Bishop Hill Phil Jones in the Sundays
Feb 13, 2010 Climate: CRU Climate: Jones There's sure to be some analysis of Phil Jones' comments to Roger Harrabin in the Sunday papers, and I'll post links up as I get them. Thanks to Steve2 in the comments for the first of these:
MAIL ON SUNDAY: Untold billions of pounds have been spent on turning the world green and also on financing the dubious trade in carbon credits...You might have thought that all this was based upon well-founded, highly competent research and that those involved had good reason for their blazing, hot-eyed certainty and their fierce intolerance of dissent. But, thanks to the row over leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit, we now learn that this body’s director, Phil Jones, works in a disorganised fashion amid chaos and mess.
Not Phil Jones, but very funny all the same.
Jonathan Leake is going to turn himself into even more of a hate figure for the green fraternity, reporting today on an interesting paper by Terry Mills that suggests that recent warming is just as likely to be a statistical artefact as a real change in the climate.
Gordon Brown is launching a new climate panel and denounces us all as "deniers" in the process. I guess he didn't get the memo either.
Reader Comments (117)
"Or the paleo evidence that shows temperatures falling while CO2 continues to rise?"
"What does this refer to?"
The ice-core records. 8 times when temperatures have plunged hurtling the Earth into another ice age the CO2 levels have continued to rise before falling
Frank O’Dwyer, you use the lag between temperature rise and CO2 rise as evidence to support current catastrophic AGW theory but fail to consider the associated implications it has with respect to explaining things like ice ages.
I recently posted the following in another thread, where RichieRich made a similar argument, but think it worth repeating here.
………………………
RichieRich, this ‘old chestnut’ may well have been addressed many times, but the explanations presented are still rather debatable. The statement that “CO2 amplifies the warming which cannot be explained by orbital cycles alone” has many implicit assumptions that need to be better understood before declaring CO2 as the culprit.
For example, New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11659) says “Models suggest that rising greenhouse gases, including CO2, explain about 40% of the warming as the ice ages ended. The figure is uncertain because it depends on how the extent of ice coverage changed over time, and there is no way to pin this down precisely”. So, the positive feed-backs that are assumed to amplify the effects of CO2 may go some way to explain ice age temperature trends, but they don’t tell the whole story. Of course, this explanation is also based upon the implicit assumption that today’s model capture all of the relevant mechanisms, so using the models to prove that the models are correct seems like a rather peculiar way of applying the Scientific Method.
Worse still is the fact that there seems to be no satisfactory explanation as to why these positive feed-backs did not result in a run-away greenhouse effect. It is suggested that there are various limiting factors that eventually come into play, the most important being that infrared radiation emitted by Earth increases exponentially with temperature; so as long as some infrared can escape from the atmosphere, at some point heat loss catches up with heat retention. The problem here is that they also claim today’s temperatures and CO2 levels are higher than these historical levels, so we are already higher than the level where heat loss catches up with heat retention. Unfortunately, this leads to conflicting conclusions because, either they are correct and there is a strong compensating process which is not built into their models, or they are wrong and they still need to explain what keeps a positive feedback dominated process from running away.
Richard,
"where on earth does that link say the CO2 absorption takes place from space."
It doesn't and nobody said otherwise. The observations of the additional greenhouse effect were made from space.
"And if indeed that letter to Nature claims to establish "a lower bound of 1.5C on climate sensitivity FROM PALEO EVIDENCE", (it certainly doesnt say so in the abstarct), I go by the much more reliable and direct evidence of the ice-core records."
Actually I posted the wrong link - I gave the link for the empirical confirmation of the additional greenhouse effect by observations from space again. My apologies, though it's a bit amusing that you couldn't spot that the paper was about something else.
Anyway, here is the correct link and it is indeed based on the ice core records. Here is a brief discussion of it with more links and one of the figures from the paper.
It's time to just move on past folks like Annie. They're the "bitter clingers" where facts are not relevant, their view always prevails due to precautionary fears, humans are not really part of the planet but the problem, etc., all the while jetting around the globe pointing fingers and being the Grand Nanny. If, however, you do engage this group, use these episdoes to practice arguments on those with rationale minds. Then closely review her responses and make sure you've not left a key element out. After you've wrung all the benefit of the hostile review that you can then simply ignore them. They've served a noble purpose and it's time to let their dessicated ideas blow into the dust bin of history.
