Climate change: A cooling consensus

Citing a cartoonists blog really doesnt bolster your position much

http://web.archive.org/web/20071213172906/www.skepticalscience.com/page.php?p=3

This site was created by John Cook. I'm not a climatologist or a scientist but a self employed cartoonist and web programmer by trade. I did a Physics degree at the University of Queensland and while I achieved First Class Honours and could've continued onto a PhD, I instead quit academia and became a professional scrawler.

 

Click on intermediate or advanced and scroll down to find links to multiple papers.

 

I provided a heavily cited paper on the very topic of signal to noise ratios, I would hardly call that a dupe.

Perhaps you should start with the physical chemistry of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses before concerning yourself with cycles. Learn the difference between shortwave radiation and longwave radiation and how those two interact with CO2 (Hint: only one of them does).

 

The paper's conceptual errors do not invalidate it for purposes of peer review. Its findings may be completely accurate, as far as they go. They just don't mean what you claim they mean, because the longest time scale examined is far too short to permit genuine signal-noise analysis of millennial-scale global temperature variations. This is typical of the conceptual errors commonly found in peer-reviewed pro-AGW papers.

Again, the cherry-picked time scale is designed to prevent accurate understanding of the processes. Sunspot activity has been at a sustained millennial high for over 100 years, which corresponds to the increase in global temperature over the same time period:

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/bfly.gif

It was especially high in the 1976-1998 period (sunspot cycles 21 and 22, which were very robust, classically strong cycles), which is the only time period when global temperature data can be interpreted to support CO2-AGW theory. Since the late 90s, solar activity has declined substantially, and global temperatures have obediently stopped increasing -- and that's in the face of the continued near-exponential increase in atmospheric CO2, mind. Cycle 23 was noticeably weaker and longer than 21 and 22, and cycle 24 started very late and weakly compared to cycles 21 and 22. The claim of divergence is therefore simply false on its face: global temperature stopped rising when sunspot activity weakened after 1998.

 

Skepticalscience?? Really??

Haven't seen you around here before... you seem like a smart guy - lot of smart people on here, and the warmists always get their ass kicked. You have no science to back up AGW, all you have are computer models - that are always proven wrong over time; cherry picked data; rewritten history; Mr. AGW peer reviewing Mrs. AGW's work; outright fraud and criminal activity; on and on...

If you want to stand half a chance in this room, you'll have to do better than skepticalscience, lol...

 

Show the linkage. What is the solar energy variant through the same cycles. Simply plucking stats out of the air to construct an argument is the old elephants in Kansas fallibly. Show me the energy

 

There are studies that go back up to two millennia using proxy data:
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n5/full/ngeo1797.html

But lets go back to the basics real quick:
Do you agree that the physical properties of greenhouse gasses like CO2 absorb longwave radiation?

In other words, shortwave radiation caused by sunlight coming in does not get absorbed by greenhouse gasses, but long-wave radiation reflected back by the earth does get absorbed by CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. These gasses also radiate the absorbed energy with a portion of it being radiated back towards the surface of the earth.

 

You seem to have a misunderstanding about computer models. Just about all forms of science today use computer models in some shape form or fashion. Even wall street uses computer models to do financial transactions. In a basic nutshell, the use of computer models doesn't imply anything about the soundness of the science.

The link provided about two decades worth of papers on the topic of solar activity organized in chronological order. So I don't know what your complaining about.

 

I just did.

I don't know. Why do you ask? Are you laboring under an erroneous assumption that TSI is the relevant parameter?

I didn't simply pluck stats out of the air, though, did I?

<yawn> Show me the energy that doesn't come from the sun.

 

LOL! Ah, no. You do. OBVIOUSLY:

All sciences use computers, but genuine empirical sciences do not rely on computer models the way AGW propaganda does.

LOL! Ever actually read the financial pages? I'll make it easy for you: watch "Margin Call," and try to find a willingness to know the historical facts it depicts. Reliance on the models was precisely the problem.

Total reliance on models over empirical data does.

The lack of methodological integrity in that "science," maybe...?

 

But you can't do signal-noise analysis using a hodge-podge of different kinds of data, with different resolutions, over different time spans, etc.

Of course. So?

So? I learned that in atmospheric physics at university, 40 years ago. To the extent that CO2 and temperature are linked on decadal to millennial time scales, temperature leads CO2 (its temperatue-mediated solubility in sea water being the relevant factor), showing that CO2 is not a major determiner of global temperature. Which the eon-scale paleo-record also shows.

