You may not be aware that Bishop Hill has a very interesting post up today in a similar vein called "Climate Sensitivity and the Stern Report." The post shows that the only empirical studies of climate sensitivity among the suite used by the IPCC were done by Forster & Gregory. These show a most likely estimate of climate sensitivity to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 of around 1.5 Deg C. In contrast, the IPCC ignored that result (likely the only realistic one) in favour of models and published that climate sensitivity lies in the range of 2 to 4.5 deg C, with a most likely of 3.5 deg. This is clearly chosen to create the most alarm possible among the population without any real basis.

The IPCC is (again) being shown up as an activist organisation, promoting alarmist nonsense. Unfortunately, they have had the ear of governments, learned societies, Climate Commission, CSIRO etc for far too long. It is high time that rather than these bodies uncritically accepting the pronouncements from on high of the activist IPCC, scientists actually look at the real data and information.

At the very least Anthony and Jo provide compelling evidence that the science is NOT settled, and that there is actually no consensus. And of course, even if there was, that doesn't trump evidence.

A consensus is "defeated" by one bit of 'evidence'?

There's an "AGW rule"?!

This pseudo-argument is a misrepresentation of both consensus and the principles of science - it's a straw-man.

"This pseudo-argument is a misrepresentation of both consensus and the principles of science - it's a straw-man."

No's it not.

Consensus is the mainstay of AGW; every advocate of AGW, from Oreskes to Gore uses consensus to 'prove' AGW.

There have been 2 'consensus' studies which are relied on to prove every scientist supports AGW.

The first is by Doran and Zimmerman; it is hopeless; it has no methodology and is almost as bad as the latest Lewandowsky effort to prove "deniers" don't believe the moon landing. There are many critiques of the Zimmerman junk; one of them is here:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/consensus_opiate.pdf

The other 'consensus' 'study' has greater academic pretensions and was coauthored by the late Stephen Schneider:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107

The Schneider effort is also junk; it is predicated on the validity of peer review; peer review in climate studies, however, has no credibility given the email revelations about prominent climate scientists striving to prevent contrary papers from being published; and the history of the Steig/ O'Donnell papers demonstrates this corruption perfectly:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100075232/realclimategate-hits-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-peer-review/

Your comment McReal, is a lazy, arrogant stupid comment; just like AGW science really; and anything but real.

There is only one rule and that is;

"There are no rules."

If you want to prove AGW and you have eyes, can read, have a computer, then look no further than the rapid melting of the arctic ice.
At the rate it melted this year it will be evident even to the most blinkered that AGW is here now.

"Arctic ice" proof of AGW. Not so.

There is very strong evidence that there is a polar oscillation, probably based on AMO variation, whereby when the Arctic ice is low the Antarctic is commensurably higher:

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/correlation-between-arctic-and-antarctic-sea-ice-anomalies/

Currently the Antarctic ice levels are the greatest on record.

The Arctic ice levels were at similar levels during the 1930's and have been much less at various times during the past 9000 years;

http://bprc.osu.edu/geo/publications/mckay_etal_CJES_08.pdf

Looks like you are blind, can't read or use a computer Robert; my sympathies.

Robert le Paige quotes Arctic ice melt as proof of AGW. But he fails to mention that on the same day as the Arctic ice minimum, 22 September, Antarctic ice extent reached an all time measured high. That relationship between the two polar icecaps can be explained by a number of climate theories but carbon dioxide and AGW is not one of them. Yes Robert, you should open your eyes a little wider and not be so selective as to what you read.

Fred Singer replies to William Nordhaus on the NYRB here:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/climate_realism.html

He starts:
“Even with the Kyoto Protocol due to expire at the end of this year, Obama persists in giving highest priority to climate change policy if re-elected. Does the U.S. really want to lead the world in committing economic suicide?”

And closes with:
“Finally, it should be obvious, perhaps, but needs to be stated explicitly that if a warmer climate produces positive net benefits rather than damages, then, in principle, one cannot even conduct a cost-benefit analysis. Nor should one try to mitigate emissions of CO2 in any way; our current policies are simply misguided.”

He points out that authoritative research has shown that warming may be net beneficial this century. Who wants to risk giving up that opportunity when the evidence of impacts of any warming we might get is so uncertain?

Evidence to support Fred Singer’s opening sentence – Obama is the most vociferous proponent of climate change policies - is shown in this web site: http://www.carboncapturereport.org/
Obama comes out top of the world in being reported on climate change, renewable energy, green energy, alternative energy, solar, wind, biofuels. On Carbon Credits Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott are top of the world (yesterday; I haven’t looked at today’s report yet).

This site also shows clearly how the interest in climate change is dying. Select “Climate Change” and look at the activity chart. It shows activity on news articles, news stories, blogs, tweets, You Tube Videos and the tone of the discussion (read the help to understand what 'tone' means). Deselect to see only the ones you want to see. It is clear interest in Climate Change is dying and has been since Copenhagen.

There’s lots more on this site too. I searched for 'Peter Lang' then drilled down and found this excellent quote from Jo Novas’s web site. (Its just as valid now as it was over a year ago): https://bleyzie.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/thoughts-on-the-carbon-tax-package/#comment-6226

Robert LePage

Rapid melting of the artic ice? Oh come now, surely you know better now than to base any statement on activist material. The actual situation is that the summer melt of the artic sea ice (rather than the arctic itself) was at a record for as far as the satellite records go, by a small margin. But its known that the sea ice melt has varied before substantially over decades, centuries and eons.

It is also possible to point to material measuring a degree of melting in the artic but it is not pssible to say just how any of this fits into natural cycles of melt and refreezing and how that might relate to temperatures, as the detailed record for any length of time just aren't there. Scientists know somethign about the broad trends from geological times but that's about it.

So its not possible to say anything is "alarming" as no-one knows what the current trends mean.

I was chatting to the wife of a friend last week - she came from South Australia's Riverland, home of citrus, grapes, etc., and she was saying how, near where she grew up there, the blockies are pulling out grapes and putting in apples.

The fools ! What are they thinking - that the Riverland is Tasmania !?

Neither author appears to have any qualifications in climatology whatsoever. What is the cause of the conservatives' "scepticism" in regard to climate change, perhaps they have large investments in CO2 emitting industries? Or perhaps it's all the Greenies' fault?

For the umpteenth time, let's hear from some climatologist sceptics, who actually know what they're talking about. Well?

Exceptions that prove the rule, is just another of those clichés, that if repeated enough, become gospel?
I believe in evidence based science and tests, which when endlessly repeated still can be relied on to give the exact same result!
This is the very bedrock of good science.
As are peer reviewed results/publication.
Lest we forget, men of letters and science once believed and even taught that the world was flat, just six thousand years old and at the centre of the known universe.
Consensus didn't make it true any more than the so-called exception to the rule!
What ruled it out was practical common sense and endless observations, or if you will, good science.
Now we do know a number of things borne out by observation.
The decade before this one was the hottest on record, and the one we are living through now is even hotter.
The seas are hotting up, by as much as 2C in some places? Moreover, they are becoming progressively more acidic in line with the increasing carbon in our atmosphere.
Further, the oceans are currently rising by around a measurable 10 centimetres a year, and twice that to our immediate north?
Now are any of these events or circumstance caused by human activity, in whole or in part?
Well, I for one sure as hell hope so, given we can, just by making some simple easily achieved changes; and given the political will, mitigate against man-made climate change?
If it is a natural and therefore unstoppable event, then we better hurry and get off the planet, preferably before we all fry?
Rhrosty.

Is this enough for you?
Is Antarctica losing or gaining ice?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm
Is Antarctica getting warmer and gaining ice?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/02/is-antarctica-getting-warmer
Science says: Satellites measure Antarctica is gaining sea ice but losing land ice at an accelerating rate, which has implications for sea level rise.
http://www.wunderground.com/climate/facts/antarctica_is_losing_ice_sheet.asp
Antarctic Ice Melt
http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/antarctic-ice-melt

Sorry Robert, SKS and the Guardian don't cut it as sources.

Antarctica sea ice highest in satellite era:

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png

Western Antarctica land/ice-sheet mass accumulating:

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2012GL052559.shtml

Same for the Eastern part of Antarctica:

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/igsoc/agl/2007/00000046/00000001/art00004

wow lets get the authors on to some other research areas, these guys would cure cancer in a week.