Frank O'Dwyer, you do realise that a climate sensitivity of 1.5C (in fact, anything below 2C) implies a dominance of negative feedbacks within the Earth's climate system?
Sure, the paper concludes that climate sensitivity is greater than 1.5C, but this is hardly a resounding affirmation of the current catastrophic AWG narrative, which assumes values of at least 3C, though 6C or more are needed to support the more extreme 'end of the world as we know it' scenarios.
Dave Salt,
"Take, for example, this recent Nature letter…
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7280/full/nature08769.html
…which suggests that there is 80% less potential amplification of CO2 and has recently been discussed over at RealClimate."
Thanks I hadn't seen this one. However this is about sensitivity of CO2 to temperature, rather than vice versa.
The 80% figure is also referring to amplification as a result of that (oceanic release of CO2 in response to warming etc), rather than overall sensitivity (it doesn't mean that 3C suddenly becomes 0.6C for example).
Dave Salt,
"Frank O'Dwyer, you do realise that a climate sensitivity of 1.5C (in fact, anything below 2C) implies a dominance of negative feedbacks within the Earth's climate system?"
I think the opposite is the case as that is still greater than the response of CO2 alone (about 1C).
1.5C is also a lower bound.
"Sure, the paper concludes that climate sensitivity is greater than 1.5C, but this is hardly a resounding affirmation of the current catastrophic AWG narrative, which assumes values of at least 3C,"
About 3C is not an assumption, it's an empirical result. Yes there is a large uncertainty but this is still the most likely value on current evidence. It could be lower (though unlikely to be less than 1.5C) - it could also be higher (though higher than about 4 seems unlikely).
"though 6C or more are needed to support the more extreme 'end of the world as we know it' scenarios."
I think you need 6C of overall warming to get into the disaster movie stuff, but that doesn't mean climate sensitivity needs to be 6C. There is no reason to suppose we will stop at doubling CO2 once. Double CO2 twice, i.e. you need to get up around 1000ppm, and you get about 6C from a climate sensitivity of 3C.
Even at 1.5C doubling CO2 twice gives 3C, and this is enough to risk severe consequences.
Hi Dave
Thanks for posting your reply to my posting on an earlier thread. Below is my reply to your reply.
Frank makes the same point above when he says
Or as it has been expressed elsewhere, it does not make sense to argue that
In an earlier post I linked to a review article on climate sensitivity by Knutti and Hegerl which argues that
The many different lines of evidence referred to are, as I understand it, the instrumental record, palaeo evidence and model outputs.
When, in a previous post, I suggested there was a consensus on the likely range of climate sensitivity, others protested. But I think it's true to say that there is a consensus, in the sense of a majority view amongst researchers, on a range of about 2-4.5C. But, Dave, even if the most likely value of sensitivity turned out to be 1.5C, then a trebling of the pre-industrial levels of GHG would equate to a rise of 3C and this may not be good news. And even a PDF with a most likely value of 1.5C doesn't rule out a fat tail. And Martin Weitzman has been arguing that it make sense to purchase insurance (in the form of robust mitigation) against the small probability of a very high sensitivity and the catastrophic damages this woud imply.
Of course, I accept that a majority view does not imply truth and the majority view may be wrong, but what's you thinking on why this majority review of sensitivity may be so?
Re: Frank O'Dwyer
Where was it predicted?
Yer Grace
Yer needed at Lucia's.
TerryS,
"Where was it predicted?"
In this paper. This was published in 1990, a decade before it was confirmed by ice core data.
Sorry Frank, either you chose the wrong word or you are mistaken when you say: "About 3C is not an assumption, it's an empirical result."
Whatever else 3C is, "empirical" it is most decidedly not. We have not yet been able to confirm the sensitivity of the climate system to a doubling of CO2, what we have so far is a proximate rise of 1 to 1.5C since 1850. The IPCC states very clearly, only since 1950 is some of the rise in temperature attributable to anthropogenic CO2. The temperature rise since 1950 is well below 1C, thus so far we have not had the chance to observe how sensitive the climate is to a doubling of CO2. 3C is indeed based on assumptions. However sophisticated, however carefully calculated 3C is, until we observe a rise in 3C in nature or in the lab, an assumption it will remain.
