It has to be CO2, what else could it be????

I think Poor Debater means he's speechless about your lack of understanding.

 

Into mind reading, are you, or is ad hominem your preferred method of communication?

 

If models do such a bad job of predicting temperatures, then it should be easy to tell which line in the graph below is real temperature, and which are the models. If you're right, the real temperature should stand out like a sore thumb. Be sure to let us know what criteria you used to reject the models.

Since water vapor cannot force climate change, it's actually the least important from a climate change perspective.

Sounds like a lot of FUD to me. Which model fails to do what? Where are the citations to actual models and actual data? Whoever wrote this clearly has no clue about the difference between weather and climate. (And who wrote this "critique"? It was the Heartland Institute. You know, those same scientific "experts" for hire who told us that smoking doesn't cause cancer!)

You deny that we're causing the current warming, and that makes you a denier in my book.

 

1. That chart could be of anything. It is unlablelled and has no source reference. I tried to go to the site it's from and got a "the imagine or video is currently not available" error message. Given that charts exist for all GCMs and the observed temperatures, it's interesting that you would choose one that selects only 7 (out of over 100) and claim it is what you say it is.

2. You claim that water vapor cannot cause climate change. Yet it does cause regional cooling. So a source for ytour statement is called for.
“The most obvious way for warming to be caused naturally is for small, natural fluctuations in the circulation patterns of the atmosphere and ocean to result in a 1% or 2% decrease in global cloud cover. Clouds are the Earth’s sunshade, and if cloud cover changes for any reason, you have global warming — or global cooling.” Dr. Roy Spencer

Even the National Science Foundation recognizes the role of clouds is uncertain: NSF Releases Online, Multimedia Package Titled, “Clouds: The Wild Card of Climate Change”

New paper: climate models short on ‘physics required for realistic simulation of the Earth system’ http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00485.1 "While state-of-the-art models of Earth's climate system have improved tremendously over the last 20 years, nontrivial structural flaws still hinder their ability to forecast the decadal dynamics of the Earth system realistically."

3. If that sounds like FUD to you, can we assume you are very knowledgeable on the subject? Oh, BTW - Heartland was not hired to support the claim that "smoking doesn't cause cancer". Your "research" was obviously from a biased source spreading inaccurate information - for some reason. Perhaps you should try another source.

4. You obviously skipped over the part about the expertise of those who developed the principles. Or I guess you might not have actually gone to the URL and read the article.

5. A. What current warming?
B. So you have equated climate with warming? Currious. So cooling cannot be climate?
C. I cannot even imagine that anyone would "deny climate".
D. Please provide a copy of any post I have made that says I "deny that we're causing the current warming...".

P.S. I also do not deny CO2. Or H2O.

 

It could be, but it's not. That's the output from seven (out of 21) CMIP3 model runs under the A1B emissions scenario used for IPCC AR4. In no particular order, the seven models are:
Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model, version 1 (HadGEM1).
MIROC3.2 (Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate).
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Parallel Climate Model (PCM).
GISS ModelE-H.
GISS ModelE-R.
NOAA GFDL CM2.0 - AOGCM.
Meteorological Institute of the University of Bonn (Germany), Institute of KMA (Korea), and Model and Data Group: ECHO-G.
Oh yeah, and the eighth line is NASA-GISS global temperatures.

Considering that you are completely unable to tell the difference, I have to wonder: when you said that models do a miserable job at predicting temperatures, were you lying through your teeth, or just making stuff up off the top of your head?

I guess if you never read anything more about science than WUWT, you might miss the fact that clouds are liquid water, and not water vapor. Or did you sleep through Climate 101?

And if you had read a bit further, you would have found: 'Both the ENSEMBLES models and a “dynamic climatology” empirical model show probabilistic skill above that of a static climatology for global-mean temperature.' In other words, the very same parameter that you earlier claimed models were "miserable" at, your own cited source claims models are skillful at.