Try to separate the variables!

The GW part of AGW is a matter of measurement, with some room for limited dispute over what the measurements say about global temperatures.

The A part - anthropogenic - is in the realm of speculation, modelling, politics, backscratching, dodgy stats, faddism, grant chasing - all embodied in the elitist Wittgensteinian nonsense that arguments about truth can be settled by weighted head counts of a self-referenced "scientific community".

It is worth speculating, as bets have to be taken and policies set on the basis of speculation, and there's a difference between informed speculation and uninformed speculation, but speculation is still only speculation. Wittgensteinian head counts have been badly wrong before (cf. eugenics).

Robert LePage

Go back and look at your own links. They in no way contradict anything I said. I made no comment about whether the artic or antarctic was losing or gaining ice - its irrelevent. What I said was that precision measurements have not been going on long enough for anyone to make a call. Before the satellite era ice coverage at both poles fluctuated quite a bit..

mac

sorry but climate scientists aren't qualified either. Much of this deals with forecasting systems, and the analysis of forecasting systems are a business subject (its in marketing). So what we really need are professors of marketing who will tell the climate scientists they are wasting their time using such complex systems for forecasting.

Cox and Nova at their disingenuous best. A brief run through the literature cited:

Lindzen and Choi http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf in Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Science, 47, 377-390, 2011

One should perhaps ask why this very important paper is hidden away in such an obscure journal, but I won’t. Instead I will deal with the issues:

1. The authors only show data from tropical regions and then claim that represents the whole globe. Clearly, such a claim is not supported.
2. They use start and stop points that are to say the least quite arbitrary and obviously designed to get the desired result rather than the real one. Yes ladies and gentleman that is cherry picking the data.
3. They drew the wrong conclusions: climate models that specify SST do simulate the effects mentioned by Lindzen and Choi demonstrating SST drives clouds, not the other way around.

Spencer and Braswell http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/8/1603/pdf in Remote Sensing, 3, 1603-1613 2011
One should perhaps ask why this very important paper is hidden away in such an obscure journal, but I won’t – other than to mention the editor of this journal resigned over the failure of peer review with respect to this paper. Instead I will deal with the issues:

1. Spencer and Braswell compared the period 2000-2010 with 100 years data from models.
2. Spencer and Braswell chose the one 10 year period that is most different from the models to show.
3. Spencer and Braswell compared this in the figure with the 6 worst performing climate models over that period – crucially the ones that do not simulated El Nino/La Nina.
4. Models that do a better job of simulation El Nino/La Nina fit the data much better than the ones Spencer and Braswell showed. Oops more of that cherry picking going on again.
5. There was no statistical analysis.

Dressler published a nice discussion of these two papers. http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl1119/2011GL049236/

I am out of words, but you have to wonder why Cox and Nova chose these already discredited papers as their main evidence.

Agro, your last link is behind a paywall - try here:

http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/Dessler2011.pdf

I've given up on the political ideologue. Not only does he misrepresent and distort the science, his ad-homs and cyber-bullying remind me of Alan Jones.

Agronomist; you really are slipping in my estimation; your snide little comments about obscure journals is not only snide but misleading when one realises the level of censorship both Lindzen and Choi and Spencer have had to endure:

http://joannenova.com.au/2011/06/when-top-scientists-take-2-years-to-publish-its-time-to-give-up-on-old-peer-review/

It's a miracle either were published at all given that the likes of Gleick, the forger, and other notable AGW trustworthies were leading the charge to suppress them; the circumstance of the ridiculous resignation by Wagner is here:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/02/breaking-editor-in-chief-of-remote-sensing-resigns-over-spencer-braswell-paper/

The Spencer and Dessler ongoing 'debate' is chronologised here:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/research-pages/the-spencer-braswell-dessler-papers/

Your complaints about Lindzen and Choi are trite and well rebutted; in respect of the LC 2009 paper Dr Tuuri at comments 51-59 at Real Climate vindicates LC 2009 against the complaints of 'cherry picking' and concentration on the tropics:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/lindzen-and-choi-unraveled/comment-page-2/#comments

In addition LC's follow up paper in 2010 addressed these complaints brought against LC 2009 by using all the data and extrapolating beyond the tropics and STILL found more IR leaving the top of the atmosphere then the stupid models had predicted.

It is clear you have just done a round up of a few pro-AGW blogsites about these 2 ground-breaking papers and regurgitated the whole mess.

Why don't you think for yourself and consider the issue of +ve feedbacks which AGW is reliant on but which has much evidence against.

cohenite, have you read and understood any of these papers you are commenting about? It really seems not.

My comments about where they were published was deliberate. Obscure journals have more difficulty in recruiting referees. They become easy marks for this sort of material.

I disagree that a miracle occurred in their publication, one merely needs to keep shopping around and someone will publish. They always had Energy & Environment up their sleeve if all else failed. These papers were not published in mainstream climate science journals because they were so obviously wrong. There is no need to invoke a conspiracy.

But then I did actually critique the papers. They both contain obvious cherry-picking of material to make their points. This is an immediate red flag that something is wrong.

Have you read Lindzen and Choi’s 2011 offering? I suggest you do. When you come to the bit where it is all based on the tropical regions, you might like to think why the rest of the globe was not included.

cohenite wrote: "Your complaints about Lindzen and Choi are trite and well rebutted; in respect of the LC 2009 paper Dr Tuuri at comments 51-59 at Real Climate vindicates LC 2009 against the complaints of 'cherry picking' and concentration on the tropics:”

Were you reading the same comments you linked to? Or is there a different set of comments? Because neither of the complaints you specify were rebutted by H. Tuuri in the comments. I was rather amused by the insistent way H. Tuuri kept using “naked eye analysis”.

The main problem with AGW, other than it’s inherent subjectivity, is that the zealous rush to damn anything, Carbon, allows the primary causes of most real and pressing environmental damage to go unnoticed. For example: The great Barrier Reef, an organism large enough to be seen from space, is in serious trouble. The pop-science brigade, along with several vested interests, all ascribe AGW as the main reason for the reef’s problems.

The actual causality of reef degradation, rests mainly with adjacent coastal river catchment clearing, and gross over - fertilisation, resulting in large amounts of suspended sediments (mud) and plant life (algae) that allow huge numbers of Crown of Thorns Starfish, to breed and subsequently destroy large amounts of coral. Here AGW protagonists will try to show that the weather has deteriorated, and AGW is causing an increase in tropical cyclone activity - resulting in mechanical damage to the reef, and smothering from millions of tons of mud swept onto the reef by flooding rivers. Well ... yes and no: mechanical damage from tropical cyclonic wave action is responsible for damage that has occurred for millions of years, and is generally roportionate to the intensity of the storm. However, storm damage to a reef that has been devastated by star fish attack, and general smothering, will be disproportionately high, resulting from severe imbalance by coastal / catchment agriculture and general soil disturbance - pre-colonial river flows did not contain large amounts of suspended sediments - as no wholesale clearing of catchments occurred.

And what of bleaching? again, an ongoing natural process, resulting in fluctuations of sea levels and sea surface temperatures. Here is yet another flaw in AGW theory: Coral bleaching results from surface and near surface exposure to high temperatures - as resulting from exceptionally low tides - especially during mid-summer. A major part of IPCC scary doctrine, relates to rapidly rising sea levels. Another part of said IPCC doctrine warns of the impending demise of the world’s coral reefs through coral bleaching ... ! Enough said

Hi Agronomist,

I'm trying to get a handle on your criticism of this paper. Can you help me with a few things?

First - the article cites seven papers. Is it only the two you name that you have problems with?

Second - Can we look at your criticisms of Lindsen and Choi, using your numbers.

1. On p 388 the authors discuss the reasons for using the tropical satellite data. One is that the water vapour feedback is assumed to be more significant at the tropics. Another is that one set of satellite data doesn't cover the whole globe, and the other has a lot of noise. I don't think they claim that their data represents the whole globe. Can you clarify.

2. What start and stop points would you have used? What would have been captured by your dates that weren't by theirs? As there is no trend analysis involved here I can't see that you can cherry pick, but I'm interested in your argument.

3. I think this is what is in contention so you're just asserting that their paper is wrong. Can you explain why their explanatory mechanism is wrong and the one you support is correct?

If it is possible to thrash out Lindzen and Choi I'd like to then move on to Spencer and Braswell.