Even paleodata is unable to provide you with a definite answer. Although the new Greenland icecores are much more detailed and allow much smaller resolutions down to decades and even years those are snapshots only of localised temperature rises. At current stand, AGW also speculates that temperature rises be much greater at the poles, so when you use data from the Antarctic ice cores about temperature rising in reaction to an increase in CO2 you have data for one area only, an area which is considered to show much greater temperature rises than the rest of the planet. So Antarctic ice cores do not allow to state with great certainty how much the temperature of the whole planet rises or falls in relation to the observed movements of CO2.
That is exactly why this is one of the more hotly contested areas of disagreement amongst the scientists (supportive of AGW or not). There is a majority view that sensitvity lies between 1.5C and 4.5C - 3C was after some more calculations chosen as an acceptable average. Outliers go all the way up to 10C and down to below 1C, depending on the effect attributed to feedbacks.
The sensitivity debate is, of course, closely linked to the speculations about the effects of any rise in temperature. Given that ours is the coldest interglacial (by about 5C) out of the last few in this current ice age, the argument now rages about what outcomes can be expected.
Perhaps now that Phil Jones has reiterrated what many sceptics have been saying in the last year some serious science can begin and the whole temperature data and models can be re-evaluated by a body utilising more qualified individuals to the specific fields of statistics and mathematical modelling.
It is one thing to level criticism of past inacuracies but in order to move forward there has to be a base to start from, that is what is required now, an uncontraversal database of raw data with clear transparancy of adjusted data being fed into clearly defined models. Until this happens any political process or statement should be drowned out with the critism it deserves.
Frank O’Dwyer, concerning the interpretation of that recent Nature letter about the value of Gamma (the temperature-induced carbon dioxide feedback to the climate system), the abstract ends by saying that their “…results are incompatibly lower (P < 0.05) than recent pre-industrial empirical estimates of [Gamma] ~40 p.p.m.v. CO2 per °C (refs 6, 7), and correspondingly suggest ~80% less potential amplification of ongoing global warming”, while the RealClimate article says that Gamma “…is thus the inverse of climate sensitivity, where CO2 is the forcing and T is the response”. So, while it’s true that Gamma isn’t a direct measure of sensitivity, it has is a direct relationship to it and (I assume) explains why the author entitled the post as “Good news for the earth’s climate system”.
Concerning the meaning of the term “sensitivity”, Hansen defined it thus...
“The response of climate to a perturbation such as a change in carbon dioxide concentration, or in the flux of energy from the sun, can be divided into two factors: “radiative forcing” due to the perturbation in question and “climate sensitivity,” characterizing the response of the climate per unit change in radiative forcing. Climate response is then the product of radiative forcing and climate sensitivity. This distinction is useful because of two approximations: radiative forcing often can be thought of as independent of the resulting climate response, and climate sensitivity can often be thought of as independent of the agent responsible for perturbation to the energy balance. When two or more perturbations are present simultaneously, their cumulative effect can be approximated by adding their respective radiative forcings”
Concerning the interpretation of sensitivity values, here’s how the IPCC (AR4WG1, Section 8.6.2.3) explains the current sensitivity estimates…
“Using feedback parameters from Figure 8.14, it can be estimated that in the presence of water vapour, lapse rate and surface albedo feedbacks, but in the absence of cloud feedbacks, current GCMs would predict a climate sensitivity (±1 standard deviation) of roughly 1.9°C ± 0.15°C (ignoring spread from radiative forcing differences). The mean and standard deviation of climate sensitivity estimates derived from current GCMs are larger (3.2°C ± 0.7°C) essentially because the GCMs all predict a positive cloud feedback (Figure 8.14) but strongly disagree on its magnitude.”
In other words, models predict that doubling CO2 will result in a temperature rise (i.e. a sensitivity) of about 2C due to radiative forcing alone, but require a dominance of positive feedbacks to reach higher values. I therefore assume that a value of only 1.5 implies a dominance of negative feedbacks. Will someone please correct me if I've somehow misinterpreted the IPCC's statements.
That paper is an analysis of ice core data, mainly the Vostok cores that they began drilling in 1984. The cores cover a full interglacial and the analysis of the cores includes an estimate of the surface temperature and the atmospheric composition (CO2, CH4 etc) over the interglacial. So I guess by climate science standards this would count as a prediction before they had the ice core data.
