Bishop Hill What's all this then?
Sep 11, 2011 Climate: Models The blogospheric dissection of the papers by Spencer and Braswell and by Dessler continue apace. In fact the pace is a bit of a problem, as I have been left rather behind - radiative physics is an area I need to get up to speed on. This is a pity because it looks as though today's excitement is all going to be focused the effect of clouds on the earth's energy budget.
Firstly there is this comment by Bart at CA. Then there's this post by Tallbloke, which is essentially just a reposting of a comment by Bill Illis at WUWT.
The Bill Illis/Tallbloke piece seems rather more straightforward to me - if I understand it correctly, it shows that the variability in the amount of heat escaping the earth is driven to a large extent by changes in cloud cover. As one commenter puts it:
But the [climate models] only assign a single, constant value for all clouds, at all latitudes, for all periods of day and night, for all seasons of the year, across all elevations for all values of humidity and rainfall and percent CO2.
Right?
I can see that this is a problem, although perhaps I haven't quite got my head around the implications yet.
The Bart comment at CA is, however, more tricky and I haven't made head or tail of it yet. Given that there seems to be general agreement that it may be significant, maybe readers here can explain.
Reader Comments (162)
My apologies for the missing "b", the absence of which destroyed the desired formatting.
BBD
Let me try again - and add
Aiming to retain a measure of the civility which has (all unwanted) crept in, I must gently point out that the (demanded) expenditure of trillions of dollars, on the basis of uncertain science, is essentially political. As is the demand that we return to the Stone Age, reducing the human population by 90% (or more).
Evil Denier
Thank you for your fine example of a political comment.
guys...what about the black-box analysis?
diogenes
B-b-b-but I was only trying to talk to HaroldW and then this great big Evil Denier came along and, and he said a naughty thing and, and ...
Sorry ;-)
Now back to the thread!
BBD
Typical.
BBD
You seem to have raised many hackles of late. Let me say that there has been a widespread perception of confrontational arrogance, not without justification, but also no less a goodly measure of respect for your dedication and earnesty in your convictions. Take that as an honour. We all bring to the table strengths and weaknesses, but so do published authors, for in this field no one can be expert in everything. If I may be so bold, all of us, you included. But most of us smell something rotten in the State of Denmark. We no longer treat peer reviewed climate papers as gospel. This is what energises this blog. If you do not smell that rot, we do.
Sorry chaps. Diogenes is right. Maybe later when the headpost has been discussed in more detail.
On which topic, I think wait-and-see is the wisest counsel now. As many have observed, it's can only be good that SB11 and Dessler 11 are going under the microscope together, with an attentive audience.
I must say, BBD, that after several enlightening discussions with you in which you were most helpful and understanding of my ignorance, your tone, since you appear to have joined the dedicated warmist camp, has changed and you seem to have picked up some of their less pleasant habits.
I am now reluctant to post on any thread where you are involved for fear of having my head bitten off.
Mike
I won't bite your head off if you are polite and responsive in debate. Promise.
Now, back to the thread!
This goes for everyone. What you put in will determine what you get out. See how nicely the (regrettably OT) exchange with HaroldW went. QED.
Now, really, back to the thread.
there is something real to chew on...the new analysis that Bart has brought in, which seems that orhodox guys like stokes are not familiar with...they seem to sughgest lines of enquiry....hopefuylly the reiigilous guty such as Bickmore, and BBD wi;ll da,n them to HELL
http://www.comptonverney.org.uk/plan_your_visit/directions.aspx
BBD -
Sorry the post I had composed just went off into the ether with a single mis-click. And you're correct that this has wandered off-topic. In the hope that our host will be a little lenient here, I just want to make a short reply.
Thanks for the link to Schuckmann et al.; I hadn't seen that and will certainly read it. The latest articles I have on the topic of OHC are Lyman et al. 2010 and Knox & Douglass 2010. Lyman et. report a trend similar to Schuckmann's (0.64 +/- 0.11 W/m^2) for 1993-2008. However, it's apparent from their graphs that the trend in the Argo era (after c. 2003) is significantly less, and indeed they comment that "[t]he individual OHCA curves all flatten out after around 2003." They do not, however, venture a quantitative assessment for the period. Knox & Douglass report essentially a zero trend for 2003-2008 (+/- 0.2 W/m^2).
Now Schuckmann deals with a different period (2005-2010) than Knox, but it's a little surprising that the figures come out so different. Are the raw measurements available somewhere?
