Bishop Hill Striking back at Svensmark
Oct 7, 2011 Climate: solar Nigel Calder reports on a new paper that purports to rebut Svensmark's cloud hypothesis.
During recent years, so the story goes, the Sun has been weak, cosmic rays have been relatively intense, and yet the expected increase in low clouds has not occurred. On the contrary, we’re told, low cloud cover has remained relatively sparse. That’s according the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project, ISCCP, which pools data from the satellites of several nations.
However, the ISCCP data are apparently problematic:
The conspicuous downward trend in the ISCCP cloud data is almost certainly unreal. An expert view is that it results from changes in the operational status of the satellites from which the data are pooled.
In other words, the jury is still out.
Calder is very critical of the authors of the new paper - Agee et al - suggesting that they have cherrypicked the ISCCP figures rather than mentioning any of the other data sources, which tell a different story. He calls the paper "shoddy".
Reader Comments (183)
Geeze, they are like the Empire at the end of Star Wars, Luke (Svensmark) has just flown down the trench and fired the missile and they are throwing everything they have out in defence. the Death Star is powering up it's main gun (IPPC 5), but it's too late they were doomed as soon as the Death Star plans got stolen (or was it hacked or possible leaked). Many boffins died getting the plans to the alliance (or did they resign?), a fatal blow has been struck. be assured the Empire will strike back, right now they are on the forest moon of Endor drilling tree cores.
During recent years, so the story goes, the Sun has been weak, cosmic rays have been relatively intense, yet the expected increase in low clouds has not occurred".
These researchers can't have been based in Scotland; apart from 2 weeks in April and a few days in June, we have hardly seen the sun this year!
"An updated assessment has been made of the proposed hypothesis that 'galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) are positively correlated with lower troposphere global cloudiness.' "
They're not exactly grammarians, are they? Immediate downmarking for ambiguous language.
@lapogus
We had a glorious summer in Oxford - for one week in October!
My brother in law in Edinburgh and my wife working in Dublin told me that they didn't even see this though.
Cornwall in August was autumnal. Wet, cloudy and windy. Coldest summer for nigh on 20 years wasn't it?
So, have these guys never heard of CERN, CLOUD project, Jasper Kirkby and the outcome of the project? If not, may they be informed that according to CERN's CLOUD experiments, Svensmark's theory has been given a big boost.
But still, Svensmark's theory did not need CERN's rubber stamp, since his theory was already proven correct by Danish scientists. The problem is not in Svensmark's theory, but in the way Science has been hijacked by the Politician, feeding us pseudo-science, lies and false statistics so that the politicians would be able to build these very expensive toys (wind turbines, carbon capture non-starters, solar panels that poison the land etc), while we pay heavy taxes through our nose.
Where's Robin Hood?
@levelgaze
Why do nearly all academics think that writing dense convoluted prose is a mark of wisdom rather than of a profound inabiity to explain themseves clearly?
The same applies to acamic seminars where the standard of presentation is usually woeful.
The most annoying thing is that both clear writing and good presentation style can be taught and learnt. But academics don't seem to care. Rather
'the fur covered quadripedal feline was observed recumbent on the woven floor covering'
than
'the cat sat on the mat'
The more I study academics - after 30 years in commerce where bullshit is rarely tolerated and plain and robust speaking is the norm - the more smug petty, insular and 'small c conservative' they seem to be.
Academia as currently constituted will not be able to survive the Internet revolution unless its behavior changes dramatically.
Shoddy work based on multiple-nation data pulled together in spite of diversity in quality...now, where did I hear that already...
@LA
Yes, the explication is 'cloudy'.
The editor should resign! :)
You just can't trust the data these days. You can always find an "expert" to tell you that. It's much better to trust unvalidated models than empirical data. That way you always get the answer you want. Shoddy doesn't come close to describing it.
It is irrelevant how good or bad the paper is. The important thing is it has been published in time to make it into the IPCC report and cast doubt on Svensmark.
"possible observational disconnect"
I would like to see someone apply the same rigour for the observational disconnect that has been seen between satellite temperatures and modeled ones for the last 200,000 years.
@ Latimer Alder
If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line
as a man of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms,
and plant them ev'rywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases
of your complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter
of a transcendental kind.
And ev'ry one will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
"If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man
this deep young man must be!"