RichieRich, the first point I would make is that the fat tail may be a misconception. If plot the likelihood on log paper with a normal distribution, it would be more supportable. The chance that CO2 has extremely small effect is equally probable to that of a large effect. I also note in a paper by Knutti and Tebaldi that it was stated it might take not just the hundred years from when it was predicted to determine if the models are correct, but upwards of 130 years for a 100 year prediction. Truthful, but not awe inspiring in that science is supposed to be verified before it is considered more than a hypothesis.
By putting the distribution of probabilities in the correct format, and understanding the Precautionary Principle is rhetorical device that ignores the uncertainty that the problem has been stated with, a typical cost benefit analysis is appropriate. In this case, a compelling argument for increasing global temperature can be made as good insurance to avoid the downsides of little ice ages.
RichieRich, as I see it, the basic problem is that the current “consensus” sensitivity range is based upon the implicit assumption that the models not only include all of the real-world mechanisms, but that they also model their interaction well enough to produce meaningful results. Clearly, they don’t because they failed to predict the warming ‘hiatus’ over the past decade. They certainly don’t include things like Lindzen’s ‘iris’ mechanism or Svensmark’s cosmic ray ‘seeding’ mechanism because people, like the folks over at RealClimate, consider them to be invalid (even though CERN is still prepared to keep the CLOUD experiment running).
So, if the models are incomplete, how can you be sure that the sensitivity checks that are run on them tell the full story? On the other hand, if the models are so good, why is it so difficult to make a falsifiable prediction that we can test with today’s real-world data?
Concerning the “precautionary principle” (i.e. let’s take action, just in case), I have no problem with this as long as the cure is not worse than the disease. Personally, I’m with Bjorn Lomborg on this one and see adaptation, rather than mitigation, as being the only rational approach because it also helps us if the warming is real but natural.
John
It does rather seem that we've done enough already to avoid a little ice age.
Ss surely you're not suggesting there's a "compelling argument" for increasing the concentration of GHG to 600, 800 or 1000ppmv on the basis of avoiding another little ice age?
I assume that the vice chancellor of UEA, and others within the School of Environmental Sciences at UEA, will be pondering how Phil Jones ever came to become Director of the Climatic Research Unit since he is now seen to have few appropriate skills.
TerryS,
The prediction was made a decade before the ice core data had enough accuracy to confirm it, so yes it was prediction, and yes it was empirically confirmed.
Dave Salt,
No, because the sensitivity estimate is based on observations not models. That's why the paelo evidence is persuasive because those observations must include all of the real-world mechanisms. The physics is incorporated exactly, because this is a record of what actually happened when CO2 changed and the climate reached equilibrium in the past.
Yes - in other words they are talking about CO2 as a response to T - more warming resulting in more CO2.
As I understand it gamma is one of the positive feedbacks, so yes there is a relationship. But they are still talking about just this one feedback, not all of them.
The problem is you've counted some things twice there - the 2C figure already includes some positive feedbacks. You actually need dominance of positive feedbacks to get above about 1C from CO2 alone - hence the lower bound of 1.5C discussed above means that discovery of a negative feedback that would make our CO2 contribution irrelevant very unlikely. Not impossible of course, but then you'd have to also admit that even stronger positive feedbacks might be discovered.
But when you've already dismissed the models as being useless (and as far as I know it is a pretty mainstream view that regional predictions are not very accurate) the question is adapt to what, and by when?
By your own argument, we don't know what will happen, therefore adapting to it is impossible.
"I assume that the vice chancellor of UEA, and others within the School of Environmental Sciences at UEA, will be pondering how Phil Jones ever came to become Director of the Climatic Research Unit since he is now seen to have few appropriate skills."
AJC, I had a little experience in academe post-university in the 1970s in the Town/Environmental Planning Departments of two (then) Polytechnics. My observation as a lowly research assistant attending departmental meetings was that, on the greasy pole of departmental politics, the people who got to the top were those who WANTED TO the most. The outcome was nothing to do with the quality of their work or their merit in their field of supposed expertise, merely their facility in self-promotion.
Maybe we also see something of the Peter Principle in operation at CRU?
UEA seems a bit of an academic backwater. Could CRU's influence on world climatology have emerged from an institution of real academic excellence or would their weird hypotheses have been strangled at birth before escaping into the scare-mongering media?
