A Possible Explanation for the "Pause" in Global Warming

[Threegoofs]

A less charitable interlocutor would describe that as nonsense.

Or a less educated interlocutor (such as yourself) wouldnt understand the science behind the statement and dismiss it as nonsense.

 

[Jack Hays]

Or a less educated interlocutor (such as yourself) wouldnt understand the science behind the statement and dismiss it as nonsense.

Sorry but I'm not the poster with the science deficit in this exchange. eace

 

[ethanUNC]

Sorry but I'm not the poster with the science deficit in this exchange. eace

The scientist (in this case 3goofs) always has the deficit in scientific knowledge, I know. If only they knew what you know about how to do their jobs.

 

[Jack Hays]

The scientist (in this case 3goofs) always has the deficit in scientific knowledge, I know. If only they knew what you know about how to do their jobs.

There has been no evidence in this forum that 3G has any scientific expertise at all.eace

 

[Threegoofs]

There has been no evidence in this forum that 3G has any scientific expertise at all.eace

Maybe not, but there sure is ample evidence in this forum that your acquaintance with science is about as superficial as historical insight in Disney movies.

 

[Jack Hays]

Maybe not, but there sure is ample evidence in this forum that your acquaintance with science is about as superficial as historical insight in Disney movies.

Another content free post.

 

[Mithrae]

In its later stages a prevailing paradigm in decay will acquire more and more elaborations and exceptional explanations to account for accumulating contrary evidence. The outstanding historical example is the epicycles postulated by defenders of the Ptolemaic planetary system to account for the observations of telescope wielding skeptics. That is the phase of AGW now. Professor Svensmark is in the role of Copernicus. Svensmark's thesis is more comprehensive, simpler and more elegant -- and more likely to be true.

Just from some quick Wiki-ing it seems Svensmark's ideas have plenty of critics too. Simpler does not always mean better, because like it or not, reality is often quite complex. We see this even in the case of your own example: Centuries after Copernicus some bright German fellow realised that that there is no absolute frame of reference at all, which means that describing the motions of sun and planets relative to the earth is just as valid as describing the motion of all the planets relative to the sun. The latter is much simpler, so that's what we tend to use, but that doesn't make it correct and the other incorrect :lol:

A less charitable interlocutor would describe that as nonsense.

No doubt a lot of people would describe it as nonsense, but it is nevertheless true. From chapter 3 of The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow (2010):
"Although it is not uncommon for people to say that Copernicus proved Ptolemy wrong, that is not true. As in the case of our normal view versus that of the goldfish, one can use either picture as a model of the universe, for our observations of the heavens can be explained by assuming either the earth or the sun to be at rest. Despite its role in philosphical debates over the nature of our universe, the real advantage of the Copernican system is simply that the equations of motion are much simpler in the frame of reference in which the sun is at rest."

It's not particularly relevant, admittedly; but building on your example it does kinda illustrate that simple intuitions about what you or I expect reality to be like are not always particularly reliable. Whilst apparently acknowledging that AGW is the consensus view of climate scientists, you suggest that it is acquiring "more and more elaborations and exceptional explanations to account for accumulating contrary evidence." But what exactly is this contrary evidence? The made-up 'pause' in temperature increases? That's evidence that denialism is not necessarily an objective fact-based enterprise, I suppose

No doubt there's been a slowdown of the warming trend - and since carbon emissions have continued to grow, a slowdown of warming tells us that there's more than that one single factor involved in global climate. Is that really so surprising to you? Perhaps Svensmark does have part of the answer; perhaps Wyatt and Curry do; or the smart money might guess that all the bright minds contributing to the IPCC report have got it right. But how you get from ongoing studies into our planet's climate systems to imagining a collapsing paradigm is quite beyond me.

