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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Tonyb,
God Bless……..Travel Safely.
Former astronaut speaks out on global warming
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/national/general/view/2009_02_15_Former_astronaut_speaks_out_on_global_warming/srvc=home&position=recent
Hey, what about me? I’m heading up to the local mountains tomorrow for a few wonderful days on the slopes!
Look JZ were not mind readers are we :)Have a safe trip and don’t break anything!
tonyB
Lots of AGW fell today in California.
BTW, have a good trip as well!
TonyB,
Well on your graphs, and a reference supplied by Max, Max and I arrived at a figure of 0.28Wm^-2 for climate forcing due to solar variation, which does work out at about 15% of the total warming for the 20th century.
As I’ve already said, its at the top of the IPCC range. 20% would be out of the IPCC range. It would be surprising if Michael Mann were quite this high in his estimate but I wouldn’t go out of my way to argue against it.
Max,
Come on now, don’t sulk. Its the first time I’ve known you to use the ‘conversation over’ line. You’ve normally got something to say.
You’ve quoted your solar consensus, sorry, group of scientists, as saying that the 20th century warming due to solar variation was 0.35degC. What is the climate forcing that this corresponds to?
We’ve worked out 0.28Wm^-2 using Wilson’s TSI figures. Lean’s too if you say there is no disagreement.
You could argue for a warming of 0.35degC using this forcing, but (shock, horror) they’d have to invoke positive feedbacks in the system to justify this.
Goodness me, you don’t think they’ve done this do you? Maybe its Ok to have positive feedbacks for solar forcings but not CO2 forcings? What do you think?
In the four years since Gore’s movie was released, global surface temperatures have fallen at a rate equivalent to 6 degrees Celsius per century, enough to usher in an Ice Age if this exceptional and rapid rate of global cooling were to continue as far as 2100.
The above graph shows the very rapid decline in global mean surface temperatures between January 2005 and December 2008, compared with the range of projections (shown as a pink region) made by the UN’s climate panel, the IPCC, in its 2007 report. The shortfall between the IPCC’s central projection and the real-world decline in temperatures is an astonishing 0.4 Celsius degrees (0.7 F) in only four years. This is hardly the profile of a “climate crisis” caused by “global warming”.
Gore now routinely refers to CO2 as “global warming pollution” – a term he used twice in his presentation to the Senate Committee. However, CO2 is not a pollutant – it is essential food for plants.
Here’s an interesting comment from Lord Turnbull (who was UK Cabinet Secretary, 2002 to 2005) talking last week about the origins of the banking crisis:
Hmm – not a great endorsement of the value or authority of consensus. And perhaps parallels might also be drawn about the value and authority of complex computer modelling.
Thinking back to James Hansen’s apocalyptic article (see 4211) and particularly this quote
here’s an interesting letter to The Times:
I rather doubt if tide will do it either. Sorry, James, but Old King Coal is the answer – unless you have a secret plan to destroy the UK’s energy supply.
Hi Peter,
You asked (4281): “You’ve quoted your solar consensus, sorry, group of scientists, as saying that the 20th century warming due to solar variation was 0.35degC. What is the climate forcing that this corresponds to?”
Read the studies, Peter, it’s all in there.
Regards,
Max
Max, Reur 4274, you wrote to Peter Martin:
In addition to Pete’s already noted bad debating habits of waffling etc, I’m beginning to wonder if he is also resorting to “trolling”, per the blogosphere definition. It is also a tad irritating that when he is proven WRONG, that he avoids conceding with yet more waffle etc.
For example: Way back around page 20 I guess Pete started posting some time series graphs where his Excel smoothing was out of phase with the raw data. Over a period of months he kept reissuing and creating new WRONG graphs, despite my repeated attempts to explain that they were WRONG, and that this could be seen by eyeball. No matter he assumed, they must be right, because he did it in Excel. (And I should go and talk to Bill Gates etc). Eventually, I found-out what he was doing wrong; he was using the PMA method of smoothing which does have applications in business etc, but the method required for smoothing time series data is different, namely CMA. (Prior and Central Moving average respectively)
Well knock me over with a feather, in 4183/28 he quietly produces a time series graph with correctly applied 5-year and 9-year CMA smoothing!