W. S. Gilbert
Nigel's reaction is expected. Not having studied the original one, and the subsequent retort, subject of this post, I venture that the argument reduces to one, or other, statistical interpretations of the data. Which means that the experiment was in conclusive.
I, personally, would then venture to other areas for ideas.
@patagon
Bugger WS Gilbert. He beat me to it :-(
Where's it from?
@ L A
:)
The Patience Opera, you have the lyrics here
Figure 1 of Agee and others shows a very sharp decrease in cloud cover after 1988. In any time series analysis that very marked change should ring the alarm bells. It does not look very realistic.
I haven't had time to look at other measurements of data, but if you check the reanalysis there is actually an increase in tropical low cloud since 1998. Reanalysis data have some problems, especially when they contradict the consensus, but even with those problems it should show at least a minor decrease if it were real. Here the figures for comparison Red line is linear trend before 1998, blue line after 1998.
The discrepancies between multiple cloud measurements certainly is disconcerting. Calder: "judiciously one can only say that, as long as the data are so poor and contradictory, the jury must remain out, on what clouds have done and are doing."
This figure is from the "State of the Climate 2009" report, available here in high- or low-resolution versions. I hadn't seen it (or its sister report covering 2010) before. Its figure 2.1 contains a new (to me) presentation of temperature history, showing temperature anomaly by year and latitude. It is interesting to note that in the early 20th century rise of global temperatures, the Southern Hemisphere apparently didn't change much, and there was significant warming in the Arctic.
Note how scientists behave with regard the AGW and Svensmark's hypotheses.
The AGW hypothesis is to be protected at all costs from criticism. Svenmark's hypothesis is to be discredited with Svenmark to be treated with disdain.
As regard supporting data. We have lab experiments that support both hypotheses.
Real world data is proving troublesome for both hypotheses but for different reasons
Even though we have comprehensive data there is no definitive AGW signature in the troposphere nor the oceans. Speculation that the missing heat has gone deep into the oceans misses the point that such transfer of heat would have and should have been recorded and measured - it hasn't.
Svenmark's hypothesis has suffered from hostility - no one has been willing to make any real attempt to collects lots of robust data to test this hypothesis.
We have two competing hypotheses, but not mutually exclusive hypotheses.
AGW is in serious trouble, Svenmark's continues to be troublesome to AGWists but has yet to be falsified.
............... but we do know that eventually both will be overturned by improved interpretations of the data.
These researchers can't have been based in Scotland; apart from 2 weeks in April and a few days in June, we have hardly seen the sun this year!.
I dug a trench for an electric cable, it rained so much it was two weeks before I put some of the earth back. It was then so sodden it literally poured in, and now two weeks later the water is puddled on the top.
It is going to take weeks of good weather to dry. I'm seriously think of digging it up and putting sand down.
It would appear that 'the keepers of the faith' are trying very hard to keep the politicians singing from the same hymn sheet and/or keep the money rolling in.
One would assume that environmentalists would be delighted if there were no disasters, no extinctions, no extremes. I can't help thinking though that they are willing them to happen, and more and more frustrated and petulant when they dont.
Will the rebuttal to this paper be called....
Agee Agee Agee Oy oy oy :)
Pharos
My experience with environmentalists (limited to a small number but very committed) is that they are carrying an awful lot of middle-class angst around with them. They feel that it is unfair that they are well off while large parts of the world are not and rather than make the effort to raise the poor of the world to their standard they find it easier to have all of us regress to the standard of the poor.
They are also moderately schizoid. While they may eschew personal motor transport they will not deny themselves holidays in far-flung places usually justifying this by claiming that they were investigating the local culture of Ethiopia or Tuvalu or wherever.
While they may be very busy with their craft fairs and attempts to preserve (long dead) industrial or pre-industrial workshops you won't catch them with (for example) an allotment and you are more likely to bump into them in the aisles of Waitrose than Tesco (even if it did mean two bus journeys to get there).
Theirs is also the philosophy which underpins much of socialist thinking which comes in two parts.
1. Equality is the ultimate goal, therefore we must take from the rich to give to the poor. The concept of increasing the size of the cake doesn't wash with them and neither does the idea of equality of opportunity. Nor does the demonstrated fact that, unless you plan to restrict people's freedom to leave the country, overtaxing the rich will simply result in all those who are left become equally poor.
2. Equality being the goal, since not everyone can afford (eg) a Rolls-Royce therefore no-one must be allowed to have one. Once again the end result will be equality of poverty.