Oh dear

Once upon a time there was a man called Copernicus. Well actually his name was Mikolaj Kopernik but it got Latinised to Copernicus. Anyway this dude had a crazy idea. He though the Earth and the other planets all orbited the sun. He said the reason we all thought they orbited about the Earth was because the Earth was spinning on its axis. What we imagined was the sun, planets and stars circling about us was an illusion caused by us being on a world-sized merry-go-round.

I mean, fancy that. Do you feel any spinning?

Well the astronomers of that era falsified this dude's preposterous theories pretty darn quickly. They worked out where in the sky the planets would appear if Copernicus was right and, guess what, they weren't there!

"Look," says one astronomer to another, "if that idiot was right we would expect to see Mars right there over the tall tree. But instead it's over that mountain. What a fool!"

And so Copernicus was falsified and today, as every schoolboy knows, we understand that the Earth stands still and all the planets and the sun and stars rotate about us at the centre of the universe.

Well, not quite. Copernicus got the big picture right but he fell down on some of the details. For example the planets did not move in circles but in ellipses at varying speeds. Another dude called Kepler figured it out.

Even that did not settle all the questions. If the Earth was spinning why didn't it slingshot us off? If it was moving why didn't we feel the wind?

But the preponderance of evidence pointed to Copernicus being right so we still give him the credit.

What the quoted papers MAY do is show that we got some of the details of global warming wrong although I'm not even sure of that. But I doubt they alter the big picture.

SO WHAT WOULD FEYNMAN HAVE SAID ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING?

Poor old Feynman. He must be turning in his grave to see the way these pseudo-science websites are misusing his famous quote. I know they're pseudo-science because real scientists would have understood the context of Feynman's statement.

So what would Feynman have to say about global warming?

Well anything I attributed to him would be pure speculation. I don't know. But I can make an educated guess.

Murray Gell-Mann, also a Nobel-Prize winning physicist, was for a time a colleague of Feynman's at Caltech. He was the one man Feynman reluctantly conceded was smarter than himself.

So here's what Gell-Mann, the man Feynman called smarter than himself, says we should do about global warming:

http://www.webofstories.com/play/52284

I'm flattered that Gell-Mann has independently arrived at the same conclusion I did. We need to take out insurance.

So I'm guessing that Feynman would agree with Gell-Mann.

Incidentally Murray Gell-Mann is a leading light in the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The NAS has put out some pretty strong position papers on anthropogenic global warming. Gell-Mann has never dissented so again I'm guessing neither would Feynman.

So believe what you want but try and let poor old Feynman rest in peace.

Nobody has ever explained to me why I should believe OLO posters instead of most of the world's actual climate scientists plus the consensus view of most of the world's peak scientific bodies – you know, such nothing bodies as the Royal Society, National Academy of Sciences and Max Planck Institute.

I mean, based on past history they're more likely to be more nearly right than OLO posters quoting websites who in turn quote Feynman out of context.

BTW Feynman had some pretty nasty things to say about people who cherry-picked evidence.

Seriously Steven, can we deal with the papers? I don't presume to know what Feynman would think, and certainly not by projecting from what a friend of his thinks.

Science isn't decided by show of hands, it is decided by facts. The papers that Jo and Tony quote are peer reviewed, not just from some website. They have weight and deserve to be dealt with seriously, not by some flip reference to Galileo.

I think this is one of the few journals on the Internet where you could get some sensible discussion on this issue. I was hoping you'd be part of it.

Yep, spot on Steven ... but it ain't going to sway the doubters one bit - they have too much vested in AGW being; wrong, skewed, biased, un-godly, impossible, catastrophic, whatever.

Sheesh, we even have OLO's 'right' leaning chief editor and moderator spruiking the secretary of the Climate Sceptics Party (a political front to be sure) and wanting to turn the thread/site into a scientific forum. S'pose it's nice to dream.

It might surprise you Bonmot, but this is not an issue about politics - just ask people like Martin Ferguson and Gary Grey who are both on the left and both skeptical on global warming.

This thread is about the article. If you are going to heckle and try to stop people discussing the papers cited in it I will rule you out of order.

cohenite, Tuesday, 2 October 2012 9:53:55 AM

One of my brief points was around the fact that one or two studies do not prove anything: Consensus is more than two studies.

The other is there is no 'AGW rule'.

Curmudgeon,

"To each his own trade". There are some people without the appropriate qualifications, or intellectual capacity, who have "proved" that Einstein's theories are flawed. They're crackpots. The public has been subjected to propaganda by unqualified individuals, who "Don't know what they don't know" and because of vested interest, they're taken seriously.

Minute
To: All the AGW faithful

Neither Feynman nor Gell-Mann are/were “climate scientists”

It seems it’s quite ok for an OLO author to bully the commentators thus:

>> Your comment McReal, is a lazy, arrogant stupid comment; just like AGW science really; and anything but real. <<

>> Looks like you are blind, can't read or use a computer Robert; my sympathies. <<

Plus numerous accounts of Cox’s vitriol and cyber-bullying on other threads.

Yet OLO's chief editor and moderator raises the threat of censorship against anyone he doesn't like. No surprises there.

It’s blatantly obvious there is ‘one rule for them and one rule for us’ given OLO is aware of the vitriol and cyber bullying the author Cox has engaged in on other threads.

No GrahamY, Anthony Cox and his ilk are using your OLO as a platform to push an agenda. He has made AGW an issue about politics, evidenced by his blog site and numerous other comments he has made on OLO and at his co-author’s blog

Bonmot I thank you for your support.
having been threatened by censorship once before, I try to be careful about saying anything that might offend the Anti AGW camp. They usually pop up and aim barbs at any serious comments and do not get censored in any way. It is a shame that this forum is so obviously slanted this way. It could and should be an open discussion area where personal epithets are not allowed.
Not to worry, the people concerned know who they are and what they are doing and will be exposed for the astroturfers that they are in due course.
Anyone who does not accept that the Arctic has gone into free fall melt at the moment is either blind or is trying to mislead.
The passages around the North Russian coast are open and being used by shipping as a normal route. this has not ever been done before in our history. Yes ice breakers have forced a passage through on occasion but never have ships sailed through freely.
The NW passage also has become open and when you think of the battles that seamen have had over the years to sail this route, it is obvious that something big is happening there.

Here's a handy comparison of arctic sea ice:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2102-09-27/arctic-sea-ice-maps-before-after-1984-2012/4283418

I don't believe this phenomenon is something to merely shrug our shoulders at. There's much much more expertise that confirms AGW - this is just one more example of "cause and effect".

GrahamY, one of the things I found unusual about the piece by Cox and Nova is that despite there being thousands of papers published on climate change, measurements of temperature, models of climate change, proxies and predictions, the authors light on these few papers, most of which are published in obscure places and several are not peer-reviewed. One is simply a poster at a conference after all.

It reminds me a lot of the anti-GM groups response to scientific evidence. Ignore the vast bulk of the literature and focus on a few poorly run studies that produce results that fit your prejudices.

I may indeed comment on some of the other papers if I have the time and inclination. I stopped at two in my first comment, because I ran out of words. I said as much at the time.

On to your questions about Lindzen and Choi 2011.

1. The authors make it clear that it is tropical data. There are a couple of issues with this. One is that tropical sea surface temperatures have a much greater influence of El Nino/La Nina variations. This is the biggest bit of noise in our climate measurements. Over short periods, it tends to dominate the underlying trends. If not corrected for, no useful information about trends is obtained. Secondly, care needs to be taken in extrapolation of tropical data to the global system. Lindzen and Choi forget the tropics are not a closed system.
2. If you want to compare upward slopes and downward slopes, you start and finish at the tops and bottoms of the slopes. Lindzen and Choi did not do this. Sometimes they started half way up and sometimes finished on the other side. Why I have no idea, but I think it might be because it improved the significance of their result. This is cherry-picking and wrong.
3. Yes. Dressler 2011 showed that models incorporating specified sea surface temperatures produced a similar result to Lindzen and Choi’s lag/regression slope plot. Therefore, clouds cannot be driving SST.