No, RichieRich, my position is more nuanced. With present temperatures indicating that negative feedback (gain less than 1) that a quadrupling of CO2 may yet only yield between 1.5 and 3C. Not exactly earthshaking. Another nuance is that I do not see the CO2 absorption (sinks) decreasing. In fact, recent papers have shown evidence of CO2 fertilization. It is interesting to note that if the CO2 fertilization effect does not occur in the future it may be due out clean air laws reducing NOx. One of the findings supports findings that have been supported numerous times, plants tend to keep a C:N:P ratio. Recent results indicate that without at least the N, CO2 fertilization is slight and may decrease over the years. Without the sinks becoming less effective, the IPCC claim of a CO2 disturbance lasting over 100 years is suspect. Thus whether we have enough fossil fuel to get to 800 is doubtful. And of course, as we slow down consumption due to price, if we make coal, and shale oil, as clean as natural gas wrt heavy metals, we may very well plateau at an acceptable level without a lot of government input other than normal environmental care. This will also allow time to develop workable technologies which wind and solar have not achieved. I would like to avoid over dependence on nuclear, but at present, it is the only workable solution.
Harrabin was interviewed on the BBC Today program,the Jones interview was done online and spanned a few days, there is more to come... (cross post)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8513000/8513893.stm
Anyone who has actually worked with the Paleoclimate CO2 and temperature estimates would not say that it supports 3.0C per doubling.
The fact that this assertion keeps getting repeated over and over again like the finest of urban myths indicates that none of the climate scientists or the pro-AGW set have ever actually done the math or the calculations (or they have actually done the calculations and decided not to publicize the result).
There have been a few published attempts to do so, as in Royer and Berner in 2007, but they twisted their data into a super-pretzel in order to show that it worked.
http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/climate_sensitivity.pdf
But this is what their actual data shows.
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/3392/royerbernertempvsco2med.png
And in this attempt, they smoothed out the temperature estimates over far too long of a time-scale (following the longest smoothing that Veizer and Shaviv did but the data actually has much higher resolution).
This is the highest resolution Paleoclimate temperature chart you will see. It matches continental drift scenarios far better than it matches CO2 levels.
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/9213/phanerozoicclimatemediu.png
Bill,
Like who? And where are their papers showing so?
Re: Frank O'Dwyer
The data extracted had enough accuracy for the authors to comment:
TerryS,
Your quote has nothing to do with the data it is simply a reference to the fact that there WAS a chicken and egg problem. Why, because at that time the data hadn't enough accuracy to say either way.
Oh dear, looks like Jonathan Leake stuffed it up again.
Frank, I'm not sure what passage in that paper you believe constitutes a prediction of an 800 year lag. Perhaps you could clarify?
In the referenced Jonathan Leake article Kevin Trenberth states the sea level has risen by about 5" since 1972 which is a rate of 3.3mm/year. My understanding is 1.8mm/year is normal. The claim suggests the rate for the last 38 years has gone up by about 1.5mm/year averaged over the full 38 years which requires a step in the rate beginning in 1972 which is unlikely so there must be an increasing rate of change since 1972. If that is the case then it should be obvious that the current rate is well above the 1.8mm/year norm, and certainly higher today than +1.5mm/year.
So, of that 5" increase, about half (2.3") is anomalous. Or is it? Anyone know where the data are that support this trend over the last 38 years, and that this trend is both real and unprecedented?
Frank
Mills says you can get warming or not warming depending on the method of statistical analysis you use. That's an important finding. I'm not sure how you can suggest that this is "stuffing it up" on Leake's part.
Menne of course has only used 40% of Watts' data. I would have thought it was wiser to reserve judgement until the full dataset is published.
By the sound of it, Annie is that secretary....
"Global Cooling Deniers" ? It is sounds about right.
"Menne of course has only used 40% of Watts' data." And Watts says that he "purloined" the data before Watts and chums had had a chance to do any quality control on it. By that, if I remember correctly, he meant such activities as checking whether the people who gathered the data had identified the weather stations correctly. Since this work is being pursued by a bunch of amateurs because the "climate scientists" are far too slack to determine whether their data come from decent instrumentation or not, some mistakes of that sort are inevitable. At least Watts and his workers seem prepared to try to distinguish the bad data from the good, and reject the bad. This is in stark contrast to the "climate scientists", who seem keen to embrace bad data, and use it to pollute good.
All of a sudden we have a lot of warmists crawling out the woodwork to somehow, anyhow, whatever it takes prove beyond doubt their long held beliefs are more than just statistical anomolys and dodgy computer predictions made up to account for gaps in the scientific knowledge and crusaded down our throats.