Over at the other thread; “How many killed by GW”, Pete is exhibiting the same sort of denial, refusing to concede that Oz Bureau of Meteorology data contradicts his mantra on bushfires. When I pointed out that he was WRONG in his graphs before, he responded with this wafflissimo!
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=115#comment-11174
I could have responded simply with ; Uh?… or responded in detail, but what’s the point!
However, I do get some satisfaction out of this sort of nonsense in that Pete must look rather silly in the eyes of other readers here, even maybe AGW alarmists. It almost becomes entertaining!
Max,
Look its a simple request. Just give me one reference which gives a forcing for solar changes that you approve of.
IPCC have a mid range point of 0.15W/m^-2
You don’t like that.
We’ve worked out 0.28Wm^-2.
That’s not big enough for either.
I’m beginning to suspect that you don’t really understand solar influences on climate at all :-)
Hi Peter,
You wrote: “Look its a simple request. Just give me one reference which gives a forcing for solar changes that you approve of.”
This is easy, and I will oblige below with a few more than just “one” reference.
To your next point:
“IPCC have a mid range point of 0.15W/m^-2
You don’t like that.”
No. I don’t ”like that”. But since IPCC has admitted to having a “low level of scientific understanding” of solar forcing, I can ignore it and look elsewhere for solar experts who have a “higher level of scientific understanding” of solar forcing for my information.
Then you slipped in, “We’ve worked out 0.28Wm^-2. That’s not big enough for either.”
Who’s “we” here, Peter. I’m certainly not part of your “we”.
Then you added the remark, “I’m beginning to suspect that you don’t really understand solar influences on climate at all.”
Aw, Peter, why can’t you just stick to the facts and leave out the silly comments?
Now to the link between solar forcing and global temperature, which seems to cause you to “get wrapped around the axle”, here are a few:
Landscheidt: “Solar Activity: A Dominant Factor in Climate Dynamics”: According to satellite measurements, the mean value of the solar constant is S = 1367 W/m2. 0.22% of this amount of energy equals 3 W/m2 . The maximum of the smoothed curve is at 1374.2 W/m2 and the minimum at 1371.2 W/m2. The variation of 0.22% does not affect climate in its entirety. The solar constant defines the amount of energy, which just reaches the outside of the earth’s atmosphere. 30% of this energy is not absorbed by the atmosphere, but reflected. Furthermore, it has to be taken into account that the irradiated sectional area of the earth constitutes only a quarter of the surface to which this thermal energy has to be distributed. So there is only 239 W/m2 available to heat the atmosphere. Consequently, the variation of 3 W/m2 has only a climate effect of 0.53 W/m2 . How this affects global temperature depends on the general circulation model used to assess the climate sensitivity. How this affects global temperature depends on the general circulation model used to assess the climate sensitivity. C. Fröhlich [“Variations in total solar irradiance”. In: B. Frenzel, Hsg.: Solar output and climate during the Holocene. StuttgartJena-New York, Gustav Fischer Verlag, 1995, 125, 126, 127.] proceeds from a value between 0.3° and 1.4° C / W/m2. When we choose the mean value 0.85° C / W/m2 to avoid an overestimation, the climate effect of 0.53 W/m2 yields a temperature effect of 0.45° C. The chosen mean value lies within the range given in the literature.
http://www.john-daly.com/solar/solar.htm
Landscheidt mentions that Hoyt + Schatten have estimated the solar impact to be 0.7 K/W/m^2 (based on the available solar warming).
A study by Lean et al. shows that solar irradiance increased by 0.24% since the Maunder Minimum (3.27 W/m^2); this resulted in a temperature increase of 0.51C. This results in a solar impact on global temperature of 0.156 K/W/m^2 (based on total solar irradiance); when adjusted for that portion that is available to warm the globe, this impact is increased to 0.156/(.7*.25) = 0.89 K/W/m^2. Calculated over the 20th century increase in TSI of 0.16%, this results in a 20th century solar warming of 0.34K.
http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/bradley/lean1995.pdf
The solar contribution can also be calculated acc. to the Geophys. Res. Lett. paper by M. Lockwood and R. Stamper “Long-term drift of the coronal source magnetic flux and the total solar irradiance” indicates a rise in the average total solar irradiance of about 1.65 W/m² or 0.12%. We use the simple relationship D Ti = -200.59 + 0.1466´ I , where D Ti is the inferred temperature change (in ° C) relative to the mean observed value during solar cycle 11 [from Lean et al., 1995 and Rind and Overpeck, 1993], to infer rises of 0.21, 0.24 and 0.28° C for s of, respectively, smin , and smax. This should be compared to a rise in the global mean observed temperature D To of 0.66° C over the same interval”.