Agronomist, I'm puzzled as to why you would question them selecting papers which purport to disprove the hypothesis. There's no point them selecting ones that either say nothing about it or which are consonant with it. That's how you do science - you test predictions of theories to see whether they are correct. If the theory is not predictive it needs modification. You can't satisfy this aspect by picking papers which appear to agree. We know that the general theory of relativity is a better explanation of the gravitational force than Newton's because it describes things that Newton's theory doesn't, but you're hardly going to put a study on ballistics into evidence because it would appear to support either!

1. They specifically deal with this issue and claim that Dressler does not. Further they also discuss the issues with extrapolating from part of the earth to the whole. As I understand it the best data doesn't extend beyond 60 degrees, which is still pretty close to the arctic circles. They also state, and it seems reasonable, that most of the moisture uptake is in the tropical area, so the relationship should be strongest in that area. Again, seems reasonable.

2. They're not actually comparing slopes so I'm not sure what your point is. Can you give me examples rather than generalisations? The start and finish dates are always going to be somewhat arbitrary in sampling, but they don't necessarily bias the data.

3. I don't follow this. Can you give me a link to Dressler and the page reference?

Agronomist claims the listed papers are not peer reviewed; that is wrong.

Agronomist also complains that Lindzen and Choi [LC] restrict their analysis to the tropics; LC 2011:

“we analyzed the complete record of CERES for the globe (Dessler, 2010) (Note that 469 ERBE data is not available for the high latitudes since the field-of-view is between 60°S and 60°N). As seen in the previous section, the use of the global CERES record leads to a result that is basically 471 similar to that from the tropical data in this study . The global CERES record, however, contains more noise than the tropical record. This result lends support to the argument that the water vapor feedback is primarily restricted to the tropics, and there are reasons to suppose that this is also the case for cloud feedbacks. Although, in principle, climate feedbacks may arise from any latitude, there are substantive reasons for supposing that they are, indeed, concentrated mostly in the tropics.”

The methodology for extrapolating from the tropics is explained in LC 2010 at Appendix 2:

http://www.legnostorto.com/allegati/Lindzen_Choi_ERBE_JGR_v4.pdf

After consideration of the observed data about OLR, atmospheric water vapour, radiative fluxes and cloud patterns and types LC conclude:

“As noted by Lindzen et al. [2001], with feedbacks restricted to the tropics, their contribution to global sensitivity results from sharing the feedback fluxes with the extratropics. 357 This leads to the factor of 2 in Eq. (6).”

Equations 6, 7a and 7b establish the feedback parameters globally and they remain negative.

LC show that the main climatic activity is in the tropics but that similar negative feedback is shown when the global data is considered AND when a scaled extrapolation is made from the tropics to the globe.

Agronomist has either misrepresented or not understood this point.

I will respond to Agronomist’s other unjustified complaints that LC use cherry-picked data and don’t consider ENSO in another post; however I note that Dessler 2011 has been critiqued in the links I provided in my first comment above and specifically in respect of SST see also:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/08/still-cooling-sea-surface-temperatures-thru-august-18-2010/

In respect of ENSO and the data period LC 2011 were aware of the complaints made against LV 2009 [line 132]; the choice of the data period was a balance as they say [line 125]:

“As explained in Lindzen and Choi (2009), it is essential, that the time intervals considered, be short compared to the time it takes for the system to equilibrate, while long compared to the time scale on which the feedback processes operate (which, in the tropics, are essentially the time scales associated with cumulonimbus convection). The latter is on the order of days, while the former depends on the climate sensitivity, and ranges from years for sensitivities on the order of 0.5°C for a doubling of CO2 to many decades for higher sensitivities (Lindzen and Giannitsis, 1998).”

To solve this issue LC use 2 data periods [line 189]:

“This is also why we use the 36-day averaged SST for 1985&#8722;1999 and monthly SST for 2000&#8722;2008 in Fig. 2.”

LC 2011 justify their choice from 191-212; basically their choice removes “seasonality”, ENSO, but still allows SST change to be correlated with outgoing long-wave radiation from the top of the atmosphere and therefore a measure of the system’s feedback.

LC 2011 also consider the feedback/forcing relationship between clouds and the SST; like Spencer they note this can only be measured in the short term and even then which causes what is a matter of time. As Foster et al 2007 note:

“including non-instantaneous processes clearly blurs the distinction between forcing and feedback as there is no longer a clear timescale to separate the two; further including these processes in the forcing incorporates more uncertain aspects of a climate models response”

LC and Spencer and Braswell have done brilliant work on quantifying feedback and the system’s sensitivity, primarily in the short-term; the hostility shown towards them has not been on the basis that they are scientifically incorrect but that they undermine the edicts of AGW.

@ Robert LePage,

<< having been threatened by censorship once before, I try to be careful about saying anything that might offend the Anti AGW camp. They usually pop up and aim barbs at any serious comments and do not get censored in any way>>

LOL what serious comments were they Mr Le Page

Was this one of your serious comments?
<<Anyone who does not accept that the Arctic has gone into free fall melt at the moment is either blind or is trying to mislead.The passages around the North Russian coast are open…he NW passage also has become open…>>

It might be that those who see things differently take a longer perspective:
See here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice/

And declaring “the Arctic has gone into free “ is very big call –are you sure about that?

[Speaking of conspiracies I have just noticed something really twilight zonish. All speakers on the yae side on this thread have French names i) bonmot ii) Le Page iii) Agronismist ( from the French agronomie) & iv) Poirot (from the French province of Belgium)---if I was warmist I might see a tend in that!]

SPQR, I think you have a point. I returned last Friday from two months in France and can add to the TZ syndrome.

The French economy is broke, taxes on the wealthy are going up, small business is in decline, much of their heavy industry and power generation is owned by TATA, their car manufacturing is wrecked because only europeans by european cars (whoops), and the American car industry is moving production from Germany to the UK, they will continue to sell electricity to the Germans but will not accept Euros because Germany is building 23 new coal fired power stations and is burning 30% lignite, and for the first time in 60 years emigration by middle class French is on the increase.

Thats is why we have so many pseudo intellectuals with French names, it's a takeover. Pity they no longer have Madame Le Gillotine.

Keep up the good work.

Yours truly, Alan de Jones.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/about-wuwt/policy/
SPQR, You might do well to read the page above and try to abide from it. It comes from the link that you quoted to me for watts up with that.
GrahamY the post from SPQR is an example of what I consider to be an attempt to annoy. if I replied in the same vein or was more inflamitery, would I be cut off?

The Arctic has often had thin ice.

USS Skate surfaced at the North Pole, March 17, 1959.

There's a picture of it somewhere I have seen, & the ice was pretty thin.

The frenchies; that's funny; they were good in Monty Python [Holy Grail] and they're still being funny.

Submarine at North Pole

http://library.osu.edu/projects/under-the-north-pole/images/wilkins35_5_1.jpg

The pro-AGW folk are misery-gutses; they latch onto every bit of 'bad' climate news like Vultures; it's as though they want things to be bad just so they can be vindicated. They are weird, best to ignore them.

However I will respond to one, stevenlmeyer, who ridiculously misrepresents Feynman and enlists Gell-Mann to support his beliefs. Gell-Mann said this:

“Now imagine a similar experiment run by a sadistic psychologist who exhibits a sequence with no structure at all [Lewandowsky perhaps?]. You are likely to go on making up schemata, but this time keep failing to make good predictions, except occasionally by chance. In this case the results in the real world afford no guidance in choosing a schema, other than the one that says, “This sequence seems to have no rhyme or reason.” But human subjects find it hard to accept such a conclusion.” [ The Quark and the Jaguar, page 18]

Sums up AGW science and its supporters perfectly.

What about the Antarctic? Not the continent: the icy bits. Will it soon be a green and verdant land that all the climate change refugees can make their home?

Cheers,

Tony

While the ice at the Nth Pole shrinks the South Pole grows.It is selective fact garnering coupled with similar logic.

The world in the last 1000 yrs has been far hotter and cooler than today.The alarmists want to profit from doom.That is self evident.

GrahamY, regarding my comment over the selection of papers by Cox and Nova. If a scientist wants to review the state of knowledge in an area, they look at all the pertinent research, determine the quality of the various pieces of research, and then draw a conclusion from this exercise that leads to hypothesis formation. This is not what Cox and Nova have done. What Cox and Nova have done is selected a small group of papers, published mostly in obscure places, that support the conclusion they already had ignoring any contradictions. Cox and Nova is advocacy, not science. It is perhaps noteworthy that the papers selected by Cox and Nova are not even internally consistent with respect to their conclusions. They have only one thing in common; they can be used to cast doubt on the hypothesis that CO2 in the atmosphere is warming the planet. Someone else once described this as the Anything But Carbon hypothesis.