 

Climate science relies on observation of physical processes. For example, the observation that greenhouse gasses absorb and radiate long-wave radiation. Forecasting relies on models, and it doesn't matter if a computer or a team of mathematicians is doing the calculations. Forecasting is forecasting, and it's used in a whole lot of different fields. Generally, uncertainty is quantified using statistics in these forecasts.

 

No it doesn't show that; instead, it shows that the Milankovitch cycle is triggered by orbital changes.

Suppose you were standing on the peak of a mountain. You kick a rock, and it rolls down the side of the mountain triggering an avalanche. The avalanche slides down the mountain and wipes out a town. Your trying to argue the equivalent of the kick being the primary driver of the energy that destroyed the town.

 

You have to show the change in energy through put caused by the solar cycle. You then have to overlay that with the difference in the amount of energy the Earth receives annually at apogee and perigee in its orbit. So like I said, show me the energy.

But you wont, you will look at sunspots and simply blame them. Because it is easy, and despite the fact for a 100 years astronomers have been looking for through put energy variations in the sun, and have found a total of 1/10th of 1 percent in that time.

 

I made mention of some of the boondoggles alarmists use to mislead. AGW is a political vehicle to grow the size and scope of government; to increase the governments control over society in general, and specifically to attack businesses, the economy, and property rights.

The fact that "scientists" are willing to get on the gravy train to advance their own careers and line their own pockets is not surprising - in science, the name of the game is to get published, get tenure, and get as much funding as you can. For those willing to commit malpractice, the rewards are handsome.

For those who say, "wait a minute, those sums don't add up"... the penalties are severe. Go against the orthodoxy, and you're likely to be looking for a job - not to mention having to endure all of the viscious slander that is all too common of orthodoxy and standard tactics of the radical left.

Michael Mann has become a millionaire simply by being willing to promote the hockey stick fraud - and everyone is supposed to simply accept that one tricked up study should, with the wave of a magic wand, erase the MWP, the LIA, and "prove" that we're going to all burst into flames any day now??

And so it goes with everything the alarmists puke up. Computer programs, bogus studies, rewriting history - and as I mentioned, even criminal activity in the case of Peter Gleick.

Temps have been steady or declining for 15-17 years now - no alarmist computer model predicted that... which why the MET, and other alarmist institutions have been having to shift gears, deflect, change the subject, misdirect, etc. It's not about warming now, it's about severe weather events - storms on steriods, blah, blah, blah. Of course those contentions are just as bogus as the "CO2 is causing global warming" nonsense.

You'll forgive we level headed blokes if we view everything you alarmists say with skepticism - your track record for truth and integrity is nil.

 

Do you have the slightest shred of evidence for this bizarre claim? Or are you just hoping that nobody will call out your falsehoods for what they are?

And speaking of bizarre, since both the MWP and the LIA are present in Mann's data, you just made yourself look like an all-time fool. Who feeds you these prevarications? And why do you believe him?

False. The HADCRUT4 regression slope for the past 16 years (1997-2012) is +.04°/decade, which is a positive number. The GISStemp regression slope for the past 16 years is +.06°/decade, which is also a positive number. In other words, temperatures have increased over the past 16 years, not decreased. And the same is true over the past 15 years. And over the past 17 years. So it looks like you've been lied to, and you've swallowed their lies whole. I guess they don't teach the difference between positive and negative numbers at the Anthony Watts Anti-Science Fantasy Camp for the Incurably Incompetent.

Also false. (Don't you check even the most basic facts before you run off at the mouth? Oh wait, what am I saying? You're a denier. Of course you don't check. In fact, you probably don't even know how to check. Which is why you end up putting your naïve trust in charlatans, who don't check either.)
Every single climate model shows large variability in regression slopes over the short 15-year time periods you prefer. Every Single One. Don't believe me? Here's the data. Knock yourself out.

This, from a guy whose entire post is nothing but a regurgitation of denier falsehoods plucked from denier websites.

 

So according to you, all scientists are out there just to dupe the public? Alarmist institutions like the national academy of sciences?

This whole discussion is starting to remind me of the debate on evolution. The whole thing is ate up in conformation bias.