From this we calculate:
“Available” solar forcing = 0.25 * 0.7 * 1.65 = 0.289 W/m^2
dT = 0.24C
Solar impact = 0.24 / 0.289 = 0.83 K/W/m^2
http://www.wdc.rl.ac.uk/wdcc1/papers/grl.html
Don’t want to bore you with more stuff, but I believe that you can see from the above how solar irradiance impacts global temperature.
The range, based on the Landscheidt study is between 0.3 and 1.4 K/W/m^2, with a mean of 0.85 K/W/m^2. The studies I have cited above use:
0.85 Landscheidt
0.70 Hoyt + Schatten
0.89 Lean
0.83 Lockwood + Stamper
(all based on the “solar forcing available to warm the planet”, i.e. after adjusting for the 25% of the surface are actually warmed and the 30% of the incoming radiation reflected).
Hope this helps you understand a bit better how these solar scientists explain how solar forcing works.
Regards,
Max
Hi Bob_FJ
Yeah. It sometimes gets tedious debating with Peter, but at least he does not get disagreeable.
I do have a hard time understanding exactly how his brain works.
When confronted by overwhelming evidence that his position on a specific topic is flawed, he keeps looking for some excuse to deny the evidence presented.
In this recent case (which you may have been following), I cited several solar studies, which pointed out that over the 20th century, solar warming had caused around 0.35C of the total observed warming (slightly over half).
Instead of studying the reports I cited, Peter went off into a tangent of wanting to make a separate calculation (which would, in effect “prove” that all these studies by solar experts were wrong).
He hoped that this would not only distract from the unpleasant “overwhelming evidence” I had provided, but would provide an opportunuty to validate the IPCC claim of insignificant solar impact. However, since IPCC clearly stated that their “level of scientific understanding” of solar impact on climate was “low”, I figured there was no point trying to disporove the IPCC claim with any homemade calculations, but rather to accept the word of several solar experts (who hade a higher “level of scientific understanding” of the topic and who showed a significant solar impact.
Peter kept insisting on making a “calculation” anyway, and in the process threw out some meaningless numbers to “prove” his point that the “Holy Scripture” (i.e. IPCC report) was right, despite all the contradicting reports from solar experts.
Most recently he asked for the link used by these solar experts between solar irradiance and temperature impact. I have now provided this link for him.
Will this satisfy Peter?
Will he finally acknowledge that solar forcing has had a significant impact on 20th century warming, as all the studies show?
Or will he pull a new “rabbit out of the hat” to try (in vain) to defend the flawed IPCC conclusion on solar forcing?
We’ll see.
Non illigitemi carborundum,
Max
Max,
You’ve previously ( many times ) delved into the Stefan Boltzmann equation etc to show that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is very low.
You’ve claimed that a climate forcing of 1.66W/m^2 , from CO2 emissions, has raised temperatures by 0.3 deg C
This means that the climate sensitivity (in its meaning of temperture increase vs incident power) must be:
0.3/1.66K/W/m^2 = 0.18K/W/m^2
But when it comes to solar, this suddenly increases by a factor of over 4.6 to 0.83 K/W/m^2 according to one of your trusted refernces and by a factor of nearly 5 to 0.89 K/W/m^2 in another.
Are you really saying that they are different? If so, maybe you might like to explain how this can possibly be?
Max,
Another way to look at this is to relate the figure that you have previously quoted for the forcing due to a doubling of CO2 of 3.7W/m^2, with a climate sensitivity figure used by your quoted solar scientists of ~0.86 K/W/M^-2.
This would mean that temperatures would increase by 3.7 x 0.86 = 3.2 degC. Very much in line with IPCC estimates.
So, according to you, its OK for your solar scientists to include postive feedback effects into their models but not anyone else!
And you think there must be something wrong with the way my brain works?