 

[code1211]

Just from some quick Wiki-ing it seems Svensmark's ideas have plenty of critics too. Simpler does not always mean better, because like it or not, reality is often quite complex. We see this even in the case of your own example: Centuries after Copernicus some bright German fellow realised that that there is no absolute frame of reference at all, which means that describing the motions of sun and planets relative to the earth is just as valid as describing the motion of all the planets relative to the sun. The latter is much simpler, so that's what we tend to use, but that doesn't make it correct and the other incorrect :lol:

However, lacking a compelling reason to choose the more complex, the Scientific method demands that the more direct and less complex explanation be favored.

Occam's razor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Science and the scientific method[edit]
In science, Occam's razor is used as a heuristic (rule of thumb) to guide scientists in the development of theoretical models rather than as an arbiter between published models.[8][9] In physics, parsimony was an important heuristic in the formulation of special relativity by Albert Einstein,[33][34] the development and application of the principle of least action by Pierre Louis Maupertuis and Leonhard Euler,[35] and the development of quantum mechanics by Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg and Louis de Broglie.[9][36] In chemistry, Occam's razor is often an important heuristic when developing a model of a reaction mechanism.[37][38] However, while it is useful as a heuristic in developing models of reaction mechanisms, it has been shown to fail as a criterion for selecting among some selected published models.[9] In this context, Einstein himself expressed caution when he formulated Einstein's Constraint: "It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience". An often-quoted version of this constraint (that cannot be verified as being posited by Einstein himself)[39] says "Everything should be kept as simple as possible, but no simpler."

 

[code1211]

Or a less educated interlocutor (such as yourself) wouldnt understand the science behind the statement and dismiss it as nonsense.

So, you are saying that if an idea receives any criticism, that idea needs to be dismissed?

Doesn't sound so real sciencey.

 

[code1211]

Maybe not, but there sure is ample evidence in this forum that your acquaintance with science is about as superficial as historical insight in Disney movies.

I always supposed that science required an open mind.

This is a quality that is rarely in evidence from the Die Hards.

 

[code1211]

No doubt a lot of people would describe it as nonsense, but it is nevertheless true. From chapter 3 of The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow (2010):
"Although it is not uncommon for people to say that Copernicus proved Ptolemy wrong, that is not true. As in the case of our normal view versus that of the goldfish, one can use either picture as a model of the universe, for our observations of the heavens can be explained by assuming either the earth or the sun to be at rest. Despite its role in philosphical debates over the nature of our universe, the real advantage of the Copernican system is simply that the equations of motion are much simpler in the frame of reference in which the sun is at rest."

It's not particularly relevant, admittedly; but building on your example it does kinda illustrate that simple intuitions about what you or I expect reality to be like are not always particularly reliable. Whilst apparently acknowledging that AGW is the consensus view of climate scientists, you suggest that it is acquiring "more and more elaborations and exceptional explanations to account for accumulating contrary evidence." But what exactly is this contrary evidence? The made-up 'pause' in temperature increases? That's evidence that denialism is not necessarily an objective fact-based enterprise, I suppose

No doubt there's been a slowdown of the warming trend - and since carbon emissions have continued to grow, a slowdown of warming tells us that there's more than that one single factor involved in global climate. Is that really so surprising to you? Perhaps Svensmark does have part of the answer; perhaps Wyatt and Curry do; or the smart money might guess that all the bright minds contributing to the IPCC report have got it right. But how you get from ongoing studies into our planet's climate systems to imagining a collapsing paradigm is quite beyond me.

The notion proposed by the Die hards is very much set up in a cause effect line of thought.

They say with clarity that if the CO2 increases, the temperature will also increase and do so at a very predictable rate. They have published their predictions. The predictions are wrong.

If the causal result departs from what they have predicted, that undermines their entire case.

The causal result is, incidentally, based on a very complex chain of feedback loops and amplifications that don't seem to be happening. If the chain of causation on which they rely to build their case, was happening, then the result that they predict would also be happening.

The chain is either broken or it never did exist in the real world.

 

[Jack Hays]

No doubt a lot of people would describe it as nonsense, but it is nevertheless true. From chapter 3 of The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow (2010):
"Although it is not uncommon for people to say that Copernicus proved Ptolemy wrong, that is not true. As in the case of our normal view versus that of the goldfish, one can use either picture as a model of the universe, for our observations of the heavens can be explained by assuming either the earth or the sun to be at rest. Despite its role in philosphical debates over the nature of our universe, the real advantage of the Copernican system is simply that the equations of motion are much simpler in the frame of reference in which the sun is at rest."

