is 98%, volcanic eruptions are 1.999%

Everything else is .00001%

Sir,
Magnificently said. Thank you.
Stetts

[c1ue]

Re: How unstable the climate can be

Oh, boy, of course this is not good. But on the basis of a few documents, Mish has now decided that the whole global warming thing is a scam.

Your first mistake is reading Mish. When I first started on iTulip, I also read that blog - primarily for the good work being done on the Birth-Death numbers.

Unfortunately beyond that (and for a year) I saw very little else worth following, and so I've stopped.

As for the CRU leak emails and other documents: the problem isn't that climate change due to human factors is invalidated.

While my view on the AGW due to CO2 is well known - the real problem is that many of the accusations levelled at the AGW/CO2 fanatics seem to be borne out by the emails:

1) Manipulation of data to suit goals
2) Freezing out or outright intimidation of other with countervailing views
3) Demonization of antagonists
4) Obstruction of access to data collected using public funds

To this I'll add the money angle: one of the documents in the trove also lists all the grant money received by the CRU head, Dr. Phil Jones, since 1990: 13.7 million pounds. This is comparable to the entire Exxon denier funding alleged by the AGW horde.

It is similarly ironic that a number of the inconsistencies in the AGW argument brought up by skeptics are actually mentioned in their internal emails such as the warming that ended in the 1940s.

The specific requests to delete emails related to IPCC work is also very interesting.

No doubt there will be more interesting items to come.

[santafe2]

Re: How unstable the climate can be

While my view on the AGW due to CO2 is well known - the real problem is that many of the accusations levelled at the AGW/CO2 fanatics seem to be borne out by the emails:

1) Manipulation of data to suit goals
2) Freezing out or outright intimidation of other with countervailing views
3) Demonization of antagonists
4) Obstruction of access to data collected using public funds

Good response to this point of view for anyone interested:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php.../the-cru-hack/

[don]

Re: How unstable the climate can be

Oh, boy, of course this is not good. But on the basis of a few documents, Mish has now decided that the whole global warming thing is a scam. How can you come to that conclusion in one day? Reasonably, that would take several years. Mish has chosen this conclusion not because he has actually evaluated what is going on (because I submit that that is impossible in one day) and is instead asserting that this is true because he wants it to be true. This absolves him of all responsibility, and it means that he will not have to pay for it. So why is the arctic melting and is now navigable? If in fact Mish cannot explain things like the Earth's albedo, variability in solar output, atmospheric aerosols, thermohaline circulation, etc., of the top of his head, I suggest he is jumping to a conclusion because he likes it. Isn't that what the entire FIRE industry was doing? What are we supposed to do later if warming continues? I think this is clearly an instance of not knowing what you don't know, not liking something, and choosing what you like, because it is not possible to evaluate this in one day.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogsp...g-is-scam.html

How do you see this scandal fitting into Goldman-led Cap and Trade? Swept under the rug? The sudden corporate global warming bandwagon, albeit not unanimous, is of much greater concern than a blogger's opportunism.

[c1ue]

Re: How unstable the climate can be

Good response to this point of view for anyone interested:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php.../the-cru-hack/

The CRU Xmas goodie bag has something for everyone:

Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt - 2 of the 3 principle 'disinterested scientists' of RealClimate on how RealClimate REALLY works...

Always nice to see objective science at work.

From: “Michael E. Mann”
To: Tim Osborn , Keith Briffa
Subject: update
Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2006 16:51:53 -0500
Reply-to: mann@xxx
Cc: Gavin Schmidt
guys, I see that Science has already gone online w/ the new issue, so we
put up the RC post. By now, you’ve probably read that nasty McIntyre
thing. Apparently, he violated the embargo on his website (I don’t go
there personally, but so I’m informed).

Anyway, I wanted you guys to know that you’re free to use RC in any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through, and we’ll be very careful to answer any questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you’d like us to include.

You’re also welcome to do a followup guest post, etc. think of RC as a resource that is at your disposal to combat any disinformation put forward by the McIntyres of the world. Just let us know. We’ll use our best discretion to make sure the skeptics dont’get to use the RC comments as a megaphone…

mike

[Starving Steve]

Re: How unstable the climate can be

Yes, what I find scary is all of the sudden corporate interest in championing the hypothesis of man-made global warming, and this is because they (Excelon Power Co. and Duke Power Co, as two examples) can make money by benefiting from carbon credits.