OK, now to your points.

1. Lindzen and Choi’s model still operates as if the tropics was a closed system. This is a weakness of their approach, but not damning.
2. I think you are having trouble reading the legend to Figure 9 in Lindzen and Choi. This is actually damning, because what Lindzen and Choi have done is to go backwards and forwards across the data set to find the periods where the Flux response has the highest correlation with SST. What this does is cherry-pick the intervals that fit their conclusion. This is wrong.
3. Dessler 2011 took the outputs of existing atmospheric models, where SST is an input, and plotted these as Lindzen and Choi did. Dessler obtained a similar curve to Lindzen and Choi. This means clouds cannot be driving SST.

I don’t have space to respond to cohenite’s comments, except to say that Cox and Nova link to a paper published in Energy & Environment and a poster given at a conference in 2008. Neither were peer reviewed.

Figure 9 explanation:

"Fig. 9. (a) Scatter plots and regression lines of radiative flux variation by clouds (&#916;Rcloud) versus &#916;T from CERES and ECMWF interim data used in Dessler (2010). &#916;Rcloud and &#916;T values are calculated by taking (black) original monthly anomaly data, and (red) the method in this study. (b) The slopes and their one-&#963; uncertainties of lagged linear regressions of &#916;Rcloud versus &#916;Ts; the numbers indicate lagged linear correlation coefficients [Taken from Choi et al. (2011)]."

I have referred to LC 2011's methodology for selecting and organising data above; in addition to that and the above Figure 9 explanation LC explain, plainly, from line 182 to line 203 [which should be read in its entirety], that their method takes into account the different sampling methods used by ground based and ERBE sources; they say:

"This is 197 attributed to different sampling patterns; i.e., ERBS observes all local times over a period of 72 days, while Terra observes the region only twice per day (around 10:30 AM and 10:30 PM)."

Dessler does not distinguish between the sampling methods and the inherent bias that contributes.

Agronomist also persists in misrepresenting LC's treatment of the tropics and extratropics or global data; at lines 132 to 152 LC 2011 deal with this complaint and show that they do NOT treat the tropics as a "closed system".

LC 2011 do NOT "go backwards and forwards across the data set to find the periods where the Flux response has the highest correlation with SST"; what they do is correct for the data processing and then apply a smoothing technique to remove seasonality/noise which was recommended in the critique of their 2009 paper [Murphy 2010]!

Agronomists's complaints about LC 2011 are unfounded.

As for peer review, E&E is peer reviewed and the Koutsoyiannis 2008 ‘poster’ provides alternative methods of viewing his paper, which is also peer reviewed.

The fraud backers are really out in force, commenting on this article.

A few new ones, but mainly people who have trolled before, and when asked to supply science to back the assertion that human activities have any effect on climate, dodge the question or refer us to irrelevant nonsense from Wikipedia or Skeptical Science,or to a site run by Climategate miscreants like Michael Mann.

The AGW fraud is dead:

“Some of the preeminent scientists involved in promoting global-warming alarmism have been disgraced and discredited, after being caught in flagrante in unethical and illegal activities. Even before the 2009 “Climategate” e-mail scandal, many leading scientists who had earlier been true believers in man-made global warming (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW) had begun jumping ship and joining the AGW skeptic side. Since then, the defections have turned into a veritable flood, making this one of the great untold stories of the major establishment media, which continue to trumpet the alarmist propaganda”

This article gives an excellent summary of the shambles in which the AGW fraud backers find themselves:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/7mvumju

Their difficulty is that huge amounts of money have been lost by reliance on the spurious “science” put out by the IPCC and the Climategate crooks, so the rearguard action continues.

Gore has taken the precaution of divorcing his wife of 40 years, and transferring significant assets to her. If the chickens come home to roost he will live a comfortable life as a bankrupt. Many people would like to see him locked up for his actions in this fraud.

Listen up, folks!

I have new theory that skeptics have in mind a plot to corner the taxidermy market for mammoths....boy it's getting hot in here!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-06/russian-boy-finds-mammoth-of-the-century/4298948

: )

Oh mon amie, sorry to burst your bubble - that theory's been around awhile ;-)

Ever since taxidermists cottoned on to global warming and taxidrivers cottoned on to methane gas.

And further to Leo Lane's post -

Daily Telegraph
Slippery when wet - Tim Flannery's climate warnings questioned after recent flooding
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-news/slippery-when-wet-tim-flannerys-climate-warnings-questioned-after-recent-flooding/story-e6freuzi-1226355256833

"Five years ago, Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery predicted that the nation's dams would never be full again and major Australian cities would need desalination plants to cater for our water needs."

And now this -

Sydney Morning Herald
SA government asked to defend $1.8b desal plant
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/sa-government-asked-to-defend-18b-desal-plant-20121005-2732p.html

"South Australia's government is facing calls to explain why its new $1.8 billion desalination "white elephant" is to be mothballed, possibly until the next drought."

Yes, until the next drought. And I'm quite sure there'll be one, sooner or later, and this desal plant may then be viewed as clever foresight. But in the meantime, you can't help but reason that the loony left's alarmism and panic - and even fraud as Leo suggests - is sheer insanity in this so-called twenty-first century modern scientific era.

What ever happened to rational, logical, scientific research conducted by rational, logical, scientists?

When you ask yourself that question, you can't help but see that Leo Lane makes a very good argument about fraud.

Cheers all.

"Gore has taken the precaution of divorcing his wife of 40 years, and transferring significant assets to her. If the chickens come home to roost he will live a comfortable life as a bankrupt. Many people would like to see him locked up for his actions in this fraud."

Which fraud is that? Because I'm really interested in the gossip as well as the interesting property law which must apply... since according to The Christian Post (and they wouldn't lie with a name like that) though still separated the Gore's were not divorced three months ago:

http://global.christianpost.com/news/al-tipper-gore-dating-other-people-still-not-divorced-77765/

I admit being distracted by their sidebar 'most popular' article, "How Hookers for Jesus Founder Turned Away from Sex Trade to Serving God." so maybe I missed something?

There is interesting thread on Climate Etc. "Skeptics: make your best case"
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/

There are many excellent comments. People of all persuasions can learn a lot from reading with an open mind what people who do not agree with them have to say about what they themselves believe in their own words.

@ "What ever happened to rational, logical, scientific research conducted by rational, logical, scientists?"

Words from a non-scientist, obviously.

And just for balance;

>> you can't help but reason that the 'loony right's head-in-the-sand intransigence ... is sheer insanity in this so-called twenty-first century modern scientific era. <<

Sorry Peter, I gave up on the Judith Curry thread when BartR starting showing off about "contrapositive conditionals" in the context of meaningful climate periods to base conclusions of whether a trend had occurred.

Back to stochastic school for the lot of them! For me AGW became irredeemably stupid when it substituted the criteria for determining whether human activity was polluting the environment from what was of benefit or not to humans with the aesthetic of nature and therein that nature itself should not be interfered with by human activity at all.

In addition to that nonsense there are so many aspects of AGW 'theory' which are problematic, laughable, bizarre, misanthropic, and that is before we get to the lies, scams, frauds, economic disruption and distortion.

What interests me is the psychology of the 'believer' of AGW; they are incredibly aggressive and unyeilding; and they really hate any doubt or scepticism of their belief. Lewandowsky is a good example, using his background to attempt to besmirch 'disbelievers' as basically insane.

The mentality behind that, while grotesque, is still frightening.

This post, along with the different versions at Jo's:

http://joannenova.com.au/2012/10/man-made-global-warming-disproved/

And the Climate Sceptics:

http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/has-global-warming-been-disproved-part-2.html

Really establish that sufficient doubt exists about AGW so that policy based on "the science is settled" needs to cease. However, I don't think that is going to happen.

Peter Lang, there is an important caveat to having an open mind. One's mind should not be so open that one's brains fall out.

From USA Today (h/t Bill Hooke): Stealth war to redefine science. Some excerpts:

In our state of political gridlock, the scientific community fears the impact of the looming federal budget cuts known as “sequestration.” But there is something else they should be fearful of: the redefining of science itself.

Indeed, there appears to be an increasing trend to change the definition of what is widely considered to be science. Why?

