THIS PAGE HAS BEEN ACTIVATED AS THE NEW STATESMAN BLOG IS NOW CLOSED FOR COMMENTS
At 10am this morning, the New Statesman finally closed the Mark Lynas thread on their website after 1715 comments had been added over a period of five months. I don’t know whether this constitutes any kind of a record, but gratitude is certainly due to the editor of of the New Statesman for hosting the discussion so patiently and also for publishing articles from Dr David Whitehouse and Mark Lynas that have created so much interest.
This page is now live, and anyone who would like to continue the discussion here is welcome to do so. I have copied the most recent contributions at the New Statesman as the first comment for the sake of convenience. If you want to refer back to either of the original threads, then you can find them here:
Dr David Whitehouse’s article can be found here with all 1289 comments.
Mark Lynas’ attempted refutation can be found here with 1715 comments.
Welcome to Harmless Sky, and happy blogging.
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10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”
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Peter, Reur 2946/7
Did you take a squiz at my graph labelled “TICKLED PINK”, over at “Admin”, #23?
It might help you to understand things better!
Do you have problems with “Spatial Perception“?
(Such as difficulty parallel parking your car between others, or eyeballing trend-lines on noisy graphical data; perceiving slope….)
Remember, per my earlier tuition, that if you generate any graph mathematically or by whatever means, it should always be checked for reasonableness, such as by eyeballing it.
VERY IMPORTANT!
TonyB, Reur 2940/1
Boy, you ask heap-big questions, and present mountains of information, and I’m more than impressed at your industry!
However, me, myself, personally, I cannot take-it all-in.
Nevertheless, the thing that sticks-out like festering dogs-balls to me, is that as far as I am aware, there has never been a systematic survey of CO2 levels at ground using the same methods as at ML, at the classic ice-core sites, in order to check for regional effects; ignoring temporal problems. (preferably by a truly independent testing organisation, whom might also audit ML, hopefully with Beck and/or yourself on the team)
You present some interesting recent satellite information showing modest CO2 mixing variations at an altitude of ~8km, notably, of significant interest, the blue in the Arctics. However, would this cold water absorption (whatever) not be more pronounced nearer the sea-surface? So where is the data at that level?
A complication is that ML and Greenland and Antarctic ice-core sites are ALL (!) at around 3.25 Km altitude, not sea-level, and not ~8Km either!
I might add, that in recent decades when climbing mountains of over ~3300m (3.3 Km), I became very short of breath.
I see that Max is back, and he has a lot more chemistry than me, that he might help you on!
Further my 2948, I notice that a direct link to my “TICKLED PINK” is no longer displayed. Here it is:
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=104#comment-6361
Bob 2952
As ever thanks for your input and observations. I think there are a lot of holes in our knowledge and much of what is available does not seem to be interpreted in ways always comptaible with the findings.
The more I dig ( I tend to like older sources untainted by the politics of AGW) the more I become concerned.
*Historic recorded temperatures do not seem to have been properly looked at.
* Tens of thousands of Historic co2 levels taken in perfectly logical ways by eminent scientists are ignored
* The Mwp and many other warm periods are discounted
* Known Sea levels back to Roman times are ignored, or at best, not investigated for their relevance as closely as they should be.
* Ice core samples are blithely accepted that are still highly theoretical (see link)
* Calibration and responsibility for co2 measurements appear to reside in one organisation ( I intend to investigate this)
* Mixing of co2 is not as thorough as believed and measurements are not always taken in locations that can be directly compared to other readings (your #2952)
*it is evident that after spending days (literally) reading through the archives of Callendar and the biography of Keeling that the co2 benchmark for 19th century readings could more logically have been set at 380ppm if Callendar had wanted to disprove the theory of AGW instead of wanting to promote it.
This link is about fractionation in ice cores and comes from members of the Scripps institution.
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/pub/DATASETS/AGDC/severinghaus_nsidc_0290/Closeoff_fractionation_EPSL-1.pdf
I shall post some of Becks latest work once Max or others have had a chance to comment on my previous posts (assuming they want to!)