Except for them, of course.
Frosty, Thought you were about to break out into rhyming Texas A&M jokes, just then.
Mike
I know about the desire to control us. But its their puzzling environmental vision, as if species are so fragile they are unable to fend and fight for their own survival. I think they are mainly the left liberal 'intellectuals', ie BBC recruiting material. But I don't think they really have any genuine bond and understanding between nature and man, like farmers, vets, sailors, etc even gardeners.
Claiming that an important source of data could be from a questinable sensor reading is a perilous door for the AGW community to knock on.
Another winter like the last one, and the Global Warming hysterics will be laughed into oblivion by the average punter.
A week ago I reported that the Sierra squirrels have been at the pine cones in a big way all summer which hadn't been seen for 20 years by the locals. That occurred during the months just before one of the coldest winters up here for many years.
What do the squirrels know that these overpaid opining "scientists" don't? Are the squirrels secretly monitoring the sun spot activity and planning accordingly? In any case, they seem to have a better track record so far.
More than likely this time next year IPCC will be predicting a "new ice age" like the one we had back in the 1970's.
Josh Possible cartoon -- Squirrels in tree monitoring sun spot activity and warning each other to get prepared for a bad winter.
lapogus
Do you remember when you asked me about Tallbloke's hypothesis? Which depends on ISCCP being correct and cloud cover reduced?
Do you remember which papers I quoted in support of the view that ISCCP is misleading?
You can't have it both ways ;-)
Anybody remember that 1995 Matt cartoon, people at the beach having a great time in the sun, a lady in bikini talking to another, with a sad looking man next to her wearing totally inappropriate waterproof hat and mantle, and the lady saying: "yes my husband works at the Met Office, how could you tell?"
Shub
Can you be a bit clearer?
Pharos
Spot on. It is certainly the left-liberal intellectuals that make up the group that was in my mind when I posted. They are mostly highly intelligent, all with good degrees, some of them with doctorates, but apparently unable to relate to normal human beings. Trying to discuss almost anything with them is impossible so convinced are they of their own rightness (not to mention righteousness!).
Those among them who are not biologists do not understand species adaptation. If any species is being observed in Scotland for the first time this, in their minds, has to mean that its southern limit has contracted and given the current state of affairs as they see it this must mean the species is under threat.
If you ever happen to bump into one by accident do not try to argue with it. They will smile sweetly at you, possibly even convince you that what you said is the direct opposite of what you actually said, and go on their merry way rejoicing at having made another convert to the cause.
Believe me; I know whereof I speak. I have the bruises to prove it!
"I would like to see someone apply the same rigour for the observational disconnect that has been seen between satellite temperatures and modeled ones for the last 200,000 years."
Can you be a bit clearer?
Ok.
I say, I would like to see someone apply the same rigour for the observational disconnect that has been seen between satellite temperatures and modeled ones.
MJ @ 5:47
the equality "scam" used to be "equal opps", if you remember. It wasn't, of course, it was intended as
"equal outcome". No matter what "opportunity" was available, everyone had to arrive at the same outcome, regardless of effort or ability. Just a snake oil sales version of redistribution of wealth, really. Very successful for some time, but the bubble burst and now it's just "equality".
Only slightly cynical, Moi !!
Regards
Shub
Thank you. We shall have to see how it plays out over the next few years.
Obviously my guess is that GAT is going to start rising again fairly soon, but let's be clear, nothing would please me more than to be wrong about this.
xplod
Good handle BTW
Equality has morphed into sustainability. Unsustainable sustainability. Try your local council's latest 'Core Strategy' submision. Do a word count on sustainability!
lapogus
Found it eventually:
"Although Tallbloke neglects to provide a reference for this assertion, it is based on Palle et al. (2004) and Palle et al. (2005).
Palle et al. (2004) has been criticised by Wielicki et al. (2005), Evan et al. (2007) and Loeb et al. (2007).
Palle et al. (2005) is critiqued in Bender (2006).
Tallbloke's hypothesis really rests on Palle's claim that:
But it very much looks as though Palle may be in error. Which is not good news for Tallbloke."
But good news for Svensmark?
BBD,
You may be pleased (or displeased) with what is going on with the temperature. That concerns the meaning of what a certain temperature anomaly means. We are not discussing that are we...?