Never underestimate the ability of denier to miss the obvious.

Since you choose to address the rhetoric rather than the specifics of my criticism (while trying to change the subject), I assume that you in fact have no answers to my specific criticisms. Point for me.

Well, we may never have a signed contract. So I suppose it could be just coincidence that after Phillip Morris and Altria donated hundreds of thousands of bucks to Heartland, Heartland turned around and distributed tobacco industry material, and published "policy studies" that toed the tobacco company line, and lobbied congressmen on behalf of the tobacco industry and at the specific request of the tobacco industry. Yeah, that could all be a coincidence. But I doubt it.
"Smoking in moderation has few, if any, adverse health effects." Heartland CEO Joseph Bast writing in The Heartlander, July 1998.

On the contrary, I didn't skip that part at all. I read it carefully and rejected it as irrelevant to the issue at hand. Here, try it yourself:
1. Predict the fall time of a 1 kg weight dropped in a vacuum from a height of 10 meters, in a gravitational acceleration of 9.807 m/sec².
2. Describe how you used the 140 principles of social sciences prediction to arrive at your answer in #1.
3. Try not to look like a complete idiot when answering #2.

Wow. So you deny that the earth is currently warming too? You are deep, deep in denial, my friend.

Never said that. Just said the current climate is warming.

Are you being deliberately obtuse regarding the use of linguistic shorthand, or are you just trying to sound obtuse?

Your own sig line says "I'm not sure which is more arrogant, to say we caused (global warming) or that we can fix it."
If you do not agree with your own sig line, I suggest you take it down. If you think that humans have in fact caused global warming, then your sig line is deliberately misleading. If neither of those are true, then I have not misrepresented your position.

 

"All models" was an over statement - admitedly. How about 95% of the models?

What do the AR5 models show?



"skill above that of a static climatology for global-mean temperature" Which does not say the models are skillful - just more skillful than static climatology. Care to offer a definition of "static climatology"?

A recent report* in Science suggests that stratospheric water vapor between 1980 and 2000 probably increased the rate of surface warming during the 1990s by about 30%. The research, led by respected NOAA climate scientist and IPCC climate change assessment report co-chair Susan Solomon, states that from 2000 to 2009 diminished water vapor levels in the upper atmosphere depressed global warming by about 25% compared to that which would have occurred due only to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The research, based on data from the state-of-the-art AIRS instrument on the NASA Aqua satellite, suggests that water vapor is responsible for twice the global warming effect of carbon dioxide, whether man-made or naturally occurring.

* * http://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5970/1219.abstract

Proof of your assertions about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that tobacco companies donated to Heartland can be found where? I believe that Heartland's studies were on second hand smoke and related pending regulations.

"Smoking in moderation has few, if any, adverse health effects." Heartland CEO Joseph Bast writing in The Heartlander, July 1998. Can you offer data that refutes that statement? I ask because it does not say "smoking doesn't cause cancer". Small anecdotal point...I smoked in moderation for 47 years and do not have lung cancer.

When experts develop standards in the field of forecasting and evaluate existing forecasting models, against those standards, I don't consider them irrelevant.

What evidence do you offer to demonstrate that the earth is currently warming? All of the temperture reporting organizations show no statistically significant warming for 17 to 23 years. That fits my definition of "no current warming".

I said I did not deny climate and you said I was a denier because I did not think we were causing warming. Thus you equated climate with warming - not me.

[UAre you being deliberately obtuse regarding the use of linguistic shorthand, or are you just trying to sound obtuse?[/U] "Linguistic shorthand" in the AGW discussions leads to a lot of arguing past each other. If we cannot agree on the terms to use, then the discussions are futile. I do not deny climate or climate change. I do not deny that global temperatures have risen since the mid 19th century.

The signature line does not say I do not believe man's burning of CO2 is causing global temperatures to rise. It says what it says - I think it's arrogant to say we are and that we can fix it. I find the AGW argument less than compelling thus it is arrogant we say we are. If it can be shown that the global temperatures are entirely - or even mostly - due to manmade CO2, then it would not be arrogant to say we're responsible. Until then, I believe it is.