TonyB
Hi Peter,
You asked, “How did you work out the linear regression from your quoted data?
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/annual
When I use exactly the same data imported into Excel the figure is greater than 0.5degC.
The equations that Excel produces are different too.”
All you have to do is download the Hadley data and plot it into Excel, add in a linear regression trend line and under “options” choose “display equation on chart”. It’s really quite simple.
If you do it correctly, you will get the same result that I got.
The two periods I looked at are the 1910-1944 early 20th century warming period and the later 20th century warming period, either 1976-1998 or 1976-2000. The earlier period has been analyzed and written up.
You wrote, “I know you like to make out that the warming in the early 20th century was more than in the late 20th century which is why you have made the claim.”
The Hadley temperature record tells me that the linear warming trend over the period 1910-1944 was 0.150C/decade with a linear warming of 0.53C over the 35-year period. For comparison, the linear warming trend over the period 1976-2000 was 0.147C/decade with a linear warming of 0.35C over the 25-year period.
As far as the early 20th century warming period is concerned, it is true that it lasted 35 years. The 0.53C warming over these 35 years was around 45% greater than the 0.35C warming of the late 20th century warming from 1976 to 2000, a period of only 25 years.
If I adjust the two periods to the same length, I would get essentially the same warming in the late 20th century (0.49C) as in the early 20th century (0.53C):
[0.35 * 35 / 25 = 0.49C]
But here is my dilemma, Peter: if human CO2 caused the late 20th century warming, what caused the early 20th century warming? Originally I had hoped that IPCC could help me on this.
After checking the relevant literature (starting with IPCC AR4 WG1, Chapters 3 and 9), I find the following discussion concerning the two periods.
IPCC is not too talkative about the early 20th century period. In Chapter 3 (p.240) it states that several sub-periods were examined (including 1910-1945, which had “rising temperatures”. Much is made of a “1976 divide”, which is described as “the date of a widely acknowledged ‘climate shift’” “when global mean temperatures began a discernable upward trend that has been at least partly attributed to increases in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.”
Then strangely IPCC continues with, “The picture prior to 1976 has essentially not changed and is therefore not repeated in detail here.”
Then I read in Chapter 9 (p.691), “Detection and attribution as well as modeling studies indicate more uncertainty regarding the causes of early 20th-century warming than the recent warming.” This is followed by the mention of several studies that confirm this “uncertainty”.
Now, Peter, when I read “modeling studies indicate more uncertainty regarding the causes of early 20th-century warming” that tells me the models cannot explain the causes for this warming period.
All throughout Chapter 9, IPCC tells us that the late 20th century warming (since 1976) was caused by anthropogenic forcing since model simulations “show that it is not possible to reproduce the large 20th-century warming without anthropogenic forcing regardless of which solar or volcanic forcing is used, stressing the impact of human activity on the recent warming” (p.681). “Climate simulations are consistent in showing that the global mean warming observed since 1970 can only be reproduced with combinations of external forcings that include anthropogenic forcings” (p.685). “No climate model using natural forcings alone has reproduced the observed warming in the second half of the 20th century. Therefore modeling studies suggest that late 20th-century warming is more likely to be anthropogenic than natural in origin” (p.686).
IPCC spends several pages, extensively discussing the more recent warming period, which caused less warming than the earlier period, which it essentially ignores, except for a brief mention of the “uncertainties” of the causes for this warming.
So, despite the fact that I have combed through the IPCC AR4 report, my dilemma has still not been resolved and I am beginning to have some doubts, so I check the literature more closely.
In between the two warming periods (from 1944 to 1976) there was a very slight cooling trend, and since 2001 we are in a slight cooling trend, as well, according to the Hadley record. But let’s ignore these seemingly unexplainable cooling periods for now and concentrate on the early 20th-century warming period, which accounted for over half of all the 20th-century warming.