What about the disconnect that has been seen over three decades already?
Nothing can change that, can it?
Does the clearly observed (as opposed to a possible) disconnect say anything?
BBD
I looked at the papers you linked.
'Trends' of six years, five years,..... let us give ourselves a rest shall we? None of these papers say anything clear about long term cloud trends. So, as per Wittgenstein's advice, "let us pass over in silence that we cannot speak about" .
@BBD
"Obviously my guess is that GAT is going to start rising again fairly soon, but let's be clear, nothing would please me more than to be wrong about this"
My guess may be 180 degrees different from yours but your sentiment is lovely.
Thanks BBD
"This represents a possible observational disconnect, and the update presented here continues to support the need for further research on the GCR-Cloud hypothesis and its possible role in the science of climate change."
To which could be added; So send us the money and we will keep it out somehow.
RoyFOMR
Thanks for your understanding. No sane human being wants to be right about AGW.
Of course this flimsy, narrowly focused paper absolutely disproves the theory - it is, after all, an anti-consensus theory and therefore is unpopular. That anyone can show a similar failure of correlation between CO2 and GMT ('40s to '70s and '00s to ??) is, naturally, not in the same league, thanks to that particular theory being popular among climate scientists. Didn't you know that at time scales of less than 30 years, science is a popularity contest? It's only at longer time-scales that the truth wins out.
"No sane human being wants to be right about AGW"
BBD,
Your overwrought concern goes nicely with your parade of assertions.
Andrew
this blog has looked at a number of peer-reviewed papers lately. All of them seem to a amateur like me to be less than ground-breaking,l whatever side of the argument they seem to represent. The science level is horrifically low. Why is there a need to discuss such nonsense? over at climate audit, people are still struggling to work out how Dessler reached his conclusions. They have not yet reached Spencer.
Shub
On the one hand we have a hypothesis of reduced cloud cover and consequent warming (Tallbloke; Peter Taylor).
On the other, one of increased cloud cover and consequent stabilisation of T (Svensmark).
Sceptics seem to argue for both, which doesn't make sense.
Another view is that 70% of the planetary surface is ocean and this is the obvious reservoir for the 'missing' energy.
But OHC reconstructions are struggling with sparse and possibly unreliable data prior to ARGO. And ARGO is a vast machine that needs diligent calibration.
We do not have enough OHC data (700m; 2000m or abyssal) to locate the 'missing energy' but that doesn't mean it isn't there.
Uncertainty, again.
"The science level is horrifically low"
diogenes,
I have commented the same observation many times. Compare Global Warming Science to something real and something that scientists actually understand, say the science of aviation. People fly around in different kinds of airborne vehicles everyday. They have gliders, jets, baloons, helicopters, prop planes going every which way in real life and there is a history of successes and failures as humans actually learned what is going on with flying machines and the air that surrounds them.
On the other hand AGW currently exists only in contrived drawings (ask Lucia) and in the imaginations of enviornmentalists.
Andrew
You know, BBD, the word 'uncertainty' is as meaningless as 'sensitivity'.
Uncertainty means, you know something but you don't know it for sure.
It does not mean 'I don't know anything, so I am uncertain'.
One can equally posit that the 'missing heat' is lost into the reaches of space, which are far vaster than the puny oceans.
Not knowing something, but presupposing that it exists, is not 'uncertainty'. It is called 'making stuff up'.
On the one hand, we have the hypothesis of a large metallic device that causes an increase in speed (a 215ci V-8)
On the other, one of some metallic gew-gaws that use hydraulic pressure to decrease speed (brakes; bollards)
Automomile designers seem to argue for both, which doesn't make sense.
Calder knocked it out of the park. The pitch was a soft floater that crossed the plate just above Calder's belt buckle. Why any manager would permit such a pitch is beyond imagining. The pitcher must be working for the other side.
BBD
"On the one hand we have a hypothesis of reduced cloud cover and consequent warming (Tallbloke; Peter Taylor).
On the other, one of increased cloud cover and consequent stabilisation of T (Svensmark)."
If reduced cloud cover was responsible for the slight warming early 70's to late 90's, it is not a disconnect to suppose the change (flattening) in the trend from the late 90's/early 00's was due to increased cloud is it?
Sceptics may be arguing for both, but I'm not as sure as you seem to be that it is the same reference period for both.
Having it both ways in the relevant period for T seems logical does it not?