Tuesday, November 29, 2011



November 18th, 2011 at 7:26 pm

In the following your excerpts of my comments are in quotations. My excerpts of your comments are in orange. My replies
to your comments are in black.

murrayv, you wrote:
"There is no hard evidence that the factor is proximate in an open system like the atmosphere."

Proximity means that A and B are close enough in space and time so that cause and effect can be mediated.

Nonsense, proximate in this sense means that cause and effect are directly linked. In an open system with
numerous other effects in play, direct causation is very hard to establish. The earth swims in a sea of broad
spectrum energy emitted by the sun. Some of the incoming energy (uV) is absorbed in the stratosphere,
some (mostly visible light) is reflected by clouds in the upper and lower troposphere, some penetrates to
the surface where it warms land during the day, but sea not so much. The heat from the warmed land is
reradiated as IR, and a small portion of the reradiated bandwidth is absorbed by CO2 molecules, briefly
raising their energy state. Most of the rest radiates back into space. A CO2 molecule is struck by a
reradiated IR photon and moved to a higher energy state. It then collides with a nitrogen (or other)
molecule and gives up the energy it received, so is again available to intercept another photon. With
enough such interactions to absorb all emitted photons within the applicable energy window, increasing
the CO2 concentration will have no additional effect. That is just about where the atmospheric
concentration is today, and given well mixed CO2 in the atmosphere, we are well past that state at high
latitudes. Therefore warming at high latitudes occurs because of heat transport through convection from
lower latitudes, and from ocean circulation with some delay, not from increased CO2 concentration. That
can scarcely be called proximate. AGW advocate scientists agree with this science.
"even if the factor were proximate the response of temperature to increasing CO2 concentration is
logarithmic and doubling CO2 now would only increase temperature 0.3 degrees C maximum. not
the 2 to 7 degrees the catastrophists claim".

Where does this denialist claim about the 0.3 degrees come from? From any scientific research? Or where
from? And how would you know this number was right, in contrast to what the results from in peer-
reviewed journals published studies of mainstream science are?

AGW scientists agree that the warming response to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration is
logarithmic in a closed system. That is undisputed science. If you don’t know that, then the rest of your
arguments have little value. Accept that and you can use agreed data, and a sheet of log paper, and do your
own projection. The doubling from ca 280 ppm concentration pre-industrial era to 560 ppm would raise
the temperature 1.1 degrees C in a closed system. The increase so far is about 0.8 degrees C, leaving o.3
degrees C to go. Given the amount of fossil fuel available, and the rate of absorption by the oceans there
just might be enough additional CO2 to get to 560 ppm.

"The catastrophic increase comes only from models,"

No, it doesn’t. The scientific statements about the expected temperature increase for an increased CO2-
concentration, all other climate drivers staying the same, are also based on observations. On
measurements and paleo-data. Your claim is not based on facts

And just how do you get a projection of future conditions from current and past observations and paleo
data? We don’t have data for the future yet. Even a straight line projection from past data into the future is
a model, and depends on the usually unstated assumption that the future will be like the past. All models
depend on assumptions, and for the model to be dependable the assumptions have to be justifiable. We
have no paleo data giving temperatures 7 degrees C warmer than the present even with CO2
concentrations a large multiple of the present, and we have never had catastrophic or runaway warming,
or we would not be here to be collecting the data. Please state your source of observations. All model
projections diverge dramatically from actual post ca 1998.
"and they require a fudge factor to get there. The fudge factor is positive feedback via water vapor."

It is news to me that the positive water vapor feedback simulated by the climate models was introduced
into these models by a "fudge factor". Please could you reveal the source of your claim? Or did you make
this up yourself? Perhaps you can show me where I find this alleged "fudge factor" in the NASA GISS Earth
System model ModelE? I would say this claim by you is also not based on facts.

Simply look at the history of model projections going back to the early 1990s. First they used an
assumption of no deep ocean mixing to get the needed warming. When they couldn’t backcast cooling they
introduced aerosols. Then, in order to get more serious warming, the models were "improved" by adding water vapor feedback.
"There is no scientific evidence for such feedback,"

There isn’t? Are you saying there isn’t any scientific evidence for the validity of the Clausius-Clapeyron
equation, from which directly follows that a volume can hold more water vapor with increasing temperature before saturation occurs? Are you saying there isn’t any scientific evidence that water vapor is radiatively active in the thermal range of the radiation spectrum? Both establishes important aspects of the theoretical physics basis for the water vapor feedback.