Watch the verbal acrobatics, one guy at WUWT denying that the attempt to erase the MWP.
Bishop
Leake doesn't make any mention of that 'important finding'. So even on your terms Leake stuffed it up. Not the first time either.
He found that the warming trend it reported over the past 30 years or so was just as likely to be due to random fluctuations as to the impacts of greenhouse gases
So according to Leake, Mills doesn't say it isn't warming.
I also doubt that the ice melted and much of the plant and animal kingdom is changing habitat due to a statistical artifact. Maybe they will change their minds when Mills publishes and Watts gets around to releasing the rest of his data?
This is at least the third analysis to show the result that the so called 'poor' stations make no important difference - I doubt very much that the rest of the data will make the difference you want. Especially since satellite data corroborates the trend and pretty much every signal in the natural world points to warming.
Leake also references Christy, when Christy's own record shows warming and Christy himself is on record saying it is warming. Somehow our intrepid journalist failed to probe or even mention these facts.
The question about whether the 800 year lag was predicted came up at Lucia's a while back. They looked at the relevant papers produced by Hansen and others and could not find any evidence to support the claim.
Therefore, it should be presumed to be a myth unless a proponent can provide a reference to a specific paper that shows it was predicted.
JasonF,
Used to be an echo chamber, did it?
Frank O’Dwyer, although you say that “the sensitivity estimate is based on observations not models”, my reading of the IPCC reports (Cf. AR4WG1, Chapter 10, Box 10.2, p.798) is that the models are constrained to conform to the real-world behaviour, which is subtly different from saying that the models have ‘predicted’ the real-world behaviour.
Are you saying that, unless the models contain a true representation of all of the real-world mechanisms and their interactions, they could never be ‘trained’ to follow real-world behaviour? Given the number of variables that can be ‘tuned’ to make the models conform to the real-world behaviour, I’d be very surprised if this were true.
For sure, by its very definition, real-world data includes all real-world mechanisms (both positive and negative) and so reflects a true total outcome of their combined behaviour. However, if the model is deficient in some way, making it follow the real-world data just means that the resulting values of the ‘tunable’ parameters are not true representation of their real-world counterparts (i.e. model deficiencies will be reflect to some degree within the resulting sensitivities). To me, this is an exercise in circular logic and the reason why I’d rather see specific (unambiguous) model predictions, like the trophospheric “hot-spot”, put to the test via the Scientific Method.
Concerning the existence of negative feedbacks, they are already known (e.g. clouds) and accounted, to some extent, within the models. However, here’s what AR4WG1, Section 8.6.3.2 has to say about clouds…
“In the current climate, clouds exert a cooling effect on climate (the global mean CRF is negative). In response to global warming, the cooling effect of clouds on climate might be enhanced or weakened, thereby producing a radiative feedback to climate warming. [snip] Therefore, cloud feedbacks remain the largest source of uncertainty in climate sensitivity estimates.” This is why things like Lindzen’s ‘iris’ mechanism or Svensmark’s cosmic ray ‘seeding’ mechanism have the potential to dramatically change the sensitivity of CO2 and why I won’t be jumping on the catastrophic AWG bandwagon until these and similar sources of “uncertainty”, like vegetation, have been effectively removed.
As for me having “already dismissed the models as being useless”, I have done no such thing; all I’ve implied is that they have limitations and that we should, therefore, treat their predictions accordingly. With respect to adaptation, I think we should address each problem as it arises. Sure, you’ll argue that by then it may be too late, but I’d also argue that by treating CO2 as one big problem that needing one big answer (i.e. decarbonise the world economy), you’re gambling our future on a ‘silver bullet’ solution that may well prove be useless if the warming turns out to be entirely natural.
Watts pointed out that the 40% of his data was not a random subset because his volunteers tended to catalogue the easy to rearch urban stations first.
More importantly, Menne compared the results after homigination which technical speak for 'take the UHI and smear it around so it does not appear obvious'. For this reason there Menne's results are completely uninteresting. The comparison needs to be done on the raw data.
Raven,
"Therefore, it should be presumed to be a myth unless a proponent can provide a reference to a specific paper that shows it was predicted."
The lag was certainly predicted. For example from Lorius et al (link already provided above)
As for the magnitude that it is not yet known to be 800 years in the first place. You are asking for support for a claim not made and not even known to be true.