I find a 2000 study by Delworth et al in Science entitled “Simulation of Early 20th Century Global Warming”.
This study confirms what I read from the Hadley record: “We first note that over the period 1910-1944, the linear trend of observed temperature is 0.53K per 35 years”. The writers then went on to investigate other 35-year periods over several hundred years of record (including proxy records prior to 1850). They concluded, “internal model variability alone is unable to explain the observed 20th century warming” (p.2247). It does conclude, “Although the latter warming is often attributed to a human-induced increase of greenhouse gases, causes of the earlier warming [1910-1944] are less clear because this period precedes the time of strongest increases in human-induced greenhouse gas (radiative) forcing” (p.2246).
Now my doubts are even greater, so I do a quick check on atmospheric CO2 (Mauna Loa since 1958, IPCC prior to 1958).
I see that CO2 increased by a modest 15 ppm from 1910 to 1944, while temperature increased 0.53C, then increased by an accelerated 25 ppm while temperature decreased slightly, increased by 36 ppm from 1976 to 2000, while temperature increased by 0.35C and increased by 16 ppm since 2100, while temperature has again decreased slightly.
Since I am aware that the relationship is logarithmic I rationalize that this may explain my dilemma of greater warming over the earlier period despite less increase in CO2.
But when I compare the CO2 concentrations for the two periods, I get:
1910-1944
C1 = 294 ppmv
C2 = 309 ppmv
C2 / C1 = 1.051
ln (C2 / C1) = 0.498
1976-2000
C1 = 334 ppmv
C2 = 370 ppmv
C2 / C1 = 1.108
ln (C2 / C1) = 1.023
So the warming over the latter period should have been:
1.023 / 0.498 = over 2 times the warming in the early period, but in actual fact it was:
0.35 / 0.53 = 0.66 = only two-thirds of the earlier warming.
Now, as Robin pointed out many posts ago, the IPCC logic appears to works as follows:
1. Our models cannot explain what caused the early 20th-century warming
2. We know that CO2 caused the late 20th-century warming.
3. How do we know this?
4. Because our models cannot explain it any other way.
Compounding this is the fact that there is no real explanation for the cooling period (1944-1976) other than two unsubstantiated suggestions in the FAQ section that this may have been caused by anthropogenic aerosols, and we now have another unexplained “plateau” or slight cooling since 2001 with record CO2 emissions.
So, after checking the facts, I am still left with my dilemma. The causes for the early 20th-century warming period are not explained by IPCC and the AGW causality argument is further weakened by observed facts on other cooling periods during periods of increased human CO2 emissions.
The observed facts appear to show that AGW may be only a very small part of the equation, Peter, and that IPCC may be “making a mountain out of a molehill”, in its AGW enthusiasm.
Regards,
Max
Max,
So its really quite simple is it? Well maybe you can check out if I have done anything wrong in this:
It seems odd that my Excel spreadsheet showed 0.0164 x 35 = 0.57 deg C temperature increase, whereas you came up with a figure of 0.35 deg C.
Two of the three extra points at the beginning of the graph would have the effect of flattening the gradient and the seven extra years on the end are from your period of “unequivocally unprecedented” cooling.
If you are such an expert on these matters maybe you can explain this?
Hi Peter,
To make it easier for you to understand and visualize, I have attached the curves for the early and late 20th century warming cycles, based on Hadley data.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3155/3073670985_e744f818bb_b.jpg
As you can see,the 35-year early 20th century cycle (1910-1944) had a linear warming rate of 0.150C/decade and a linear warming over the 35 years of 0.53C.
The 25-year late 20th century cycle (1976-2000)had a linear warming rate of 0.147C/decade and a linear warming ovedr the 25 years of 0.37C.
These are the facts, whether you like them or not.
Regards,
Max
Max,
Also a fact , whether you like it, or not is that the 34 year period 1973 to 2007 had a linear warming of 0.57 deg C and a 0.164 deg C rise per decade.