I've attempted to discuss this subject and these issues with you in a civil manner. You, however, have not. I see no reason to put up with your verbal abuse.

 

Same question for you:

 

Agreed, it's unnecessary and unacceptable.

 

Oh, nice try! Posting a piece of crap from a non-peer-reviewed piece of crap blog from our favorite climate denier, Dr. Roy Spencer. Here are a few questions about the graph you posted. But don't try to find the answers on Dr. Roy's blog, because he's not telling. Just FYI, these are the kind of questions any competent peer-reviewer would have asked about this graph:

1. Why did Dr. Roy use only model runs from the RCP8.5 scenario, which is (a) the highest-emission scenario, leading to the highest temperatures; and (b) is already higher than actual emissions? Is Dr. Roy cherry-picking, or does he have something to hide? Why didn't Dr. Roy use model runs from the RCP4.5 scenario, which is in line with the emissions we have actually experienced?
2. Why did Dr. Roy use only mid-tropospheric temperatures (which almost nobody cares about) while ignoring surface temperatures? Is Dr. Roy cherry-picking, or does he have something to hide?
3. Why did Dr. Roy use only tropical temperatures and not the entire globe? Is Dr. Roy cherry-picking, or does he have something to hide?
4. Dr. Roy claims to be using five-year running means, yet he shows satellite data during the full span of 1979-2012, which is not possible if you're using five-year means. What gives?
5. Why, after breaking down each of 73 model runs into individual spaghetti graph lines, didn't Dr. Roy do the same for the six observational datasets, so that we could see the spread among them? Does Dr. Roy have something to hide?

I'll even make it easy for you, Earthling: I'll answer number 5. Dr. Roy does have something to hide. For example, the two satellite datasets he uses are UAH and RSS, which, in the tropical mid-troposphere, differ in warming rate by a factor of three. This is remarkable because both RSS and UAH use the same underlying raw data from the same instruments on the same satellites. The only thing that differs is how that data is analyzed. Which means that at least one of these two groups is doing something pretty badly wrong. That's what Dr. Roy wants to hide from you, Earthling: the huge difference between what his own (UAH) data shows and what RSS shows.

The other thing that Dr. Roy wants to hide from you is similar large differences between various radiosonde datasets. And here it's the same issue: the underlying data is the same, from the same instruments, but it's analyzed differently by different groups. This is because those various instruments from different decades have different responses to temperature and pressure, different response times, different transmission rates, different (or no) shading schemes, and so on. Which means that in order to compare one instrument to another in a different decade can require some pretty sophisticated analysis. Some groups do this better than others, because some groups consider factors that other groups ignore.

So let's do what Dr. Roy was afraid to do, and show the data Dr. Roy was afraid to show. Let's take the latest-and-greatest radiosonde dataset (RATPAC) and the best of the two satellite datasets (RSS) and plot them on Dr. Roy's graph, spaghetti-style, using the same five-year running means. Here's what we get (RATPAC in red, RSS in blue):



And what do you know? Even after cherry picking the wrong emissions scenario, and cherry-picking the latitude band, and cherry-picking the altitude, the models still look pretty darned good.

In other words, Earthling, your non-peer-reviewed "evidence" is crap. Which Dr. Roy knows, which is why Dr. Roy didn't submit this crap to peer-review. Dr. Roy knew he couldn't fool an expert, so he put it on his blog, knowing that he could fool gullible chumps like you.

There, I've answered number 5. Now you can answer the other four.

 

I don't see why it was necessary to do all that cherry picking, only to end up still way off course, with only a handful of models even close to reality.