Hi Peter,
You asked me for the link between solar forcing and temperature change, according to the studies of several solar scientists, which I provided. These studies showed that 20th century solar warming amounted to 0.35C, slightly more than 50% of the total observed warming.
Insteead of responding to this specifically, you continue to come up with theoretical “calculations” in order to show that all these solar scientists are wrong and that you, Peter Martin, are right.
You have lost all credibility here, Peter, as anyone else following this exchange will certainly agree.
If you wish, I can ask for a vote of those that have followed this long-winded exchange.
There is really no point in my continuing this dialogue with you.
You have lost this debate and are just too boneheaded to acknowledge it.
Tell me specifically why you (in your infinite wisdom) believe that the many solar studies are not correct or SHUT UP!
Max
Hi Bob_FJ
As you can see, Peter has again evaded the issue on the impact of solar warming by bringing up more theoretical calculations (groan!).
It appears that he either is intellectually unable to grasp what all these solar scientists are saying regarding the solar impact on global warming (could it be that he is really so dense?) or (more likely) that he just does not want to face the truth (since it conflicts with his firmly held quasi-religious beliefs of disastrous AGW) and, therefore, simply sticks his head in the sand.
You once mentioned a frustrating experience trying to debate religious issues with a fundamentalist fanatic. Do you see any similarities here? Help me out if you can.
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
Solar scientists tell us that the observed impact of solar warming has been a warming of (Scafetta + West):
1900-2000: 0.36K
Another study (Baliunas + Soon) tells us that the solar warming from 1910 to 1940 was 0.4C.
There are many other studies (which I have cited) that confirm a solar impact of 0.35C on 20th century warming.
Yet another study (Lean et al.) tells us that there was 0.51C warming since the Maunder Minimum attributable to a 0.24% increase of solar irradiance over that period (equal to 3.27 W/m^2).
Now I know that these studies are painful for you to accept, since they represent a direct challenge to what is now easily identifiable as your quasi-religious belief in potentially disastrous AGW, since they demonstrate that AGW is only a part (and not the overwhelming major cause) of the overall equation.
The result is that you hedge, waffle, squirm, side-track, etc. to avoid facing the unpleasant facts.
You call for a “new calculation” to disprove all these studies by solar experts. Ouch! How silly!
It appears that you, Peter Martin, share with the IPCC a “LOW LEVEL OF SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING” of the solar impact on climate and that you (unlike the IPCC) are simply too stubborn to acknowledge this or to accept the many studies out there by solar scientists who have a higher level of scientific understanding on this than you (or IPCC) have.
As you have been unable to refute the many studies by solar experts (which I cited), I have to conclude that you are only obstinately attempting to divert attention from these studies with your actions.
Sorry, Peter, this diversionary tactic has failed and, accept it or not, you have lost this debate,
Regards,
Max
Max,
It’s not like you to tell someone to ‘SHUT UP’! My mother used to consider that a very impolite sort of remark.
I’m not saying at present that any of your solar scientists are necessarily wrong but I’m trying to resolve some inconsistencies. I don’t know about you, but I just don’t like loose ends and things that don’t quite match up.
So I’ll just ask you to answer a simple question. What is your suggested value for climate sensistivity? Is it 0.18K/W/m^2 or nearer 0.86K/W/m^2 ?
Now don’t go all modest on me by saying that this maths is too hard for you. You’ve successfully differentiated the Stefan Boltzmann equation previously so I’m sure you can manage it.
While Max is pondereing the question I’ve asked him, and Bob_FJ is trying to clear his head enough to help him, I’ll just change the topic slightly.
Move over Wikipedia. Conservapedia, complete with their Stars and Stripes logo, has arrived on the scene! Us bad guy leftists are not going to have things all our own way now that there is a new Marshall in town ready and willing to make the streets, and the internet, safe for good God fearing folks like you guys.
You’ll like the entry on global warming.
http://www.conservapedia.com/Global_warming
I looked up Evolution, Stem Cell Research, Age of the earth etc.
I discovered that I must be a Uniformitarianist because I go along with the scientific theory of the earth being 4.5 billion years old, but when I clicked on the word for more explanation I was told that this was inconsistent with a belief that an asteriod struck the planet 65 million years ago?? This did lead me to believe that it might not be quite as good as Wikipedia but then I would say that wouldn’t I?