Unless, of course, you have found something wrong with my graph? Yes? No?
Hi Peter,
There is no basic disagreement between any of the graphs. The early 20th century (1910-1944) had an unexplained 35-year warming period of 0.53C, while the late 20th century (1976-2000) had an exhaustively over-explained 25-year warming period of 0.37C. If you adjust the late warming to a 35-year period, you get approximately the same amount of warming for the two periods as your graph also shows.
Since 2001 all records show that there has been a cooling. This took a sharper turn in 2008. Whether or not this will continue is anyone’s guess.
The IPCC model-derived temperature “forecasts” have always erred on the high side, as earlier posts have demonstrated. Hadley model forecasts for the following year have consistently been too high.
The 1991 IPCC forecast of 0.3C warming per decade turned out to be too high by a factor of almost two.
The latest IPCC forecast of 0.2C warming per decade for the early 21st century has actually turned out to be a cooling trend instead.
The IPCC models have no explanation for the early 20th century warming.
The IPCC models have no explanation for the mid-century cooling, except for an unsubstantiated rationalization that this may have been caused by human “aerosols”.
Temperature does not correlate well with atmospheric CO2 (and AGW theory), with the exception of the late 20th century warming period.
That’s about it, Peter.
Rather than beating this horse to death, I think we should try to find out why the IPCC models cannot explain the early 20th century warming, the mid-century cooling and the latest cooling and why they have been unable to make reasonable forecasts for the future.
Maybe now that “cloud feedbacks”, which were the “largest source of uncertainty” for IPCC, have been cleared up by the physical observations of Spencer et al., IPCC may be able to reprogram their models to come up with more realistic forecasts.
Maybe IPCC will spend a bit more time reviewing all the published studies out there on solar impact on 20th century warming, in order to improve their admitted “low level of scientific understanding” of solar climate forcing factors, in order to further improve their poor forecasting skills.
Or maybe they will continue (with the head in the sand) prophesying doom from man-made CO2 and ignoring all the other data out there, regardless of what the facts show.
Time will tell.
Regards,
Max
Note to TonyB
Was away a few days and have just now gotten up-to-date on your various recent posts on CO2 (also those of Rob and Bob_FJ).
A few points appear clear to me.
The “pre-Mauna Loa” assumption of a gradually increasing smooth CO2 curve appears to be an artifact of “cherry picked” analytical data and questionable ice core reconstructions.
The assumption of a globally (or even hemispherically) “well-mixed” atmospheric CO2 concentration appears to be more of a matter of “faith” than of any true scientific evidence.
The assumption that the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration comes exclusively (or even primarily) from human CO2 emissions, since “there is no other explanation”, is again a statement of “faith”.
The immense magnitude of the Earth’s natural carbon cycle compared to the very small amount of human CO2 added raises serious questions about the real human impact.
The assumption that CO2 has a “life” in the atmosphere of several hundred years has been directly refuted by many studies, which show the “life” to be a decade or less.
The glossing over of paleo-climate records, which show temperatures leading increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations by centuries, and still maintaining that CO2 drives the temperature (rather than vice versa) also requires a “leap of faith”.
There may be other weak points in the AGW “party line” concerning human CO2 culpability, which you or someone else here has identified, but these are the ones that come to my mind.
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
Let’s put your graph (2956) into proper perspective with my graph (2957).
You showed 0.57C warming over the 35-year period from 1973 through 2007. Over this period atmospheric CO2 increased from 327 to 385 ppmv.
C1 = 327
C2 = 385
ln (C2 / C1) = 0.1633
My earlier graph showed 0.53C warming over the 35-year period from 1910 through 1944. Over this period atmospheric CO2 increased from 294 to 309 ppmv.
C1 = 294
C2 = 309
ln (C2 / C1) = 0.0498
If CO2 had any significant role in the observed warming, the latter period should have warmed over three times as much as the earlier period:
0.1633 / 0.0498 = 3.28
CO2 must not have been much of a factor, right?
Please explain.