 

Since you posted this graph, it's up to you to defend it.
1. Why did the blogger from whom you got this unattributed graph choose to use RCP8.5, the highest emissions scenario with the highest temperatures, when actual emissions are already below RCP8.5, and the RCP4.5 scenario more accurately represents actual emissions?
2. Did the blogger use a time-varying landmask for each and every model run that matches the HADCRUT time varying landmask? Because if he didn't, the two results aren't comparable.
3. Did the blogger omit models that have a different groundscale resolution than HADCRUT from the model suite, as being unsuitable for said time-varying landmask?

You see, Lucas, the problem with using bloggers as your source instead of peer-reviewed science is, denialist blogger are basically incompetent, and they don't even realize how incompetent they are. (See: Dunning-Kruger effect.)

No. I'm sure you can look it up.

So? Water vapor is a climate feedback mechanism. That's well known. It's also well known that water vapor is not a climate forcing mechanism, because its residence time in the air is too short. Nothing in your quote indicates otherwise.

You can start here, page 39: http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/fake.pdf

I have to wonder if your good luck in that regard is the source of your denial of science now. In the meantime:
* Moderate smoking doubles the risk of sudden death in otherwise healthy women.
* Light smoking (4–7 cig/day) has about 70% of the effect of heavy smoking (≥ 23 cig/day) : Pope CA 3rd, Burnett RT, Krewski D, Jerrett M, Shi Y, Calle EE, Thun MJ. Circulation. 2009 Sep 15; 120(11):941-8.
* The risk of ischemic heart disease in light smoking men and women ages 35–39 who consume 1–4 cig/day is nearly three times that of a nonsmoker: Bjartveit K, Tverdal A. Tobacco Control. 2005 Oct; 14(5):315-20.
* And you'll be particularly interested in this one: Among men age 47–55 years who smoke 1–4 cig/day, the prevalence of a major cardiac event over a 12-year period is 11%, compared to 3.7% in nonsmoking men (about three times higher). Rosengren A, Wilhelmsen L, Wedel HJ. Intern Med. 1992 Apr; 231(4):357-62.

Then perhaps you simply fail to understand the difference between physics and social sciences, and why the two disciplines have (and should have) completely different standards.

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your friends at WUWT have misinformed you again. With the addition of 2013 data, surface air temperature trends are statistically significant over the past 15 years, the past 17 years and the past 23 years for both HADCRUT4 and GISS. But don't worry, I'm sure if you look hard enough, you can find another start-year to cherry pick.

The bigger question is, why do you even consider surface air temperature to be the most important metric for global warming? Do you understand that surface air temperature represents only 3% of global warming, and that ocean heat content represents 93%? Have you looked at that 93%? Do you want to look?


Just FYI, that's statistically significant warming during the past 15 years, statistically significant warming during the past 10 years, and statistically significant warming during the past 5 years. And also just FYI, global climate models are predicting that increase rather well, even though you'll never read about that on WUWT. Of course, you can always cover your ears and sing, "LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" if you want. But that would just make you a denier in my book.

If you deny the climate is warming -- and you have -- then you're a denier in my book. If that label offends you, the fix is easy: stop denying the climate is warming, and stop denying that we're causing it.

All of which sounds like a lot of weasel words to me. You don't disbelieve CO2 cases temperature to rise, yet you won't say that you do believe it either? How very Clintonesque of you. A very artful way of avoiding having any opinion at all, apparently. Also Nixonian, as it allows you to "maintain deniability" of having any knowledge or opinion at all.

And yet those numerous peer-reviewed studies I have cited on this very thread, which show exactly that, go utterly ignored by you, because they challenge your prejudices. In other words, Lucas's explanation for the 2x10^23 J rise in global heat content since 1970 is: MAGIC. And my explanation for that rise in heat content is: SCIENCE.

And Lucas thinks I'm the arrogant one.

Oh, does that mean you're going to take your ball and go home, now that you're losing? Looks like I win another one.

 

We have an unlabelled chart of eight curves which we are told represent 7 (out of 21) climate model runs plus the GISS tempertures.