It's not particularly relevant, admittedly; but building on your example it does kinda illustrate that simple intuitions about what you or I expect reality to be like are not always particularly reliable. Whilst apparently acknowledging that AGW is the consensus view of climate scientists, you suggest that it is acquiring "more and more elaborations and exceptional explanations to account for accumulating contrary evidence." But what exactly is this contrary evidence? The made-up 'pause' in temperature increases? That's evidence that denialism is not necessarily an objective fact-based enterprise, I suppose

No doubt there's been a slowdown of the warming trend - and since carbon emissions have continued to grow, a slowdown of warming tells us that there's more than that one single factor involved in global climate. Is that really so surprising to you? Perhaps Svensmark does have part of the answer; perhaps Wyatt and Curry do; or the smart money might guess that all the bright minds contributing to the IPCC report have got it right. But how you get from ongoing studies into our planet's climate systems to imagining a collapsing paradigm is quite beyond me.

You underlined my point by noting that the Copernican solution is "much simpler." Svensmark is much simpler compared to AGW. Also more comprehensive. And the pause is a genuine pause. Until the orthodox warmists stop denying the pause they will not bring credibility to the discussion of its causes.eace

 

[code1211]

You underlined my point by noting that the Copernican solution is "much simpler." Svensmark is much simpler compared to AGW. Also more comprehensive. And the pause is a genuine pause. Until the orthodox warmists stop denying the pause they will not bring credibility to the discussion of its causes.eace

When the foundation of a notion that is advertised as being scientific relies on ignoring what is happening in the real world, an unbiased observer might question both the foundation and the entire notion.

If the notion is accepted as being scientific in spite of this shortfall, then the definition of the scientific method needs to be re-examined.

 

[Lord of Planar]

I just now read the OPs of these new climate related threads on effectively why we are in a pause. I notice none of the large players mention the pause in the sun...

 

[Threegoofs]

I just now read the OPs of these new climate related threads on effectively why we are in a pause. I notice none of the large players mention the pause in the sun...

Oh. You mean that solar output is quite low by historical standards right now? That might play a role of why we aren't seeing continued record years for temperature. But it's a minimal variable- even with low solar output, we still are in the hottest decade ever recorded.

 

[Lord of Planar]

Oh. You mean that solar output is quite low by historical standards right now? That might play a role of why we aren't seeing continued record years for temperature. But it's a minimal variable- even with low solar output, we still are in the hottest decade ever recorded.

There is far more to the sun's output than TSI.

 

[Mithrae]

The notion proposed by the Die hards is very much set up in a cause effect line of thought.

They say with clarity that if the CO2 increases, the temperature will also increase and do so at a very predictable rate. They have published their predictions. The predictions are wrong.

It's astonishing that I have to keep asking this, but... your source for these claims?

If different climate models produce slightly different results (which they apparently do) and successive IPCC reports have made slightly different predictions (which they have), how does that equate in your mind to "a very predictable" result?

The impression I get, which yourself and Jack seem not to accept, is that global climate systems are a rather complex phenomenon. There is going to be uncertainty. Nevertheless as Jack inadvertently pointed out in another thread, and I had pointed out in an earlier thread, the global average temperatures have generally been within the uncertainty ranges of "the IPCC's Second and Third Assessment Reports, within the projected ranges of the B1 and A2 scenarios from AR4, and mostly within the projected ranges from the First Assessment Report and the A1 scenarios of AR4."
http://www.debatepolitics.com/envir...ational-climate-article-9.html#post1062407042

That's not to say that the models are perfect by any means. Despite the 'sceptics' nirvana fantasies, I would guess that most actual scientists recognise that we do still have more to learn. But your unsubstantiated assertion that "the predictions are wrong" means two-thirds of diddly-squat to anyone who can read and think for themselves.