Thanks and regards,
Max
Hi Max
Enjoyed your synopis of co2. Those temperature increases you are debating with Peter seem very minor compared to some of the non co2 induced temperature rises of the past-its happened half a dozen times over the last few hundred years.
Thanks for your post. All of us involved with the UK Environment Agency have been asked to write a short piece on flooding and climate change for a forthcoming confernce.
I have suggested I will do one on ‘climate change-Are we responsible?’ there has been a deafening response so far-will keep you posted.
TonyB
To someone’s post above: Yes, our American Thanksgiving holiday was last week. I took the whole week off and stayed far from the computer, and instead ate lot’s of turkey, stuffing, gravy, apple pie, watched a bunch of football (American style, of course!) played some golf, cleaned out the garage, did lots of yard work, spent some time out in the desert off-roading, and generally had a great week. Never once did I worry about AGW.
Max and TonyB: Your contributions here are so voluminous and technical that sometimes, I must admit, I have to skim some of the details. But I am glad you so detailed, and even though my eyes begin to glaze over occasionally, please keep it up.
Peter, I am very impressed that you have stayed around as well, please continue and I encourage you to bring in more contributors of a similar viewpoint. Without vigorous and informed debate none of us will be getting the “whole truth”.
Lastly, in my lengthy review of your (collectively) posts while I was away fattening up, I was struck by the civil tone of everyone’s posts. The level of decorum here and the (almost) absence of name-calling and profanity compared to some sites is truly a testament to every one of you.
Thanks!
JZS
Hi TonyB
Thanks for post.
Will be very interested in your “short piece, ‘climate change-are we responsible?’”, when you have published it.
Let’s hope it does not get too badly censored by the “powers that be”.
BTW I just heard on the weather report that we (here in Switzerland) are enjoying twice the normal amount of snow as “normal” for this time of the year.
The ski resorts are (cautiously) jubilant (but there is some worry that the current economic slump may outweigh the colder-than-normal weather).
Regards,
Max
Hi JZSmith,
Glad you are back and that you had a good “Thanksgiving” holiday.
We do not have exactly the same here in Switzerland (although the concept is beginning to take hold from the USA, and turkey sales are up), but it is a good time to be thankful for the fact that we are all living in a time that is so much better in every way than the time of our (pre-anthropogenic CO2) grandparents.
Even Peter (who is generally pessimistic about our industrial world) will have to agree that life is better for everyone on this globe today (at 385 ppm atmospheric CO2) than it was 100 years ago (at 294 ppmv CO2).
And (contrary to Peter) I believe it will be even better for our grandchildren at (500+ ppmv CO2) than it is for us today, despite the gobbledegook that the agenda-motivated pseudo-scientists quoted by IPCC try to “sell” us today.
Regards,
Max
Thanks Max. Yes, it was a nice holiday. Turkey is really very healthy, in that it is low in fat. To smell the roasting turkey in the oven all day on Thanksgiving is really quite a treat, if you haven’t had the pleasure.
BTW, we have lots of wild turkeys in our local mountains here in the San Diego area, and waking up in a tent in the crisp spring air to the eerie call of hundreds of turkeys at sunrise is something quite extraordinary.
Also, as much as I have earned the dunce cap many times over in my lifetime, it’s been a chilly but comfortable 18ºC to 20ºC here lately, no doubt because of global warming.
My solar heated pool, however, is only getting to about 20ºC-22ºC, so I am hoping for some more AGW to give me a bit longer swimming season.
Selfish, I know!
Max,
I’m getting the hang of doing these linear temperature trends now. Great fun. You might want do more of them yourself. You’d be much less likely to make the sort of blunder you made recently about “unequivocally unprecedented” cooling.
As you can see from the graph, which uses the same data you quoted on your link, it isn’t even cooling at all. Never mind , we all live and learn. Unless maybe you are die hard ‘tobacco science’ climate sceptic that is!