I note also that Schuckmann reports a steric rise rate of 0.69 mm/yr, which conflicts with Freeland&Gilbert (2.2 mm/yr). In this case I think the Freeland figure is the odd man out. [Not that it's necessarily wrong. It seems to comport more with the reported overall sea level rise rate. But I'm wandering even further afield.]
It seems to be difficult to agree even on the measurements -- note that Lyman et al. alone provide a set of 7 possible interpretations of the data. It's perhaps no wonder that it's difficult to agree on causes! [Last sentence is trying to bring this comment back on-topic. I think it falls short.]
IUn my view, Bart's primary contribution is not the specific results that he has generated although these are very important. It is what he pointed out in his initial posts on the subject at ClimateAudit. The techniques that were being used by all parties in this dispute were ad hoc. They were trying to estimate the relationship over time between two parameters. That is how changes in one parameter would affect the value of the other other. Was the change in one creating a change in the other that would act as a positive or negative feedback. This is the stuff of systems analysis and powerful mathematical techniques have been created nd verified to do this. What Bart is shown in impulse response, step response, phase and magnitude response are standard ways of analyzing and understanding these systems with decades and decades of scholarship to back them up. Bart indicated that he was surprised that people were arguing about applying these ad hoc techniques of liner regression to a well understood type of problem. The tools to do this analysis are standard and as he showed built directly into Matlab. His programs are very short because this is a standard type of analysis
So, for me, the primary result of all of this is the ad hoc nature of the research that is going on in this area. Steve McIntyre has long criticized the climate community for using ad hoc and unverified methods. This is another example of this issue.
Sep 11, 2011 at 5:57 PM | HaroldW
Your analysis is spot on! Where the radiation theory ends and forcings or feedbacks come into play, the models are all over the map and that fact alone shows that the models are based on sheer guesswork in the area of forcings or feedbacks. There is another reason for believing this point. There are no physical hypotheses describing the natural regularities that make up the supposed forcings or feedbacks. Until there are reasonably well confirmed physical hypotheses, there are no genuine values (factual readings) to substitute into the "parameters" or variables for "forcings" or "feedbacks." At some point, some modeler is to going to have to engage in empirical research or hire someone to do so.
Sep 11, 2011 at 6:52 PM | Don Pablo de la Sierra
Please, if you do not get a grip you are going to start spouting Kuhn and then we will be off down the road to all data being worthless because all data is infected by theory...yada...yada...yada.
Newton remains the gold standard for scientific explanation. We look to Newton to see how his hypotheses are formulated, confirmed, and used in explanation and prediction. Yes, he has been surpassed but all of those theories take his theory as a special case that they imply when their variables are limited to ranges of values appropriate for this solar system.
If you are going to talk about people postulating "dark matter," please don't forget that their science has not caught up with their imaginations. They have no reasonably well confirmed hypotheses that can be used to explain and predict the behavior of "dark matter." If you are going to take seriously scientists who are speculating in this way, you can just toss the Big Bang scientists overboard and have your lunch with the String Theorists because you have given up both fact and truth.
Sep 11, 2011 at 3:15 PM | BBD
You are joking, right? Beyond Arrhenius' equations, all of the forcings and feedbacks exist as effects of the action of GHGs on the environment. There are two terms there: GHG and environment. Whatever effect might follow from CO2 molecules "redirecting" LW radiation toward Earth's surface is an effect on some element of the natural environment. All the interesting forcings and feedbacks have Earth's environment as one term and sometimes two. Therefore, anything that we might learn about forcings or feedbacks will be formulated in physical hypotheses which describe natural regularities, such as cloud behavior, and will be well confirmed through observation of some non-radiative aspects of Earth's environment.
I do realize that some Warmista are radiation only theorists. I believe that all modelers are radiation only theorists because, when models are compared on how they treat forcings or feedbacks, they are all over the place and clearly share no anchor in physical reality whatsoever. What modelers have given us in terms of cloud behavior, for example, are nothing better than fantasies. Dessler just carved the point in stone. (By the way, for the latest on this matter, see the latest post at WUWT.)
Sep 11, 2011 at 11:24 PM | Tom Gray
"So, for me, the primary result of all of this is the ad hoc nature of the research that is going on in this area. Steve McIntyre has long criticized the climate community for using ad hoc and unverified methods. This is another example of this issue."
Warmista are quite happy to compare any two temperatures regardless of where in physical reality they are located or what methods were used to obtain them. Of all people, Darwin warned about this error and incorporated his warning into one of his fundamental hypotheses, Natural Variation. Darwin asked that we do the thought experiment of traveling along the Arctic Circle. He said that we will find Arctic Terns all along the circle and at two points, at least two points, we will find two Terns that have become so different through natural variation that they will no longer breed with one another. They just might have become different species.