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You underlined my point by noting that the Copernican solution is "much simpler." Svensmark is much simpler compared to AGW. Also more comprehensive. And the pause is a genuine pause. Until the orthodox warmists stop denying the pause they will not bring credibility to the discussion of its causes.eace

Again it's astonishing, but what is your source for this 'pause'?

The 2010s so far are hotter on average than the 2000s, which in turn were hotter than the 1990s. Is that your 'pause'?

Or in 5-year intervals - 2004-2008, 2009-2013 and so on - each successive period has been hotter than the last for at least twenty years. Is that your 'pause'?

A graph showing the 5-year running averages of global temperatures shows a generally upward trend. Is that your 'pause'?

And all of that is from the pages of AGW-sceptical climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer, whose lower trophosphere data has 1998 as the hottest year on record. Elsewhere Longview posted some other NASA data in which the hottest years are
2010
2005
2007 and then
1998

Is that your 'pause'?



CODE WROTE: "When the foundation of a notion that is advertised as being scientific relies on ignoring what is happening in the real world, an unbiased observer might question both the foundation and the entire notion."

Damn right they will :lol:

 

[Jack Hays]

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Again it's astonishing, but what is your source for this 'pause'?

The 2010s so far are hotter on average than the 2000s, which in turn were hotter than the 1990s. Is that your 'pause'?

Or in 5-year intervals - 2004-2008, 2009-2013 and so on - each successive period has been hotter than the last for at least twenty years. Is that your 'pause'?

A graph showing the 5-year running averages of global temperatures shows a generally upward trend. Is that your 'pause'?

And all of that is from the pages of AGW-sceptical climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer, whose lower trophosphere data has 1998 as the hottest year on record. Elsewhere Longview posted some other NASA data in which the hottest years are
2010
2005
2007 and then
1998

Is that your 'pause'?



CODE WROTE: "When the foundation of a notion that is advertised as being scientific relies on ignoring what is happening in the real world, an unbiased observer might question both the foundation and the entire notion."

Damn right they will :lol:

I have more faith in The Economist than in most publications.

[h=2]Climate science[/h] [h=3]A sensitive matter[/h] [h=1]The climate may be heating up less in response to greenhouse-gas emissions than was once thought. But that does not mean the problem is going away[/h] Mar 30th 2013 |From the print edition

OVER the past 15 years air temperatures at the Earth’s surface have been flat while greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to soar. The world added roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. That is about a quarter of all the CO₂ put there by humanity since 1750. And yet, as James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, observes, “the five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade.”

Temperatures fluctuate over short periods, but this lack of new warming is a surprise. Ed Hawkins, of the University of Reading, in Britain, points out that surface temperatures since 2005 are already at the low end of the range of projections derived from 20 climate models (see chart 1). If they remain flat, they will fall outside the models’ range within a few years.
The mismatch between rising greenhouse-gas emissions and not-rising temperatures is among the biggest puzzles in climate science just now. It does not mean global warming is a delusion. Flat though they are, temperatures in the first decade of the 21st century remain almost 1°C above their level in the first decade of the 20th. But the puzzle does need explaining.eace

 

[code1211]

It's astonishing that I have to keep asking this, but... your source for these claims?

If different climate models produce slightly different results (which they apparently do) and successive IPCC reports have made slightly different predictions (which they have), how does that equate in your mind to "a very predictable" result?

The impression I get, which yourself and Jack seem not to accept, is that global climate systems are a rather complex phenomenon. There is going to be uncertainty. Nevertheless as Jack inadvertently pointed out in another thread, and I had pointed out in an earlier thread, the global average temperatures have generally been within the uncertainty ranges of "the IPCC's Second and Third Assessment Reports, within the projected ranges of the B1 and A2 scenarios from AR4, and mostly within the projected ranges from the First Assessment Report and the A1 scenarios of AR4."
http://www.debatepolitics.com/envir...ational-climate-article-9.html#post1062407042

That's not to say that the models are perfect by any means. Despite the 'sceptics' nirvana fantasies, I would guess that most actual scientists recognise that we do still have more to learn. But your unsubstantiated assertion that "the predictions are wrong" means two-thirds of diddly-squat to anyone who can read and think for themselves.