Frank,
I don't see where the paper 'predicts' the lag. It states explicitly that they do not know whether CO2 changes lead or lag and that they need better data to find out. All it does is show that they did not believe that a lag mattered to the argument they were making which probably enough to show that the lag does not refute earlier claims even if it was not predicted.
John F. Pittman
.I entirely agree that if climate sensitivity is <1C then a trebling of GHG concentrations doesn't look so bad. But you don't do anything to back up your <1C claim. But who, even in the more sceptical research community is claiming <1C? Even Lindzen and Choi's paper (which has been subject to sustained criticism) only plumps for 1.5C
"one of the reasons that Phil Jones says he is disorganised is that their is only one secretary for th 13 staff at CRU, who also has to act as a part-time receptionist. CRU is funded by resarch grants so the money is not available for such luxuries."
Anne, the single secretary is simply an excuse (a smokescreen by friends of Phil Jones) - that secretary was not responsible for CRU's data handling nor their computing.
Research grants provide overheads for the university (remember that CRU was a cash-cow). What quantity and quality of support staff were funded, how were they directed and what sort of ethos prevailed are all questions which need to be answered.
Bill Illis
So the papers here which, on the basis of palaeo data, give a range for climate sensitivity that includes 3C haven't actually worked with palaeo data?
Dave
I'm not clear re your last reply to Frank. Your post is about the limitation of models but I understood Frank's point to be that estimate of climate sensitivity using palaeo data do not depend on models. Have I missed something?
RichieRich,
The only theoretical calculations that we have are the no-feedback response of CO2. The estimates of CO2 sensitivity are largely guesses with little conclusive empirical evidence to support them. The evidence that we do have is often contradictory, regional or available for only short periods of time. For that reason the onus is really on the people claiming high sensitivity to prove their case.
marchesarosa, your point about climbing "the greasy pole of departmental politics" is well taken but I am more concerned about university politics.
There will have been a several occasions when Phil Jones should have faced extra-departmental and even extra-university hurdles, almost certainly for his chair and for the directorship of CRU (joint or individual).
Thats why I said "I assume that the vice chancellor of UEA, and others within the School of Environmental Sciences at UEA, will be pondering how Phil Jones ever came to become Director of the Climatic Research Unit since he is now seen to have few appropriate skills.".
One would be very interested to know what formal and/or informal soundings were taken. Possibly other members of the Hockey Team; almost certainly with the Met Office. A topic for another e-mail leak?
Dave Salt,
Yes (although it's also very different to the curve fitting which is sometimes claimed). However the point is that there are sensitivity estimates that don't require you to believe in any model, if it is the models you don't like.
IMO this position isn't unreasonable but it is inconsistent. Both of these are just hypotheses and so far not well supported and even contradicted - certainly much less well supported than the models you are sceptical of. In the case of Svensmark, even if he is right, which he may not be, there is no trend in cosmic rays that would explain the warming trend. Plus, for every Svensmark and Lindzen that says climate sensitivity is extremely low, there is a theory on the other side that says climate sensitivity is extremely high. Not mentioning these makes your position sound like wishful thinking (though of course I will also be very happy if climate sensitivity turns out to be very low).
Similarly even if you wish to rule out unknown feedbacks rather than talk about any current hypothesis (which again is not unreasonable given the uncertainties) we will never know everything and it's just as likely whatever unknown is discovered will be a positive feedback.
Waiting for perfection here may mean missing the boat to do anything about mitigation - it certainly increases the costs of doing so.
That presumes it is possible to do so. But the more you argue against the models, the more you argue that we will be unprepared for any problems, and also that the problems may be severe or even catastrophic. This is because the models are the only things we have that put any constraints on how bad it can get and how long it will take. The more you reduce confidence in those, the more you're left with just the observation that current CO2 levels are unprecedented in 800,000 to 20,000,000 years, and rising, and the less you can rule out that this means breaking something important in our ecosystem.
Besides warming isn't the only reason to decarbonise (there is also acidification of the oceans), and CO2 isn't the only reason to move away from fossil fuels, esp. oil (which we will one day run out of, and which results in funding a variety of ugly regimes around the world).
Raven
If the evidence is rather contradictory, I'd be interested in your thoughts as to why Knutti and Hegerl claim an agreement on the likely range of CS from models, palaeo and instrumental? And what, in your book, would constitute (sufficient) proof of a value (range) for CS?