 

No, I do not, because I am engaged in empirical science, not model building. You claimed ALL the possible natural causes of global warming had been examined and found wanting. That was a bald falsehood. Sunspot cycle strength's match with global cooling and warming -- and the absence of the latter since 1998 -- proves it.

No, I do not. It's completely irrelevant to the FACT of stronger sunspot cycles being associated with global warming, and AGW propaganda's inability to delete that fact from empirical science.

I've already showed you the evidence that is fatal to your claims: sunspot cycle strength explains not only recent global warming, but the MWP and LIA. CO2 doesn't and can't.

No, because it is the best fit to the data. You, by contrast, have to ignore and dismiss the fact that TOTAL ABSENCE of sunspots for several decades occurred at exactly the same time global temperatures were at record Holocene lows.

You again have to pretend that there is no solar parameter that could affect global temperature other than the ones already empirically determined not to be correlated with global temperature -- and then cherry-picked as being the only possible ones for precisely that reason. Sorry, but I don't have to show how sunspot cycle strength influences global temperature on century to millennial time scales any more than I have to show how cicadas know when 17 years is up. The fact is, they obviously do.

 

<yawn> Where's the model that predicted flat temperatures for the last 15 years?

Sure. Just not in his graph...

<sigh> I already spanked your little tushie on that one, Mas' Debater. 1998 was the peak, not 1997.

But GISS data are cooked to show global warming.

Not really.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Oh? Show me the AGW model published before 2000 that predicted both substantial CO2-based warming in the 21st century and flat temperatures from 1998-2013. I'm waiting.

Which one predicted the flat temperatures 1998-2013 that have ACTUALLY OCCURRED? I'm waiting.

I don't see anything there that supports your claims. Nothing.

 

LOL! No, dumpling, it shows that CO2 trails temperature on century to millennial timescales. The Milankovitch cycle is ~100Ky. Totally different scale. You lose.

AGW propaganda constantly claims that temperature increase triggers CO2 increase, which then causes a much greater temperature increase. Problem is, there is zero evidence for such claims. None. When temperature stops increasing, CO2 keeps rising, but causes no further termperature increase. That fact just flat-out falsifies the claim that CO2 is a significant driver of global temperature variations.

 

0.o

Did we not just agree a few posts ago about the long-wave radiation absorption properties of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses? Are Venusians stealing the energy?

Your simply ignoring the feedback loop.

 

I have no problem stipulating the temperature sensitivity to CO2 doubling that straightforward physics predicts: about 1C. That is in line with long-term CO2-temperature relationships in the paleo record, and is simply not a cause for concern.

No, AGW "theory" grossly overstates it -- and such overstatements are just flat-out refuted by the paleo record.

 

Feedbacks are negative - and there's the rub for you alarmists. If they are not positive, your arguments are sunk.

All of the climate models have positive feedbacks - that's why they're all wrong. We've had how many years of static, or cooling temps??

Yet CO2 continues to climb - 400 ppm... weren't we all supposed to burst into flames at 300, and then 350, and now 400, etc...

How do you reconcile the much higher CO2 concentrations from history?? If the feedbacks were positive back then, we would never have been... on and on. Your arguments simply don't hold water 69.

 

All bluff and bluster. Who is using computer modeling?

The Sun's output has been measured every ten minutes 24 hours a day since 1998. Those observations confirm ground based data dating back to the 1920's. The amount of energy the sun is putting out changes by less that 1/10th of 1 percent in all that time. You are telling me about empirical evidence when you ignore the most emphatic piece of evidence there is. Direct measurement of the suns energy output.

You can blame sunspots. You can blame chocolate teapots in orbit around Saturn, you can blame little green men. It all counts for nothing until you can show variation in the amount of energy the Earth is receiving from the sun.

The sun is the most intensely studied star in the universe. Why? because it is the closest star we have access to. It is also intensely studied by groups of people who have no dog in the AGW debate. They are using sun as a proving ground for multiple theories regarding stellar evolution and how stars work. In many instances these theories are old well established and have 100s of 1000s of data points from multiple galaxies.

 

All AGW propagandists.

You are merely repeating the dogma that only the sun's energy output can be considered. Why do you refuse to consider that the sun's activity may affect, say, the earth's albedo?

I don't blame sunspots. I merely note that there is obviously something going on with the sun that affects both the sunspot cycle and global temperature.

Again, that's just false. Global temperature changes don't depend on changes in the energy the earth receives, but on how much of what it receives is reflected vs absorbed.