The AGW Die hards say that the increase of CO2 WILL cause the temperature to rise. They accompany this with predictions of varying inaccuracy and that all prove them to be incapbale of accounting for all of the natural variability. it is not the realists who notice they are wrong who are at fault in this.

Both Jack and I and everyone else that understand that the AGW Die Hards are full of hot air and not much else assert in full throated harmony that the Climate system is too complex to understand and that this is proven by the unblemished history of failure of the best and the brightest of those that claim to be climate scientists to accurately predict its behavior. Haven't you been reading what we are writing?

You have suddenly stumbled onto this realization and think that nobody else has ever realized it?

That is the very crux of the entire debate. One side thinks it knows what is happening, why it is happening and how and the other side knows the supposed understanding pretended by the AGW Die hards is shallow, weak and brief.

 

[Threegoofs]

I have more faith in The Economist than in most publications.

Oh. Then you'll like this.

Climate science: Stubborn things | The Economist

In the article:

there are climate facts—and facts are stubborn things. One is that the upper 75 metres of the oceans have warmed by 0.1°C a decade in the past 40 years and there is no sign of this slowing down. Water expands, and ice melts, as temperatures rise, so sea levels have risen 19cm in the past century and the Arctic sea ice has shrunk by about 500,000 square kilometres a decade since 1979.

These facts matter because the oceans cover seven-tenths of the Earth’s surface and are its primary heat sink (90% of the extra warming over the past 40 years has gone into the oceans). By most measures—though not all—global warming is continuing.

But what about the pause in air temperatures? Isn’t that a fact? Indeed it is... The extent of the pause is sensitive to the starting-point chosen when defining it. The recent temperature peak was 1998. But in 1998 El Niño, an occasional warming of the Pacific Ocean which boosts temperatures around the planet, was unusually large. If you start in 2000 and compare the decade of the 2000s with the 1990s, you find that the IPCC estimate was close. This does not mean the pause does not exist

However, I dont expect this will change anything. Its tough to get a clown to get serious.

 

[code1211]

I have more faith in The Economist than in most publications.

[h=2]Climate science[/h] [h=3]A sensitive matter[/h] [h=1]The climate may be heating up less in response to greenhouse-gas emissions than was once thought. But that does not mean the problem is going away[/h] Mar 30th 2013 |From the print edition

OVER the past 15 years air temperatures at the Earth’s surface have been flat while greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to soar. The world added roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. That is about a quarter of all the CO₂ put there by humanity since 1750. And yet, as James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, observes, “the five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade.”

Temperatures fluctuate over short periods, but this lack of new warming is a surprise. Ed Hawkins, of the University of Reading, in Britain, points out that surface temperatures since 2005 are already at the low end of the range of projections derived from 20 climate models (see chart 1). If they remain flat, they will fall outside the models’ range within a few years.
The mismatch between rising greenhouse-gas emissions and not-rising temperatures is among the biggest puzzles in climate science just now. It does not mean global warming is a delusion. Flat though they are, temperatures in the first decade of the 21st century remain almost 1°C above their level in the first decade of the 20th. But the puzzle does need explaining.eace

And here is one explanation that has predictability, simlicity and historical substance.

http://people.duke.edu/~ns2002/pdf/Mazzarella-Scafetta-60-yr.pdf
<snip>
Abstract The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) obtained using instrumental and documentary proxy predictors from Eurasia is found to be characterized by a quasi 60-year dominant oscillation since 1650. This pattern emerges clearly once the NAO record is time integrated to stress its comparison with the temperature record. The integrated NAO (INAO) is found to well correlate with the length of the day (since 1650) and the global surface sea temperature record HadSST2 and HadSST3 (since 1850). These findings suggest that INAO can be used as a good proxy for global climate change, and that a ~60-year cycle exists in the global climate since at least 1700. Finally, the INAO ~60-year oscillation well correlates with the ~60- year oscillations found in the historical European aurora record since 1700, which suggests that this ~60-year dominant climatic cycle has a solar–astronomical origin.
<snip>

 

[Jack Hays]

Oh. Then you'll like this.