Modern Population Geneticists have no trouble with Darwin's warning because they divide the Arctic Terns into subpopulations, those in Norway and those in Siberia for example. Warmista should learn to do the same.
Just some feedback... positive, negative, who cares.
But it has become noticeable that BBD has been aggressively (not in language but in deeds) staking out his territory on this blog, and increasing this territory with each passing week.
Bearing in mind the blog "cuckoo" effect perhaps he should consider starting his own blog, because from an outside "non contributing" fan of this blog, he seems to want to form this one in his own image.
Anonymous feedback, welcome or not, is probably worthless, but given just the same.
I believe that there may be others who share your perceptions, Who Cares.
The "deeds", as you diplomatically phrased his choices, remind me of those I have encountered in the past. Such deeds are far from conducive to civil, on-topic, discussion - and have the unfortunate side-effect of changing the overall tone, as a consequence of the patience of his respondents wearing quite thin.
Perhaps he would be wise, as you suggest, to consider starting his own blog where he can quite rightly insist that any and all discussions be conducted his way.
I, for one, welcome BBDs comments here. Why keep harping on about the scientific disagreements? How about asking him (in a discussion thread) to stake out some more pointers for his position regarding:
o Development and growth.
o Energy supply.
o Wind farms.
o Norms of scientific conduct.
golf charley
For my inaugural post here at BH, I'll start with something easy and uncontroversial.
The dates for inclusion in AR5 Working Group I (i.e. science basis, rather than impacts or mitigation) are:
Submission to journal: 31st Jul 2012
Accepted by journal: 15th Mar 2013
As you can see this is a long review time, to allow for the huge influx of papers.
As I understand it, the AR5 authors will have written quite advanced versions by Mar 2013, as they will have access to draft manuscripts etc. Results will then be chopped out if they are not accepted in time.
Hope that helps,
Tamsin (@flimsin)
Tamsin Edwards Sep 12, 2011 at 9:57 AM
Thanks for the AR5 dates, I also took a quick look at your "Research Interests". Too much for me at present, but I have found the link to SUPRAnet, very interesting, many thanks.
I don't agree with trying to push BBD out of here. A contrary voice can be a positive thing. Otherwise we all sit here patting each other on the back. We all criticise RealClimate.com for not tolerating dissent. We do not want to go the same way.
My opinion, for what that may be worth, is that BBD ought to be welcome and treated with respect, so long as (s)he returns that respect.
whocares
very true
bbd might just some jeune premier professor calculus who faound a new cause, jus might, but
if sociopathology, a deservant news science especially when you read the Guardian now and then , is anything to go by i would suspect he gives a big dotation to BH to smother him and then plays the cuckoo here .From sociopaths pov , and mind there are billions at stake and millions for CallMeDave's father in law, such strategy is far more efficient than putting up yet another blog that disputes the subculture here.
Anyways he can only troll and try change the subject all the time to "guys guys there IS warming you know!! look this study!"
I find the desperate attacks on Delingpole very interesting. He has many morepeople reading his blog. JDs "problem" is a tad more articulate..big problem for the penguin suited banquetters.
The issue is not very different as from "how do you mend the minds towards sharia law acceptance"?
more mosques with the oil billions and try to lure white high street shoppers in ?
Or "convince" a few authors in the Guardian to "do more" and chant about how good all that multiculturalism is for "all" .
These 2 options will come to be weighed, an option will be chosen. to think they are all above that is naive. For every discovered cold war snitch there are , you know, still 10 who keep vegetating at very comfortable positions in the nannystate.
The solution would be to churn people, which will ALWAYS be the last thing zanulab and the wetnosed dogooder crowd will propose. allthough it would without doubt mark a distinct improvement to the fate of the bottom 20% . Strange that..hmmm.
Of relevant note is a thread up at the semi-retired Jeff Id's site on a recent paper evaluating the performance of models.
Helpfully, Jeff bolds this from the conclusion:
The key graphic is this.
Does this signify yet another breaking precedent? That is, over-prediction of warming by the models is becoming an accepted problem to discuss?
the problem with semi popularising blogs like this one, and even the blogs that claim stern science is practised is that postings are full f paragraphs like this:
"But more of this and less and more of that parameter might give more of that and less than that over this divided by over there over here and the surface here looks more but lighter but less when one considers only this but not than than the nearly equivalent surface there when this but not over that is considered.