Of course raising the surface temperature increases evaporation and raises the amount of water vapor in
the atmosphere, and of course water vapor is a much more powerful GHG than CO2. That doesn’t assure
positive feedback in an open system with many complex mechanisms functioning. Making the leap from
the physics to the feedback requires ignoring all other related effects. (That might be good enough for
"Climate Science". – sarc off). In the real world, surface warming also powers convection which lifts the
increased water vapor into the cooler upper troposphere, creating reflective clouds and leading to cooling
and recondensing which releases the latent heat to space, and frees the now cool water to fall back to the
surface, cooling the surface. Because of air circulation, the warming and cooling occur at different latitudes, allowing the machinery to keep running. If the cooling effects in the upper troposphere and higher latitudes exceed the warming effect at the surface and lower latitudes then we have negative feedback, empowered by the very water vapor you so condescendingly insist on. See following excerpt.

"but there is both theory and some (albeit not overwhelming) evidence for negative feedback via cloud formation".

The mere existence of negative feedbacks doesn’t invalidate AGW, or any of the criteria above. No one says
there weren’t any negative feedbacks, involving clouds or others variables. So just stating the fact that there were such feedbacks isn’t sufficient to make this a relevant argument for the question at hand.

Irrelevant arm waving. No comment.

"Since Q4 1997 temperature has declined slightly"

Show me the data. Your statement is un-scientific nonsense.

Here is a good one stop source for a lot of graphs, Hadcrut3, UAH, RSS, GISS.  

There was
a global temperature offset during 1997. Starting at the midpoint of that increase, to avoid start point bias, they all show slight cooling to now. The reasons for the choice of starting point are twofold, the change in trend and the beginning of the major divergence of actual from model projections.

and even if a trend analysis is done with all the data, the results needs to be statistically robust, which is
not the case for such a short time scale, to make a valid statement.

Scientific papers in the early 1970s focused on global cooling. By the late 1980s the focus was warming,
1975-1988. (First IPCC report was 1990). Same short time scale. And since we are dealing with only a
multi-decadal time scale at best, why do the AGW "scientists" dismiss other explanations with little to no
discussion of what part may be attributable to known multi-decadal processes such as ENSO, AO, PDO,
AMO, solar radiation, volcanoes, land-use change, etc.
"although CO2 continues to rise, even faster than from 1944 to 1975. Clearly the correlation is not statistically valid for these periods".

Since no one says that CO2 was the only climate driver that had an effect on the global temperature so that
there would be a linear correlation, and no one says that a correlation needs to be found on every times cale, even on short ones, not finding a linear correlation only disproves a straw man argument that is your own invention.

Pick your time scale. Cooling from Holocene optimum to now, (8000 or so years) or from Minoan warm
period to now (3000 or so years), or Medieval warm period to now (1000 or so years, or 1944-75 (30 yrs)
or 1997-2011 (14 yrs so far). By 2035 we will probably say 2005 – 2035 30 yrs). Warming from LIA to now
(300 + years) or 1910/15 to 1938/44 (30 years), or from ca 1975 to ca 2005 (30 years). We only have a
reliable record of rising CO2 from 1952, and it has been rising steadily, with slight acceleration, with no
pauses or decreases, unlike temperature. There was no similar rise from 1910 to 1944 to correlate with that
warming period. Curious that CO2 only became "causative" from a selectively started low temperature
period. Let’s start in 1938 and measure from a high to a high.

"The models apply a fudge factor of aerosols to explain the 1944-1975 period "

The same as for the water vapor feedback. What "fudge factor" where in the models, e.g., in ModelE, and
what is the source for your claim?

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ackerman/Kiehl_2007GL031383.pdf as only one good source.
Kiehl is too politic to refer to a fudge factor, but given at least 10 different IPCC models, with widelydifferent sensitivities, all back casting similarly due to a 3:1 difference in aerosol forcing, what should it be called?

"but there are no papers that quantify the aerosols, identify their source(s)"

Again, a baseless, non-factual claim as following abstract should be sufficient to show:

Your reference uses only simulations, not measurements of aerosols, and includes no information on the
assumptions used in the modeling . However, I quote from the reference "Results show that the global sulfate

burden doubles from 1875 to 1950, and again from 1950 to 1990. Black carbon, which has a substantial biomass
burning fraction, increases by about 30% between 1875 and 1950, and by another 50% between 1950 and 1990.
Since sulfate increases faster than the carbonaceous aerosols, the global fraction of the aerosol mass that is sulfate
also increases (doubles) from 0.2 to 0.4 during the century."
o why did the aerosols become ineffective after 1975 as I asked before?
"describe why they ceased to be effective after 1975".

Of course there aren’t any papers for this, since no one claims that aerosols "ceased to be effective after 

1975・・. You just have made up your own reality, again.