Two reasons: Money and politics.

First, the money. Relatively speaking, science departments are lavishly funded compared with the humanities. If a field becomes widely perceived as being scientific, it is likely to get more money from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other government sources of funding.

Second, the politics. It’s not a secret that academia, particularly the humanities, skews heavily left.

http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/05/week-in-review-10512/

Agronomist, I can't agree with your description as to how science works. It is contrary to any philosophy of science that I am aware of. You don't need to have an alternative theory, or conduct a literature review, to negate an existing hypothesis. You just need to have an experiment that is robust and replicable that shows the existing hypothesis is not predictive.

Can we agree, for example, that the models depend on positive forcings to arrive at their projections? That doesn't require a literature review. And then, if we agree that, if there is experimental evidence which shows this forcing doesn't exist, then the models need to be adjusted. That's what the work of Lindzen and Choi and Spencer and Braswell suggests. There is no theory under-pinning the positive feedbacks - they are just parameters fed into models, so hard to have an alternative hypothesis to a heuristic!

On your points:

1. Just doesn't appear to be so from what they have written in their paper. I think we'll just have to disagree on this.

2. Figure 9 uses the figures that Dressler uses. If they cherry-picked, then so did he I guess. Or can you refer me to a graph which shows a longer time series and that their analysis does not hold on that?

3. I thought the point of Lindzen and Choi was that they weren't trying to determine what was or was not causing feedbacks. Are you getting confused with Spencer and Braswell?

Peer review doesn't count for anything in terms of the accuracy of a paper. We know at least 50% of peer-reviewed published studies are wrong on the basis of other studies that have been done investigating that subject. So your last par makes no substantive point.

Peter Lang, re: your link to Judith Curry's blog. Of note is your comment/s :

"You and other alarmists continually post articles implying catastrophe. However, the connection isn’t made. How does the presence of 1,700 Pg of carbon in permafrost mean catastrophe. I know you argue it will be released, warm the atmosphere and cause all sorts of unspecified deadly consequences. But the planet has been with out ice at either pole for 75% of the time multi-cell life has existed. So what is the problem with warming? Furthermore, life thrives when the planet is warmer and struggles when colder. So what is the problem with warming?"

Do you understand what a Petagram is?
Do you know how many billions of tonnes make up 1,700 Pg.
Do you understand methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2
Do you understand that methane is released when the tundra permafrost melts?

Re: the "stealth war"
The comment is in response to this article:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/09/27/169856/stalling-science-threatens-every.html

Perhaps you can comment there, no?

For example, would it not be prudent to increase (or at least maintain) funding NASA research into Earth's climate system?

As it is, the US Republicans want to slash and burn this particular research. Why do you think that is?

Before you answer, consider your response in light of your comment above about politics, money and the humanities.

Peter Lang,

"Second, the politics. It's not a secret that academia, particularly the humanities, skews heavily left."

Perhaps this evens things out a bit:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/01/rightwing-insurrection-usurps-democracy/

Bonmot,

It is disingenuous to select a part of my comment and misrepresent its content and main point. Therefore, I’ll post it below in two comments (because it exceeds the word limit). Hopefully, most other readers will realise how this demonstrates, not only that you intentionally misrepresented what I said, but also you do not understand what is important. You completely avoided the point of the comment which is that CAGW alarmists need to show the relevance of their scaremongering in terms of impacts.

<blockquote> When did the planet last warm 3 degrees C in a few centuries? And how did life cope with that?</blockquote>

I find these sorts of comments/questions unpersuasive because of the inconsistency in what the Alarmists claim are the most important impacts of warming. Here are some of the impacts people pick from:
• Rapid sea level rise
• Magnitude of sea level rise by 2100
• Extreme weather events
• Fatalities from hot weather events (they ignore the reduction in fatalities cause by less cold events)
• Loss of glaciers and loss of reliable fresh water supplies
• Reduced alkalinity of the oceans
• Polar bears drowning

And, on this occasion, you’ve chosen to pick on mass extinctions.

I find it frustrating that the climate science ‘consensusts’ has been unable to put it all together and state their projections of the net economic costs and benefits over time for any given temperature projection scenario. Without that I cannot take your cherry picked argument about mass extinctions seriously.

There are other reasons too why I find your comment/questions unpersuasive. The amount and rate of extinctions caused by CO2 is already, and will be in the future, negligible compared with the extinctions caused by habitat destruction from other causes. So your argument is a distraction and a diversion from what is important. Mitigating CO2 emissions would cause us to waste our wealth on polices for a cherry picked, but relatively unimportant, threat (when considered in proper perspective).

cont...

cont ...

Another point, comparison of present and past rates of warming are meaningless because we have temperature readings at much closer time scales now than we have for the past.

Furthermore, we know from Greenland ice cores that rates of temperature change were much faster in the past than now. Importantly, life thrived when it warmed but died out when it cooled. This shows life prefers warmer. I realise the Greenland ice cores refer to local temperature changes. But so what? Life responds to local changes not global changes. So the rapid local changes demonstrate that life prefers warmer and warming.

All in all I am far from persuaded that warming is a serious threat in the next 50 or even 100 years. On the other hand, the consequences for human well-being of the mitigation polices advocated by CAGW Alarmists – such as CO2 pricing and mandated renewable energy – would be very bad.

Furthermore, I am persuaded that we will cut emissions automatically without damaging the economy. It will happen faster when the ‘Progressives’ stop blocking progress – either because a significant proportion of them realise the damaging consequences of the policies they promote, or because they are sidelined by the majority of rational and objective people.

In summary, I’d urge you to put all the costs and benefits of projected damages together and time phase them – rather than pick out one scaremongering scenario at a time, each time loaded up with scary adjectives. It’s totally off-putting. I just dismiss this sort of comments as more nonsense.

Here, let me help you Peter:

http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/05/week-in-review-10512/#comment-248986

and;

http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/05/week-in-review-10512/#comment-249025

and;

http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/05/week-in-review-10512/#comment-249031

and Déjà vu;

http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/05/week-in-review-10512/#comment-249041

we get the drift.

You may have difficulty with the concept of a "squealing" planet, but just maybe you will look-it-up and factor that into your cost-benefit analysis.

___

Post/word limits may have got the better of you, but moving on:

Re: the "stealth war".

The comment is in response to this article:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/09/27/169856/stalling-science-threatens-every.html

For example, would it not be prudent to increase (or at least maintain) funding NASA research into Earth's climate system?

As it is, the US Republicans want to slash and burn this particular research. Why do you think that is?

Before you answer, consider your response in light of your comment above about politics, money and the humanities.

The idea that public funding of research is essential and superior, compared with private and entrepreneurial funding is critiqued here:

http://www.the-rathouse.com/2010/Kealey-EconomicsofScience.html

In particular, the vast public funding of climate science under the auspices of the exegenices of AGW has been a catastrophe with nothing but failed modelling to show for the billions wasted.

While this fraud on the public has been conducted a small band of independent, true scientists, have, without fanfare or funding and in the face of pig in the trough opposition from the establishment, produced compelling and cogent evidence against the deceit of AGW; here is a prime example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CM7IUkvT_Zg

AGW is establishment ideology supported by an infrastructure of parasitic bureacracies from the UN down and crony capitalism; so entrenched is this blight that I doubt whether a change of government, here in Australia and the US will be sufficient to eradicate it, at least in one term.

Oh, and this excerpt, Peter:

@ "Its so bleeding obvious, why can’t the Loony Left nutters understand it?"

http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/05/week-in-review-10512/#comment-248995

Peter, you could/should have included "Loony Right nutters" as well - sort of skews your biases, right?

Btw, here's an example of some good stealth spending:

http://berkeleyearth.org/donors/

with some not so unsurprising results:

http://berkeleyearth.org/results-summary/

Neither BEST 1 or BEST 2, Muller's supposed definitive analysis of temperature trends, are published and in fact have been rejected in their original form by peer review.

There are many faults with the BESTs but the primary one is their treatment of Urban Heat Island effect [UHI].

BEST eliminates UHI from consideration by the very construction of their “New Mathematical Framework” for analyzing temperature data [Described here in their methodology document “Berkeley Earth Temperature Averaging Process”];

http://berkeleyearth.org/pdf/berkeley-earth-averaging-process.pdf

When you look at equations 1 and 2 (on page 7) of the linked document, you see that the only non stationary effect acknowledged on a temperature series is defined as Global Temperature Change. That is, any effect that doesn’t average to zero over a few years is defined as a change in Global Temperature.