I am all in favour of atomic energy, but on the merits of atomic power and withOUT the artificial benefits of carbon credits arranged through government cap-'n-trade legislation. Let the free-market decide what is best for energy, not Congress, not Greenpeace, and not Al Gore.

I notice that Duke Power now is putting-up windmills in Wyoming. Fine. Perrrrrrrrrrrfect. Wyoming is the best spot on Earth for windmills. But carbon credits (cap-'n-trade legislation) should have no influence in their decision to put-up windmills in Wyoming. The decision should be made on pure economics alone, not carbon credits and not government grants.

[don]

Re: How unstable the climate can be

the NY Times front page coverage:

November 21, 2009

Hacked E-Mail Is New Fodder for Climate Dispute

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change.

The e-mail messages, attributed to prominent American and British climate researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual comments — in some cases derisive — about specific people known for their skeptical views. Drafts of scientific papers and a photo collage that portrays climate skeptics on an ice floe were also among the hacked data, some of which dates back 13 years.

In one e-mail exchange, a scientist writes of using a statistical “trick” in a chart illustrating a recent sharp warming trend. In another, a scientist refers to climate skeptics as “idiots.”

Some skeptics asserted Friday that the correspondence revealed an effort to withhold scientific information. “This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud,” said Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist who has long faulted evidence pointing to human-driven warming and is criticized in the documents.

Some of the correspondence portrays the scientists as feeling under siege by the skeptics’ camp and worried that any stray comment or data glitch could be turned against them.

The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument. However, the documents will undoubtedly raise questions about the quality of research on some specific questions and the actions of some scientists.

In several e-mail exchanges, Kevin Trenberth, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and other scientists discuss gaps in understanding of recent variations in temperature. Skeptic Web sites pointed out one line in particular: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t,” Dr. Trenberth wrote.

The cache of e-mail messages also includes references to journalists, including this reporter, and queries from journalists related to articles they were reporting.

Officials at the University of East Anglia confirmed in a statement on Friday that files had been stolen from a university server and that the police had been brought in to investigate the breach. They added, however, that they could not confirm that all the material circulating on the Internet was authentic.

But several scientists and others contacted by The New York Times confirmed that they were the authors or recipients of specific e-mail messages included in the file. The revelations are bound to inflame the public debate as hundreds of negotiators prepare to negotiate an international climate accord at meetings in Copenhagen next month, and at least one scientist speculated that the timing was not coincidental.
Dr. Trenberth said Friday that he was appalled at the release of the e-mail messages.

But he added that he thought the revelations might backfire against climate skeptics. He said that he thought that the messages showed “the integrity of scientists.” Still, some of the comments might lend themselves to being interpreted as sinister.

In a 1999 e-mail exchange about charts showing climate patterns over the last two millenniums, Phil Jones, a longtime climate researcher at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, said he had used a “trick” employed by another scientist, Michael Mann, to “hide the decline” in temperatures.

Dr. Mann, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, confirmed in an interview that the e-mail message was real. He said the choice of words by his colleague was poor but noted that scientists often used the word “trick” to refer to a good way to solve a problem, “and not something secret.”

At issue were sets of data, both employed in two studies. One data set showed long-term temperature effects on tree rings; the other, thermometer readings for the past 100 years.

Through the last century, tree rings and thermometers show a consistent rise in temperature until 1960, when some tree rings, for unknown reasons, no longer show that rise, while the thermometers continue to do so until the present.

Dr. Mann explained that the reliability of the tree-ring data was called into question, so they were no longer used to track temperature fluctuations.
But he said dropping the use of the tree rings was never something that was hidden, and had been in the scientific literature for more than a decade. “It sounds incriminating, but when you look at what you’re talking about, there’s nothing there,” Dr. Mann said.

In addition, other independent but indirect measurements of temperature fluctuations in the studies broadly agreed with the thermometer data showing rising temperatures.

Dr. Jones, writing in an e-mail message, declined to be interviewed.

Stephen McIntyre, a blogger who on his Web site, climateaudit.org, has for years been challenging data used to chart climate patterns, and who came in for heated criticism in some e-mail messages, called the revelations “quite breathtaking.”