Peter Martin, Reur latest irrelevant yawn in 4296.
You do realize that other people than Max and me read this nonsense of yours, and will make their judgements on you, that may not be flattering?
Still, Tim Flannery and David Karoly say some pretty stupid things at times too.
I don’t think that they display so frequently the fundamentalism and gross silliness that you do though.
BTW; Did you call me a liar in item 1 of 6 @
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=115#comment-11268
Bob_FJ reur: 4297
Yep, others definately do and Peter isn’t showing himself in a particularly good light.
The level of patience and courtesy on display though far exceeds that i’ve seen on many other blogs on this topic, e.g realclimate, grist, CaCC, the linked blog from here is particularly dire http://www.climateaudit.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=674.
Persoanlly i enjoy coming here, lots of info with out the need to go bouncing round the web, thx all.
When I wrote up the strange affair of the Obama ‘sound bite’ that never was, which is sometimes referred to now as ‘splicegate’ thanks to TonyB, I also sent a formal complaint to the BBC.
I had not dealt with their complaints procedure before, but I had seen some pretty discouraging reports on the net which I had taken with a pinch of salt. Surely they couldn’t be quite as hopeless as people said?
Here is the first installment of what has happened so far:
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=157
Hi Peter,
You asked me, “So I’ll just ask you to answer a simple question. What is your suggested value for climate sensistivity? Is it 0.18K/W/m^2 or nearer 0.86K/W/m^2 ?”
Let’s see if we can address your somewhat hypothetical question from the standpoint of physically observed facts, rather than just plain theory.
Solar scientists have shown that there has been an increase in global temperature since the Maunder minimum that tracks fairly well with the sunspot cycle and other measures of solar activity. This warming represents around 0.51C since the Maunder minimum. At the same time the measurable portion of solar irradiance has shown a long-term increase of 0.24%. The greatest part of this increase occurred long before there was any appreciable impact from human CO2 emissions.
Another study tells us that solar forcing has caused the following warming over the 20th century:
1901-1950: 0.22K (before there was any appreciable human CO2)
1951-2000: 0.13K
1901-2000: 0.35K
The total warming observed over the 20th century (Hadley) was:
1901-2000: 0.65K
Yet another study has shown us that there is an apparent link between solar activity and oceanic oscillations, such as NAO, PDO and ENSO cycles. The mechanism for this link is not yet clear, however.
Warming El Niños were more prevalent in the latter part of the 20th Century than in the earlier part:
1901-1972: 5 El Niños in 72 years
1973-2000: 5 El Niños in 28 years (including the strong 1997/98 event that resulted in 20th century record 1998 temperature)
Information from NOAA on the impact of El Niño events on global sea temperatures from 1973 to 2000 tell us that this impact resulted in an increase of around 0.2C in the linear warming trend over this period.
At the same time we have good records on atmospheric CO2 starting in 1958 (Mauna Loa), a more shaky estimate by IPCC based on ice core data prior to 1958, the Hadley record of “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature” (with all its UHI distortions, variance adjustments, ex post facto “corrections”, etc. – but “it’s the best we have”).
So we have several pieces of the puzzle. What have these physical observations told us?
First, that a long-term increase in measured solar irradiance of 0.24% (or 3.27 W/m^2) resulted in 0.51C warming.
Second, that it is apparent from the actual physical observations that something else is going on that we have not been able to capture by measuring changes in solar irradiance alone. The physically observed facts tell us that temperature has changed along with solar activity over several centuries (long before significant human CO2 emissions), but we cannot explain this by only the measurable portion of solar irradiance.
The data have enabled solar scientists to develop an empirical relationship between physically observed solar activity and physically observed global temperature change over long-term time periods. These range from an impact of 0.3 to 1.4 K/W/m^2, with an average value of 0.85 K/W/m^2.
I hope this answers your question.
Now I’ll ask you a question to ponder about:
“Do you believe that you, Peter Martin, have a ‘higher level of scientific understanding’ of the impact of solar changes on our planet’s climate than all these many solar scientists, who all have agreed that the sun is responsible for around 0.35C of the totally observed 20th century global warming of 0.65C?”
Regards,
Max