I filtered out 7 recently invented acronyms and 3 loosely referenced "papers" where more of the same can be found.
The paragraph might be wrong or right, of course , by intention. But it has a probability of 90% to be wrong when interpreted like it is written because one or more of the words hastely written was in the wrong place, forgotten , or misses the advective NOT before it etc.
This is no science this is a glacier of warm drivel that oozes out of old men's houses I suspect.
If it were yoofs it wld be the same but more in TEXT style and straight wld be written str8 etc.
but anyways, hv fun.
Beano fun if you must, like with the other post
Orson
I think we are at a point where to continue with models as they are, without correction, takes us out of the realms of science and into dogma.
You simply cannot continue with the public line that models are correct and the observations must somehow be wrong. You are no longer modelling reality but are in effect modelling a belief system.
Any science built on the condition of humanity's inherent sinfulness was bound to fail.
Regarding the question of BBD, there is something important to be discussed. Blogs should not permit individuals to hijack threads. BBD has demonstrated that he will invest enormous energy into controlling the discussion in any thread that is critical of the Warmista position. Therefore, on some topics, BBD is bound and determined to hijack the thread. That should not be permitted. Why? Consider the ordinary person posting. If a post critical of Warmista orthodoxy automatically yields a boilerplate response from BBD, then what is the point of posting?
Tamsin Edwards, good to see a comment from another climate scientist here. I will add those dates to the discussion post about the AR5 process for reference.
Richard Betts sometimes gets ganged up on by those nasty sceptics so more input from you would be welcome. I know you 'tweet' but some of us but some of us old fogies prefer arguments longer than 140 characters. I'm glad to hear you have got a copy of HSI!
HaroldW
Apologies for the slow response. Monday intervened.
As we know, KT rather took exception to Knox & Douglass (2010). And perhaps he was right to do so. Is it not the case that K&D are selective in the OHC reconstructions they use to arrive at their conclusions? Eg by concentrating on the 700m layer and not using the full 2000m depth range of the ARGO data. I think this is why Lyman et al. (2010) comes to a different conclusion.
Be assured, I am very mindful of the apparent step increase in upper ocean OHC that occurs when ARGO becomes dominant and XBT are phased out. Going from NODC (after Levitus et al. 2009), the step occurs between 2003 - 2005. Lyman et al. (2010) shows it between 2002 - 2004. In both cases the increase in OHC is equivalent to about 8*10^22 Joules, which is larger than observed interannual variation (despite claims to the contrary).
There's quite a way to go with OHC reconstructions as I said earlier. However, I also feel that there is general agreement of increase on a decadal timescale, and this is broadly in accordance with the expected response to increased RF from CO2. I'm not saying that Lyman et al. (2010) is definitive (or Wijffels et al. 2008 or Levitus et al. 2009). I do think that the evidence is all pointing one way though, and that Knox & Douglass is an outlier in which I have correspondingly less confidence.
You can normally access ARGO data here: http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/ but it's down this morning.
I'm pushed for time, so rather than linking the references in the text (always a faff), here's a straight cut and paste:
Levitus, S., J. I. Antonov, T. P. Boyer, R. A. Locarnini, H. E. Garcia, and A. V. Mishonov (2009), Global ocean heat content 1955–2008 in light of recently revealed instrumentation problems, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L07608, doi:10.1029/2008GL037155.
ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat08.pdf
John M. Lyman, Simon A. Good, Viktor V. Gouretski, Masayoshi Ishii, Gregory C. Johnson, Matthew D. Palmer, Doug M. Smith, Josh K. Willis (2010) Robust warming of the global upper ocean, Nature, Volume: 465, Pages: 334–337 DOI: doi:10.1038/nature09043
http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/Robust%20warming%20of%20the%20global%20upper%20ocean.pdf
Wijffels, Susan E., Josh Willis, Catia M. Domingues, Paul Barker, Neil J. White, Ann Gronell, Ken Ridgway, John A. Church, 2008: Changing Expendable Bathythermograph Fall Rates and Their Impact on Estimates of Thermosteric Sea Level Rise. J. Climate, 21, 5657–5672. doi: 10.1175/2008JCLI2290.1
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2008JCLI2290.1
Theo Goodwin
Just because you do not like what I have to say does not give you the right to stop my mouth. Your comment - and all other calling for censorship here - is deeply wrong-headed.
Furthermore, it is out of order. There's only one person who gets to make that kind of decision and it isn't you.