Climate science: Stubborn things | The Economist

In the article:



However, I dont expect this will change anything. Its tough to get a clown to get serious.

I have no objection to anything in your post. I have posted many times that the recorded temperature data are not in dispute.eace

 

[Mithrae]

Mar 30th 2013 |From the print edition

OVER the past 15 years air temperatures at the Earth’s surface have been flat while greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to soar. The world added roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. That is about a quarter of all the CO₂ put there by humanity since 1750. And yet, as James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, observes, “the five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade.”

Interesting. That first sentence is incorrect, as I've pointed out: According to these GISS temperatures, 1998 was beaten by 2005, 2007 and 2010.

Longview posted the data here, and this page has it in graphical form (covering 1880-2011). Even since 1998, the peaks (generally el nino years from what I've gathered) have generally been getting hotter, and so have the lows (la nina years). Unfortunately I still haven't been able to get the data directly from the NASA site, which is a problem because this blog seems to have different J-D values than those posted by Longview :doh

In any case here's a graph of the 5-year running average using that GISS data. Obviously when 2013's data is included it'll turn back up (2011 5-yr average), possibly even higher than the 2005 5-yr average since 2013 is shaping up hotter than 2012, and it won't be pulled down by the 2008 low.


Here's my calculations in Google docs for checking/correction, with a link to the graph site.

It's an interesting contrast with the 5-year average trend of Dr. Spencer's (also of NASA) lower troposphere data, I'll grant you. But so far the 2005-2010 trend (averages from 2003-2012) looks like less of a pause or downturn than the one in 89-94. A curious puzzle for the scientists, as your article notes, but hardly a crippling blow to the theory. And as Threegoofs and myself have noted, various other indicators do not share that anomaly or suggest a 'pause': Temperature trends in the lower troposphere have been generally upwards, ocean temperatures have also increased, sea levels have risen, Arctic sea ice has decreased, Antarctic ice mass has decreased (though its extent has increased overall) and so on.


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The AGW Die hards say that the increase of CO2 WILL cause the temperature to rise. They accompany this with predictions of varying inaccuracy and that all prove them to be incapbale of accounting for all of the natural variability. it is not the realists who notice they are wrong who are at fault in this.

Both Jack and I and everyone else that understand that the AGW Die Hards are full of hot air and not much else assert in full throated harmony that the Climate system is too complex to understand and that this is proven by the unblemished history of failure of the best and the brightest of those that claim to be climate scientists to accurately predict its behavior. Haven't you been reading what we are writing?

The temperature has risen - even that GISS data has the 2010s so far average hotter than the 2000s, which in turn were hotter than the 1990s - and while it's at the lower end of the uncertainty ranges, the predictions obviously do not have an "unblemished history of failure." Didn't you read the posts I linked to, or even Jack's last post? "Ed Hawkins, of the University of Reading, in Britain, points out that surface temperatures since 2005 are already at the low end of the range of projections derived from 20 climate models..."

Making things up is not a very good approach to debate :roll:

But with that correction in mind, the gist of what I'm seeing here seems to go something like this -
IPPC: Here, to the best of our current knowledge, are the uncertainty ranges of what we think is likely to happen.
Critics, a few years later: Hah! Actual observations have been at the lower end of your predictions, therefore the climate system can't be understood at all. Or at least not by those 90-odd percent of y'all!

You could of course show me where these best and brightest of AGW climatologists have ever claimed to be capable of "accounting for all of the natural variability"...? Obviously they would have been wrong if any of 'em did claim that. But at least in that case your argument would not be a complete strawman, though it still would not show that climate systems and trends are as incomprehensible as you seem to imply.