The aerosols are the "plug" that accounts for the cooling from ca 1944-1975, while CO2 increased. Then the
cooling stopped. Why did the aerosols cease to contribute effective cooling? See the quote above.

"Solar variation (the clearly present ca 60 year cycle) explains both of the anomalous periods".

How would you know this is the case? Just because you assert this? This assertion clearly contradicts the
findings of mainstream science, doesn’t it?

I don’t "know it". I know that there are several solar system cycles, ranging from the 11 year sunspot cycle
through 60 year period of the sun’s circuit around the SSB, to the approximately 180 year Jose cycle and
the probable 363 year deep grand minimum cycle. There is a clear near 60 year climate cycle, most
recently showing warming from ca1910 through 1944, then cooling to ca 1975 then warming again to ca
2005 (Using moving averages), and now flat to cooling. The 60 year solar cycle seems like too good a
match to be coincidence and therefore can explain both anomalous (in AGW terms) coolings. For recent
confirmation see   http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/233 and
Note - Scafetta does not include possible effect of current
DGM so it will probably get cooler.

"Finally the surface instrument data is not adequately corrected for all of the warming biases that
are known to exist even for HADCRUT",

Again, a claim for which no evidence is provided. What is the source for this assertion? Any scientific
publications? Or just the assertions made by other pseudo-skeptics, which they tell each other in their
opinion blogs?

I can send you several pages of urls providing such evidence if you send your e-mail address. Or you can
check hard data for yourself for a good selection of rural sites that have metadata showing no major
changes and no likely UHI effect. High latitude sites are best. You will find recent max temperatures are no
higher than the decade from 1934 to 1944 maximums.
"and the NASA GISS data has been severely manipulated to get the last decade to be warmer than

I call such an accusation libelous against the GISS scientists involved in the analyses. There is no basis in
reality for such an accusation. Although it is a known strategy applied by the denialists to defame the
scientists on personal grounds, because the scientific findings aren’t liked, but can’t be refuted on scientific

Call it what you like. See
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.gif and check how 1930s got cooler and 1998 much
warmer between 1999 and 2011. What do you call revising history? You can find more examples if youhave the open-mindedness to look. And if you think climatologists are above fudging data I leave you onefamous quote:
"To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest." Dr Stephen Schneider (interview for "Discover" magagzine, Oct 1989). And then, of course, there is "Climategate", with a second release just out, (
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/breaking-news-foia-2011-has-arrived/ ) and this http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/11/22/fix-it-or-fold-it/ and this

"You can go to
http://www.agwnot.blogspot.com for some treatments of solar cycles,"

What could an opinion blog written by a pseudo-skeptic layman offer me to learn about solar cycles? I
have higher standards for my sources of knowledge than what can be found there.

Forget opinion. The cycles listed are those generally accepted by "science", in a convenient summary. So
far you have shown no evidence of any standards.
"and review the following for GISS manipulation".

Yet another pseudo-skeptic opinion blog.
With links to countless scientific references and data sources, a
couple of which I have provided for you above, because you simply reject a source you disagree with,without checking it out. Are you afraid your cherished belief will be challenged?.

The fact that data used and methodology applied have been revised in the course of time, which led to
slight changes in the results of the analysis? More data become available in time, sometimes data are
corrected, methodologies are improved, sometimes scientists also make mistakes, which are being
corrected. All this is a normal part of the scientific process. You don’t seem to think so.

Try finding any description by NASA/GISS of new data, methodologies, corrections for the changes in
their urls that I have provided above. They don’t even issue a change announcement. When all changes are
in the same direction (exaggerating warming) and are not used by others relying on the same raw data
sources (eg HADCRUT), and are vital to a committed storyline I definitely don’t find it normal science.

And that the temperature in the contiguous US hasn’t increased over the last decade doesn’t invalidate the
global long-term warming trend due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases either. It’s just another pseudo-
skeptic straw man argument.

Who said anything about the contiguous US. The curves I have referenced for you are global

The contiguous US cover only about 1.5% of Earth’s surface. To conclude from the trend in US about the
global trend is a logically fallacious generalization. So is basing a conclusion about the global warming
trend on about only a decade of data.
Talk about fallacious!!. See above points.
"there is a lot of data that eliminates the statistical validity of AGW."

. You only have delivered the usual mix of straw man arguments, arguments that lack relevance, assertions
that aren’t based on facts, and libelous accusations of forgery against scientists. But no data.

Ok – see above for data. You are strong on accusations, but present no data or useful references yourself. If
you had based your cherished belief on >15 years of objective and holistic study as I have you wouldn’t
need my data.

All tests failed. Murray

No comments:

Post a Comment