I’ll rely to your naivety re CO2 calculations later. Again you need to plot longer term graphs rather than base your arguments on a couple of lines of calculations to improve your understanding.
Max,
You recently came up with an argument saying that you wouldn’t have claimed that AGW had ended after the cooling period of the early 90’s
But you are claiming that it has ended after the current warming period shown in the graph of 2967.
Does anyone else understand the logic of this?
TonyN,
Further my Uhm Uhm above; Testing:
Small image Ex Flickr 240 x 211
<img src=”http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3160/3076905772_1304292645_m.jpg” alt=”ClobalT AllCompared, Nov18, by fj_bob on Flickr” />
GlobalT AllCompared, Nov 18
Linked to bigger version 1013 x 891
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3160/3076905772_b8d0dceafc_o.gif
GlobalT AllCompared, Nov 18″
There was an interesting piece in the UK Sunday Times yesterday: The fool’s gold of carbon trading. A huge new market designed to solve global warming seems doomed to failure. James Hanson is reported to have said that carbon trading is a “terrible” approach:
For once I agree with him.
Welcome back JZ – that sounds like a great holiday. And I agree with your earlier comments about the civil tone of the posts here. An object lesson for other blogs – well done TonyN.
SORRY, all:
My 2969 should have been on the Admin thread, and was a failed test, going backwards from my 23 over there.
Nevertheless, if you click on one of the two links, and then zoom out, the graphical composite may become readable and hopefully interesting/ intriguing.
I’m hoping that Pete can apply some DEEP thought to it, because there are many questions that can be applied. (not necessarily obvious questions, especially if dogmatic thinking prevails!)
I’m feeling a tad deflated that I screwed-up again, and it’s time for a recovery glass of Cab-Merlot.
Hopefully I’ll bounce-back domani!
JZS…..Hey, welcome back, and glad you enjoyed your holiday….. Apparently it was a much bigger thing than I imagined. BTW, where is Brute…. Reclining in sumptuous comfort somewhere being fed peeled-grapes by lovely maidens?
Here in Oz, would you believe we celebrate “The Queens Birthday” on 12/June/annually, even though that is not actually her birthday…. Although IT IS the “official start” of the ski-season?
(and the Brits do not have such a holiday)
Then, each November there is also a horse-race known as the “Melbourne Cup” which is an official holiday in Melbourne +, and a time when Oz is said to stop for the day, and there is continued silliness for “The Spring Racing Carnival” beyond that.
Robin, Reur 2970:
YEP!
Regards, Bob
Hi Peter,
You have definitely improved your graph drawing skills. Congratulations!
The 8-year 21st century cooling period was indeed unprecedented since the late 1970s.
Two previous 8-year periods came close: 1988-1995 and 1989-1996, both with very slight warming trends.
There were, of course, shorter periods of cooling, such as the one you have plotted. If you take an even shorter period, you can find even more. But all of these relatively short periods hardly prove anything, Peter.
And as far as the current 8-year cooling trend is concerned, we will have to wait a few more years to see if it really is the start of a multi-decadal cooling trend as we had from 1879-1910 and 1944-1976.
The solar scientists seem to believe that cooling will continue for a while due to low solar activity compared to the late 20th century (even though the underlying long-term warming trend of 0.6-0.7C per century, which we have enjoyed since coming out of the LIA in the early 19th century, will probably continue).
The AGW climatologists have predicted that the early 21st century will warm at 0.2C per decade.
So far it looks like the solar guys are right and the AGW guys are wrong.
But who knows what the future will bring?
Regards,
Max
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
A tip.
You should not compare temperature trends over cherry-picked short time periods with those over cherry-picked longer periods. It’s a bad habit that you should leave to IPCC, who are experts at this type of “smoke and mirrors” approach.
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
Am still waiting for your analysis explaining why early 20th century anthropogenic CO2 had three times the “heating value” of that emitted during the late 20th century (see 2961).
Is it simply because there was no IPCC back then?
Anxiously awaiting your reply.
Regards,
Max