Since, in the real world, UHI is non-stationary (populations continue to grow), the “New Mathematical Framework” guarentees that UHI will be considered to be “Global Warming”.

Therefore any temperature increase which is due to UHI will be erroneously classififed as being due to AGW by the BEST methodology

Anthony, you are just blowing smoke, again.

For years Professor Muller has been one of the highest profile critics and real sceptic of the IPCC (you know this). He has argued vehemently that the IPCC’s analysis of evidence was flawed and cannot conclude a relationship between anthropogenic CO2 emissions and rising global temperatures.

Muller has now changed his mind and has admitted to a “total turnaround”. He has even defined himself as “a converted sceptic”. Again, you know this.

Muller’s BEST project was funded (as you know) by the multi-billionaire Koch brothers. You know the ones: heavily invested in fossil fuels and major contributors to a small number of AGW sceptics. You also know Professor Muller’s team of scientists examined 1.6 billion temperature records from 36,000 stations.

The project eliminated and ruled out all possible sources of error (contrary to your assertions) including: the urban heat island effect, biased "data selection", "poor station quality", and "data adjustment factors”. Muller also took into account the effect of ocean currents and solar variability. Moreover, the cooling influence of volcanic explosions was also taken into account.

Professor Muller estimates that the global rise in temperature attributed to human activity has been 1.5 C since 1753, of which 0.9 C has occurred since 1950.

Indeed, Prof. Muller says:

"To be considered seriously, any alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as does carbon dioxide. Presently, nothing else comes close to being a candidate. Without a better explanation, the evidence compels the conclusion that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are almost entirely the cause of Earth's rising surface temperature”.

Anthony, the facts speak for themselves; you have a politico-ideological agenda - not a scientific one.

Muller was never a sceptic:

http://ethicsalarms.com/2011/10/25/climate-change-ethics-prof-mullers-study-and-media-incompetence/

What has confused people about Muller is that he suuports AGW but thinks he could do a better job at proving it then the establishment scientists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyuKOtIryis

What is driving this guy is ego; he doesn’t wade into the AGW defects because he is or ever was a sceptic; Muller genuinely thinks he is better then everyone else.

Nothing wrong with thinking that if you deliver the goods; however BEST 1 & 2 are dismal.

Muller's position was probably determined here:

http://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/elizabeth-muller-director-of-best-ran-a-green-government-consultancy/

He was short and curlied.

Bonmot,

The point I made that you responded to but have not addressed - in fact repeatedly avoided and instead promoted your interests and beliefs – is that temperature readings, temperature trends and climate sensitivity are irrelevant if the consequences of AGW are negligible or insignificant. We have little knowledge of other important parameters, such as the damage function or the decarbonisation rate so, currently, there is no persuasive case to demonstrate that AGW is dangerous or catastrophic. On the other hand, the mitigation policies that the CAGW alarmist would have us implement would, indeed, be very damaging to human well being.

You have repeatedly avoided addressing the point I made and that you responded to.

<<Muller was never a sceptic:

http://ethicsalarms.com/2011/10/25/climate-change-ethics-prof-mullers-study-and-media-incompetence/ >>

BANG BANG another warmist furthy bites the dust.

Why do they have to misrepresent things if their case is so compelling?

A prominent example of scientists waking up to the Climate fraud comes from Germany.

Germany was a great supporter of the AGW fraud and Professor Fritz Vahrenholt was a leading proponent of wind power. He was a well known green activist.

He was appointed as an expert reviewer of an IPCC report on renewable energy and in the course of the review discovered numerous errors.

He dug into the IPCC climate report and was horrified by what he found. Considering 14 years of stagnant temperatures, failed IPCC predictions, Climategate e-mails, and discussions he had with dozens of elite realist scientists, he became a realist and published a book on climate science. He exposes the nonsense of AGW.

He says he is prepared for the inevitable defamation he will suffer from AGW activists and will endure it, rather than succumb to pressure to back off.

The price rises caused by “renewable” energy projects resulted in 700,000 German households having their power cut off for non payment of bills.

This is our future under our current fraud backing Federal government. Many households have already suffered a tripling of their bills, after three months of this criminal legislation.

But SPQR, that's not the impression one gets when reading skeptic pin-up boy, Anthony Watts, early take on the BEST study. He gives BEST the thumbs up, referring to Muller as a skeptic.... "...I think, based on what I've seen, BEST has a superior method....and that the BEST result will be closer to the ground truth that(sic) anything we've seen."

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/06/briggs-on-berkeleys-best-plus-my-thoughts-from-my-visit-there/

It was only after Muller delivered the results that skeptics "didn't expect" that they jettisoned him from the fold....very bad form : )

Yes, quite right Poirot.

A real sceptic (as opposed to a 'fake sceptic') might see a flaw, a problem, an error, whatever ... in a hypothesis.
Remember, this is how real science works.

A real sceptic (as opposed to a 'wannabe sceptic') questions, repeats, tests and publishes their own research - so that their methods/conclusions/etc can be put under scrutiny as well.

This is precisely what Professor Muller has done.

Indeed, Muller questioned the processes, procedures and findings as depicted in various papers/journals (including IPPC reports) so much so that he obtained substantial private funding (are you reading this Peter Lang) to conduct an independent study - without the influence of 'perceived bias'.

Yep, 'fake sceptics' (Jo & Co., Watt's, etc.) were chomping at the bit in their support of Prof. Muller research.

The rest is history - Muller's research substantiates what has been known by real sceptics all along - global warming is happening and human action (or inaction) is a significant component to that warming.

Strawmen arguments (scientists have an ego for peter's sake) are so pithy and banal to be unworthy of response.

It's amusing actually, you know you've got it right when they start using the arguments you set forth - SPQR and Anthony a case in point.

.

Not to be missed;

Leo again goes off on a tangent - changing goal posts that is. My energy bill went up 45% for supply plus 41% for usage. Only about 10% for the carbon tax. But hey, it's called motivational reasoning - Leo will say anything to anybody and anyone (msm blogs) to distort and misrepresent - bizarre really.

Watts trusted Muller and got snowed by a master self-promoter, who, in that respect, is like all the AGW 'scientists'; when the scales were lifted from Watt's eyes, after BEST 1 was released to the press, Watts wrote this:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/20/the-berkeley-earth-surface-temperature-project-puts-pr-before-peer-review/#more-49601

Equally telling Curry, a joint author of BEST 1, disowned it and repudiated Muller's claims:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2055191/Scientists-said-climate-change-sceptics-proved-wrong-accused-hiding-truth-colleague.html

BEST 1 has not been peer reviewed or published as a scientific paper; neither has BEST 2.

It was intriguing to read Prof Judith Curry's take on the PBS Newshour program 'Skeptic no longer doubts human role in global warming' last month.

On her website she quoted some of the PBS Ombudsman's response to comments on the program:

"The NewsHour also heard, after the broadcast, from a scientist whose views had been included in the broadcast. As Michels later wrote in his blog: “In our broadcast piece, we said that ‘… Judith Curry, professor of earth sciences at Georgia Tech, who suspects natural variability accounts for climate change — not human-produced CO2 — said Muller’s analysis is ‘way oversimplistic and not at all convincing …’ Curry wrote to us earlier today to say that she believes we didn’t characterize her position fully and said she was ‘appalled’ with what we said.

“Here’s what Curry told us: ‘It is correct that I found Muller’s analysis ‘way oversimplistic and not at all convincing’, but the statement implies that that I don’t think human-produced CO2 accounts for any of the climate change we have been seeing. This is absolutely incorrect. For my views on climate change, see my blog Climate Etc. [judithcurry.com] In my most recent posts on the Arctic sea ice decline, I estimated that about half the decline could be attributed to human induced CO2, which is in line with the latest analyses from the CMIP5 climate models.’

“In retrospect, we should have said that Curry suspects natural variability accounts for some amount of climate change, but she also believes human-induced CO2 plays some role in what has been happening to the planet.”

Apparently there was criticism of Anthony Watt's part in the program but Judith Curry said, "The outrage over Watts seems to be not so much what he said, as over his being given any airtime at all. On a program discussing climate science, is Watts the appropriate spokesperson? I would say not. However, on a program discussing the public debate over climate science, Watts should be front and center."