Reality is not black and white, as I'm fond of saying over on my religious forums; too many folk, from both sides of most issues, seem to have trouble with that fact. What we're looking at is not a dichotomy between "Climate scientists understand everything about the climate" or "They don't know what they're talking about." I doubt if any actual scientists even claim the former, though I'll eagerly await your references. What we're looking at - those of us who understand shades of grey, at least - is something more along the lines of "Climate scienists already understand enough of our climate systems and trends" or, as seems likely given that observations are towards the lower bounds of their estimates, "There are still important factors to understand."

Notice how once you remove the black-and-white thinking, it removes the suggestion that what climatologists are confident of so far is as uncertain as the pieces they're still filling in? I attempted to explain this back in post #19. Seems you've failed Logic 101

 

[Jack Hays]

Interesting. That first sentence is incorrect, as I've pointed out: According to these GISS temperatures, 1998 was beaten by 2005, 2007 and 2010.

Longview posted the data here, and this page has it in graphical form (covering 1880-2011). Even since 1998, the peaks (generally el nino years from what I've gathered) have generally been getting hotter, and so have the lows (la nina years). Unfortunately I still haven't been able to get the data directly from the NASA site, which is a problem because this blog seems to have different J-D values than those posted by Longview :doh

In any case here's a graph of the 5-year running average using that GISS data. Obviously when 2013's data is included it'll turn back up (2011 5-yr average), possibly even higher than the 2005 5-yr average since 2013 is shaping up hotter than 2012, and it won't be pulled down by the 2008 low.
View attachment 67155123

Here's my calculations in Google docs for checking/correction, with a link to the graph site.

It's an interesting contrast with the 5-year average trend of Dr. Spencer's (also of NASA) lower troposphere data, I'll grant you. But so far the 2005-2010 trend (averages from 2003-2012) looks like less of a pause or downturn than the one in 89-94. A curious puzzle for the scientists, as your article notes, but hardly a crippling blow to the theory. And as Threegoofs and myself have noted, various other indicators do not share that anomaly or suggest a 'pause': Temperature trends in the lower troposphere have been generally upwards, ocean temperatures have also increased, sea levels have risen, Arctic sea ice has decreased, Antarctic ice mass has decreased (though its extent has increased overall) and so on.


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The temperature has risen - even that GISS data has the 2010s so far average hotter than the 2000s, which in turn were hotter than the 1990s - and while it's at the lower end of the uncertainty ranges, the predictions obviously do not have an "unblemished history of failure." Didn't you read the posts I linked to, or even Jack's last post? "Ed Hawkins, of the University of Reading, in Britain, points out that surface temperatures since 2005 are already at the low end of the range of projections derived from 20 climate models..."

Making things up is not a very good approach to debate :roll:

But with that correction in mind, the gist of what I'm seeing here seems to go something like this -
IPPC: Here, to the best of our current knowledge, are the uncertainty ranges of what we think is likely to happen.
Critics, a few years later: Hah! Actual observations have been at the lower end of your predictions, therefore the climate system can't be understood at all. Or at least not by those 90-odd percent of y'all!

You could of course show me where these best and brightest of AGW climatologists have ever claimed to be capable of "accounting for all of the natural variability"...? Obviously they would have been wrong if any of 'em did claim that. But at least in that case your argument would not be a complete strawman, though it still would not show that climate systems and trends are as incomprehensible as you seem to imply.



Reality is not black and white, as I'm fond of saying over on my religious forums; too many folk, from both sides of most issues, seem to have trouble with that fact. What we're looking at is not a dichotomy between "Climate scientists understand everything about the climate" or "They don't know what they're talking about." I doubt if any actual scientists even claim the former, though I'll eagerly await your references. What we're looking at - those of us who understand shades of grey, at least - is something more along the lines of "Climate scienists already understand enough of our climate systems and trends" or, as seems likely given that observations are towards the lower bounds of their estimates, "There are still important factors to understand."