But several scientists whose names appear in the e-mail messages said they merely revealed that scientists were human, and did nothing to undercut the body of research on global warming. “Science doesn’t work because we’re all nice,” said Gavin A. Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA whose e-mail exchanges with colleagues over a variety of climate studies were in the cache. “Newton may have been an ass, but the theory of gravity still works.”

He said the breach at the University of East Anglia was discovered after hackers who had gained access to the correspondence sought Tuesday to hack into a different server supporting realclimate.org, a blog unrelated to NASA that he runs with several other scientists pressing the case that global warming is true.

The intruders sought to create a mock blog post there and to upload the full batch of files from Britain. That effort was thwarted, Dr. Schmidt said, and scientists immediately notified colleagues at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. The first posts that revealed details from the files appeared Thursday at The Air Vent, a Web site devoted to skeptics’ arguments.

At first, said Dr. Michaels, the climatologist who has faulted some of the science of the global warming consensus, his instinct was to ignore the correspondence as “just the way scientists talk.”

But on Friday, he said that after reading more deeply, he felt that some exchanges reflected an effort to block the release of data for independent review.

He said some messages mused about discrediting him by challenging the veracity of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Wisconsin by claiming he knew his research was wrong. “This shows these are people willing to bend rules and go after other people’s reputations in very serious ways,” he said.

Spencer R. Weart, a physicist and historian who is charting the course of research on global warming, said the hacked material would serve as “great material for historians.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/sc...0fodder&st=cse

[santafe2]

Re: How unstable the climate can be

The CRU Xmas goodie bag has something for everyone:

Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt - 2 of the 3 principle 'disinterested scientists' of RealClimate on how RealClimate REALLY works...

Always nice to see objective science at work.

Um...these are real climate scientists having a private conversation about a blog scientist hack. I'm not surprised you love his stuff. Now you've stooped to supporting theft as a legitimate publishing medium.

From my earlier link:

Since emails are normally intended to be private, people writing them are, shall we say, somewhat freer in expressing themselves than they would in a public statement. For instance, we are sure it comes as no shock to know that many scientists do not hold Steve McIntyre in high regard.

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense.

As usual, I've no respect for your POV or your sources with regard to this issue and since I know you feel the same, I'll leave you to your minions on this thread...but congratulations, I notice that even your minions have minions now. Magnificent!

[Starving Steve]

Re: How unstable the climate can be

Um...these are real climate scientists having a private conversation about a blog scientist hack. I'm not surprised you love his stuff. Now you've stooped to supporting theft as a legitimate publishing medium.

From my earlier link:
As usual, I've no respect for your POV or your sources with regard to this issue and since I know you feel the same, I'll leave you to your minions on this thread...but congratulations, I notice that even your minions have minions now. Magnificent!

I don't even agree with "the big picture" or the paradigm of the man-made global warming so-called "scientists". I don't even agree with their view of CO2 as a pollutant. I don't even agree that a doubling of the CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere from 300PPM to 600PPM would be important to the climate.

Venus has 950,000 PPM of carbon-dioxide. But Earth has just 450PPM CO2. Comparing 450 to 950,000 is like comparing 4.5cents to $450.oo.
And if I start with 3cents and double my money in my pocket, I would have then, 6cents...... No big deal, especially if I need $450.oo to buy a new bicycle.

What is amazing to me is the following the AGW bunch has. It has to be a hoax driven by government or Greenpeace grant money, or else law-suits to pad the pockets of lawyers.:rolleyes:

[c1ue]

Re: How unstable the climate can be

As usual, I've no respect for your POV or your sources with regard to this issue and since I know you feel the same, I'll leave you to your minions on this thread...but congratulations, I notice that even your minions have minions now. Magnificent!

Fortunately real life seems to not correlate with your opinions.

The temperatures aren't going up as the AGW fanatics predicted - even the mainstream media is now talking about this now.

The numerous scams continuously promulgated by the 'chosen ones' continue to be exposed. I particularly like the Al Gore new book cover: 2 hurricanes rotating in opposite directions in the northern hemisphere; an Arctic with no ice but Canada and the US with ice still.

And congratulations: you continue to prove AGW fanatics have zero ability to reconsider any heretical facts contradicting their religion.

In your collective haste to frog march everyone into the official line, the damage being done to environmental activism is more than any smog belcher could possibly hope for.

An otherwise perfectly reasonable desire to minimize unnecessary human consumption is getting run over by Rove-ian tactics - with likely the same result.