Seems a reasonable distinction between the climate science and the public debate.

http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/22/pbs-ombudsman/

"Watts trusted Muller and got snowed by a master self-promoter..."

Au contraire, cohenite, Watts himself isn't backward when it comes to self-promotion, as is ably demonstrated in the following:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/27/wuwt-publishing-suspended-major-announcement-coming/

"...there will be a major announcement that I'm sure will attract a broad global interest due to its controversial and unprecedented nature.
To give you an idea as to the magnitude of this event I'm postponing my vacation plans..."

Postponing his vacation plans!

It doesn't get more earth-shattering than that, to be sure.

All this for Watts' own study and reply to the BEST findings (which included a substantial question over TOB not accounted for in the analysis, and also saw a person named as co-author of the paper declining to be named as such)

"(which included a substantial question over TOB not accounted for in the analysis, and also saw a person named as co-author of the paper declining to be named as such)"

NO to TOB, and who is the person Poirot?

TOB, time of observation bias, was first mentioned by eli rabbet which eli argues is responsible for the warming bias in the rural locations because Watts has not accounted for.

Firstly Watts takes data as used by Menne in his paper and says this at line 200 of his paper:


"Many USHCNv2 stations which were previously rated with the methods employed in 200 Leroy (1999) were subsequently rated differently when the Leroy (2010) method was applied in this study. This simple change in the rating system accounts for the majority of differences in the data and conclusions between this study and Menne et al.,(2010), Fall et al.,(2011), and Muller et al.,(2012)."

That is, Watts has used the same data, already adjusted, as the other studies! Watts does not ignore TOB because the other studies have not ignored TOB.

At lines 218-219 Watts notes:

"The intermediate (TOB) data has been adjusted for changes in time of observation such that earlier observations are consistent with current observational practice at each station. The fully adjusted data has been processed by the algorithm described by Menne et al. (2009) to remove apparent inhomogeneities where changes in the daily temperature record at a station differs significantly from neighboring stations. Unlike the unadjusted and TOB data, the adjusted data is serially complete, with missing monthly averages estimated through the use of data from neighboring stations. The USHCNv2 station temperature data in this study is identical to the data used in Fall 225 et al. (2011), coming from the same data set."

In fact Watts has allowed for TOB because the other studies have allowed for it. In addition, what Watts has also done is apply a superior statistical method, Leroy 2010, which accounts for UHI in a way the older method did not which explains the warming bias in the other temperature networks.

Facts right please.

Yes, an interesting read WmTrevor;

http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/22/pbs-ombudsman/

Thanks

cohenite,

Steve McIntyre was named as a co-author of the Watts et al paper. He acknowledges problems with TOBs in the analysis.

http://climateaudit.org/2012/07/31/surface-stations/

He appears to be at pains to distance himself from authorship because of the anomaly and the fact his involvement was rushed and less than scrupulous.

If you scroll through the comments, you'll come across Steve saying this:

"...better to ask Anthony. As I mentioned in the post, I was not involved in the writing of the paper other than contributing a rushed statistical analysis that unfortunately exacerbated the TOBS problem. Anthony was trying to be polite by adding me as a co-author, but an acknowledgment would have been appropriate..."

I also read at the time Watts et al was first released, this (can't locate link at the moment):
"To make sure everyone clearly recognises my involvement with both papers. I provided Anthony suggested text and references for the article [I am not a co-author of the Watts et al paper].."

Poirot, McIntyre is a self-effacing guy who does not want to take undue credit. The TOB problem which McIntyre refers to is a common one across all temperate data and agencies. In this respect, a few points:

1.1 TOB will impact on Tmin and Tmax; this is reflected in an issue which is confounding the accuracy of the new BOM ACORN temperature record which has listed some Tmins which are greater than Tmaxs:

http://joannenova.com.au/2012/07/boms-new-data-set-acorn-so-bad-it-should-be-withdrawn-954-min-temps-larger-than-the-max/#comment-1090733

2 Tmin and Tmax disruption has been recognised by BOM in ACORN where they say:

http://cawcr.gov.au/publications/technicalreports/CTR_049.pdf

“Bureau-staffed sites, and a few others (mostly lighthouses and similar) that made
observations around the clock, used a nominal midnight-midnight day. In practice, in
most cases the thermometers were still reset at 09:00 or 15:00, then read at midnight,
with the maximum or minimum read at midnight substituted for the value read earlier in the day if it surpassed it. In practice this meant that the ‘midnight-midnight’ minimum would actually be for the 33 hours ending at midnight, although the impact of this longer observation period is minimal as the number of occasions when the 33-hour minimum differs from the 24-hour value (i.e. where the temperature falls lower between 15:00 and 00:00 than it does in the succeeding 24 hours) is negligible.
• Sites that made observations at 09:00 and 15:00, as most co-operative sites did, reset
their maximum thermometers at 09:00 and their minimum thermometers at 15:00. In
effect this resulted in minimum temperatures being for the 24 hours ending at 15:00.
Maximum temperatures were measured from 09:00 to 09:00, but observer instructions
(e.g., Bureau of Meteorology 1925, 1954) were to revert to the maximum measured for the 6 hours from 09:00 to 15:00 if the 24-hour maximum measured at 09:00 the
following day was ‘close to’ the current temperature Sites that only made observations at 09:00 measured maximum and minimum
temperatures for the 24 hours ending at 09:00, as per current practice.”

BOM discusses potential TOB in chapter 8 of their technical manual and essentially dismiss its effect as inconsequential over the national network.

cont:

Have you discussed with Blair? Would be interested in what he has to say about your 'concerns'.

:)

cont:

3 However in his analysis Jonathan Lowe notes that time of day temperature recording can account for 44% of the Australian temperature trend

http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com.au/2009/04/analysis-of-australian-temperature-part.html

4 Watts analysis, as I have said, uses data which has already been through an adjustment procedure for TOB. The problem is whether that adjustment has properly considered whether the recording was time accurate in the first place. There is simply no way of knowing. That makes the TOB algorithm employed by NWS/NOAA/NCDC heuristic, a guess and non-replicable.

5 This is in fact what has happened in Australia with the definitive 2004 Della-Marta et al paper on adjustment procedure of the Australian temperature data noting this.

6 Given this my guess is that Watts’ use of the Leroy 2010 methodology starts on a level playing field with the TOB argument being thrown against him being equally capable of being thrown against the establishment temperature networks.

Would love to hear from you but it's patently obvious ... you have another agenda - dumb.

cohenite,

"...McIntyre is a self-effacing guy who does not want to take credit..."

(Palm meet face : )

McIntyre practically turned himself inside out to distance himself as "co-author" of the Watts et al paper. He appeared embarrassed and cross that he rushed off the statistical analysis without parsing the rest of the paper - and then he found himself anchored to it by being named as co-author.

Here's another comment from McIntyre from the comments section of that link:

"...As I mentioned, I've been involved with this paper for only a few days. You know my personal policies. I did some limited statistical analysis, which, to my considerable annoyance, I need to revisit. As you know, I don't have a whole lot of interest in temperature data, which is an absolute sink for a time. So I'm going to either have to do the statistics from the ground up according to my standards or not touch it anymore."

and:

"...I was only on the paper a short time and I overlooked an important issue, which Anthony had paid insufficient attention to. I should have known better - my bad. I'm very annoyed at myself."

Doesn't sound to me like someone being self-effacing, who does not wish to take credit. That, together with his explanation in the main body of the post, sounds like a man who found himself sprung into a situation where his reputation and credibility have been compromised - and who is trying his very best to explain how he got there.

btw, thanks for the link to the ACORN-SAT info - looks like an excellent and comprehensive report.

(Good question, bonmot : )

Good question, Poirot?

Sounds of silence at: enquiries(at)niwa.co.nz

Sounds of crickets at: B.Trewin(at)bom.gov.au

bonmot,

I sent Blair a congrats for his report - haven't heard back though. (I'm sure he's a busy man)...or maybe I messed up the email address?

Maybe I'll try again.

I agree Poirot, the report is quite comprehensive.

As suggested; expert professional, scientific and technical advice should be sought before one makes, let us say, outlandish claims.

Blair's email address is correct and I'm sure the congrats would be appreciated. Not enough hours in the day methinks :(