Philip
See Discussion threads:
WIndpower - working for us right now
and
Zed 'not often aired elsewhere let alone discussed'
BBD:
I hope some of the others have read these discussion threads as well. On the crucial practical issues, there seems to me substantial agreement between yourself and other contributors. I think we would be better of arguing against Greenpeace than amongst ourselves.
http://www.climate-resistance.org/2011/09/stuff-the-ngos.html
Philip
Yes, I sometimes wish certain other commenters here would take the trouble to read what I actually write (and link to). It would make life simpler.
Thanks for your earlier comment btw.
Tamsin Edwards defines herself as being a "super-curious greenie physicist". She also use the "d" word to describe sceptics. Brian Cox was her PhD supervisor.
To quote Richard Betts, "Sadly, as some of the above posts illustrate, it is all wrapped up in one thing in some people's minds. The thinking is: climate scientist = green activist = fiddled science in order to cheat us out of our taxes. This is not the case (but I know you won't believe me!). "
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/9/8/coopting-extremes.html#comments
Does a super-curious greenie scientist equate to purported thinking of us sceptics that climate scientist = green activist = fiddled science?
We have the first two but does Tamsin Edwards, a climate modeller, fiddle the science?
http://highheelsinthelab.blogspot.com/2011/01/real-deal-tamsin-edwards-climate_17.html?spref=tw
BBD,
np.
From the science point of view, I wonder also if it is more useful to focus on the basic and largely uncontested points. You've pointed before to SoD I know, but I think this goes into more detail than is really needed. I also think it might be useful to reference his "position" page (if you haven't already):
http://scienceofdoom.com/2009/12/13/understanding-the-flaw/
BTW, not sure if Bart's comment here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/07/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-my-initial-comments-on-the-new-dessler-2011-study/#comment-740474
answers the Bishop's original question in this post?
BBD -
Thanks. I wasn't aware of Trenberth's objections to Knox & Douglass. Is that in a paper somewhere? But I wasn't really going by the K&D results anyway. In Levitus et al. 2009, the average rise rate over the 1969-2003 period (pre-Argo) was estimated at .32 x 10^22 J/yr, in the middle of estimates from Ishii & Kimoto, and Domingues et al. If I've done my sums right, that converts to a little under 0.3 W/m^2. The curve of OHC vs. time, visibly flattened in the Argo era. Combining the two facts, I expected to see a value under 0.3 W/m^2. Which is why the Schuckmann value of 0.55 W/m^2 seems so out-of-line.
But I haven't read that paper yet, so I'll shut up now. Besides, I have to work!
Mac I think some of your remarks are a bit unfair, especially in triplicate.
Let's keep an open mind shall we?
PaulM
Seconded.
Mac
No Tamsin does not fiddle the science!
I know her in real life, she works on uncertainty in climate models (lots to look at there!), is a very thorough, objective scientist and is also very happy to engage in sensible conversations with sceptics - see her twitter discussions with BH, Barry Woods and others to see an open mind willing to have a discussion.
And unlike me she's neither an IPCC lead author nor a government employee, so two less reasons for you to be suspicous!!
So please don't scare her off - she'll make some great contributions here, given the chance.
Philip
That's an interesting letter from Chylek. And no, I hadn't linked to it before. Thanks.
Richard Betts
She's going to need a thick skin.
Philip
I said this to 'lapogus' quite a while back. And I haven't changed my mind. Like you, I find Ben Pile's critiques of environmental politics very persuasive.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people here don't 'get' how little time I have for much of the mainstream 'environmental' lobbying of policy-makers, especially when it comes to future energy policy, although God knows, I've posted enough comments about this.
So, what, you are now blog-wide fiats?
And threatening to take the discussions into the nasties unless we play by your interpretation of the rules?
I can say the same thing: what you put in, will determine what you get out. You keep passing moral judgement on your fellow commenters - you will get blowback.
Shub
Stop trying to pick a fight.
RB
Sensible Conversations? Open Minds?
It was you who gave us the sceptics (denier) equation, the one who made the connection;
climate scientist = green activist = fiddled science
It was Tamsin who described herself as a ;
super-curious 'greenie' physicist
This a legitimate line of debate.
How many in the climate science community are activists? And does that activism skew the science being undertaken?
I ask again does Tamsin Edwards, a climate modeller, fiddle the science?
I'd also like to welcome Tamsin's comment and hope that she will continue to contribute here.
Surely people should give up taking sticks to scientists working in this area. This works both ways of course, and needs to fixed both ways:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/scientific-robustness-of-the-university-of-alabama-at-huntsville-msu-data/