Notice how once you remove the black-and-white thinking, it removes the suggestion that what climatologists are confident of so far is as uncertain as the pieces they're still filling in? I attempted to explain this back in post #19. Seems you've failed Logic 101

You are free to debate against opponents of your own construction for as long as you like. The fact remains that there has been no warming for fifteen years (or at least ten, even according to uberwarmist Hansen). As I posted to 3G earlier, no one disputes the recorded temperature record. The debate is about causation and climate impact.eace

 

[code1211]

Interesting. That first sentence is incorrect, as I've pointed out: According to these GISS temperatures, 1998 was beaten by 2005, 2007 and 2010.

Longview posted the data here, and this page has it in graphical form (covering 1880-2011). Even since 1998, the peaks (generally el nino years from what I've gathered) have generally been getting hotter, and so have the lows (la nina years). Unfortunately I still haven't been able to get the data directly from the NASA site, which is a problem because this blog seems to have different J-D values than those posted by Longview :doh

In any case here's a graph of the 5-year running average using that GISS data. Obviously when 2013's data is included it'll turn back up (2011 5-yr average), possibly even higher than the 2005 5-yr average since 2013 is shaping up hotter than 2012, and it won't be pulled down by the 2008 low.
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Here's my calculations in Google docs for checking/correction, with a link to the graph site.

It's an interesting contrast with the 5-year average trend of Dr. Spencer's (also of NASA) lower troposphere data, I'll grant you. But so far the 2005-2010 trend (averages from 2003-2012) looks like less of a pause or downturn than the one in 89-94. A curious puzzle for the scientists, as your article notes, but hardly a crippling blow to the theory. And as Threegoofs and myself have noted, various other indicators do not share that anomaly or suggest a 'pause': Temperature trends in the lower troposphere have been generally upwards, ocean temperatures have also increased, sea levels have risen, Arctic sea ice has decreased, Antarctic ice mass has decreased (though its extent has increased overall) and so on.


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The temperature has risen - even that GISS data has the 2010s so far average hotter than the 2000s, which in turn were hotter than the 1990s - and while it's at the lower end of the uncertainty ranges, the predictions obviously do not have an "unblemished history of failure." Didn't you read the posts I linked to, or even Jack's last post? "Ed Hawkins, of the University of Reading, in Britain, points out that surface temperatures since 2005 are already at the low end of the range of projections derived from 20 climate models..."

Making things up is not a very good approach to debate :roll:

But with that correction in mind, the gist of what I'm seeing here seems to go something like this -
IPPC: Here, to the best of our current knowledge, are the uncertainty ranges of what we think is likely to happen.
Critics, a few years later: Hah! Actual observations have been at the lower end of your predictions, therefore the climate system can't be understood at all. Or at least not by those 90-odd percent of y'all!

You could of course show me where these best and brightest of AGW climatologists have ever claimed to be capable of "accounting for all of the natural variability"...? Obviously they would have been wrong if any of 'em did claim that. But at least in that case your argument would not be a complete strawman, though it still would not show that climate systems and trends are as incomprehensible as you seem to imply.



Reality is not black and white, as I'm fond of saying over on my religious forums; too many folk, from both sides of most issues, seem to have trouble with that fact. What we're looking at is not a dichotomy between "Climate scientists understand everything about the climate" or "They don't know what they're talking about." I doubt if any actual scientists even claim the former, though I'll eagerly await your references. What we're looking at - those of us who understand shades of grey, at least - is something more along the lines of "Climate scienists already understand enough of our climate systems and trends" or, as seems likely given that observations are towards the lower bounds of their estimates, "There are still important factors to understand."

Notice how once you remove the black-and-white thinking, it removes the suggestion that what climatologists are confident of so far is as uncertain as the pieces they're still filling in? I attempted to explain this back in post #19. Seems you've failed Logic 101

We seem to be in agreement that the climatologists have absolutely no chance of accounting for all of the variables.

My conclusion from this observation is that they have absolutely no chance of accounting for all of the variables.

Your conclusion from this observation is that the absolutely wrong predictions that they issue must be accepted as accurate in spite of the proven track which reveals that they have absolutely no chance of accounting for all of the variables.

Does this pretty much sum it up? Of course, this is just Logic 101 at work.