1. What is the source for this chart?

2. Why only 7 series' if there are 21 available? Surely no one is trying to hide anything?

3. The series that is supposedly of the GISS temperature data (Series does not look like the GISS data from Wood for Trees plotted over the same time period using a 12 month average (see below). In the chart above, #8 starts at -0.1 and ends at 0.7. The Woods for Trees plot starts at -0.2 and ends at 0.6. If the Woods for Trees plot were overlaid onto the chart above, the "fit" would not be so close. Perhaps the above chart is not a 12 month average. But without a reference, it's impossible to tell what it represents.

4. But the most important point to be made is that the chart cannot be forecasts - the lines must be hindcasts. The lines are the result of plugging historical data into simulations and seeing how closely they match the data input. The closeness of hindcasts to the input data says nothing at all about the predictive ability of the simulations.

6. Any suggestion that the lines drawn represent temperature projections/predictions from computer simulation models is a willful misrepresentation of the facts. And that is exactly what the words under the title are doing - misrepresenting the facts. This "sin of omission" is blatantly dishonest.

7. But the statement If models do such a bad job of predicting temperatures, then it should be easy to tell which line in the graph below is real temperature, and which are the models. is even a more aggregious misrepresentation. It states flat out that the lines are predictions. They obviously cannot be as the simulators did not exist in 1950 so the simulation runs had to have been made much later - perhaps 2013? Therefore, they cannot be predictions.



With the addition of 2013 data, surface air temperature trends are statistically significant over the past 15 years, the past 17 years and the past 23 years for both HADCRUT4 and GISS.

I doubt this is true. 2013 was not an exceptional year for global temperatures and one year cannot redefine periods of 15 to 23 years for statistical significance. HadCrut4 is 18 years of statistically insignificant changes and GISS is 17 years.

For HadCRUT4 the warming is not significant for over 18 years.
For HadCRUT4: 0.095 +/- 0.110 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1995

For GISS the warming is not significant for over 17 years.
For GISS: 0.111 +/- 0.122 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1996

 

(I apologize for the misspelling)

 

I made it myself.

I picked 7 because when I tried all 21 the graph was so messy individual lines couldn't be easily seen. I picked two GISS models because I used GISS temps; and I picked a HAD model because that's also a well known temperature series. The other 4 were picked at random. But if you pick any other group of 7, you would get something similar.

When did I say series 8 was GISS? The object of the test is to see if you can pick out GISS from models. Obviously, you can't.

Incorrect on two counts. First, because temperature is NOT an input to any model; the models must determine temperature based on emissions. And second, because the historical emissions for all CMIP3 emission scenarios cut off at 2000, meaning the entire 21st century is, in fact, entirely forecast.

That, sir, is a damned lie. CMIP3 model data is freely available on the web. Here is the data. (SRES A1b, temperature.) If you take the trouble to actually look at the data -- which I flatly predict you will not -- you will discover that the lines in the posted graph are as follows: Series 1 is GISS model E R; Series 2 is MIROC 3.2; Series 3 is NCAR PCM1; Series 4 is HADGEM1; Series 5 is the GISS temperature series; Series 6 is GFDL CM2.0; Series 7 is MUIB-ECHO G; and Series 8 is GISS model E H. All data referenced to a baseline of 1900-1959.

I await your apology for your false, slanderous, and unwarranted attack on my character.

Not only is that false, it's not even logical. First, who ever used the word "predictions"? Certainly not I. The IPCC uses the word "projections". Second, models must be able to hindcast just as well as they need to be able to forecast. So if you are right (and models are lousy), the hindcasts should be lousy too -- which would mean that you would have just as easy a time picking the real data out from the model runs. Since you obviously can't do that, clearly the models are doing pretty well -- which means you're wrong about the models.

So you're using two sigma instead of the standard 95% CI? Nice job moving the goalposts, jack. When you move them back to the right place, remember to use the t-distribution and not the gaussian.